Andrea Wolfe-Clark
Masters Student – Psychology of War Lab

B.S. in Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, 2006.
M.S. in Psychology, University of Oregon , 2011.

Andrea completed her masters in the Groups and War lab. She studied cross-cultural influence attempts in the context of military operations, basing her work on existing literature on culture, influence, and negotiations.  Additional interests include the effects of betrayal in the development of PTSD, resiliency factors to combat stress, resiliency training as a proactive approach to decreasing the negative effects of combat stress on soldiers, golf, sunshine, swimming, and chocolate.

Research
Military Influence Tactics: Lessons Learned in Iraq and Afghanistan: For most influence attempts in everyday life, success makes life easier and failure is a disappointment, not a tragedy. When U.S. soldiers deployed overseas attempt to influence civilians, however, success can save lives and failure can be deadly. Along with the high stakes consequences of influence attempts, soldiers face the challenges of bridging differences in language, culture, beliefs, and agendas. The current study examined cross-cultural influence attempts made by deployed soldiers, contributing to existing influence research by examining influence attempts in a complex and challenging wartime environment. Survey data from 228 military personnel with deployment experience to Iraq and Afghanistan revealed that empathy, respect, prior relationships, and familiarity with influence targets predicted success. Five influence technique clusters emerged, and use of technique clusters involving resources and positive feelings were more successful than negative tactics.