In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Ella Moeck about how emotions shape the way people remember the past, think about the future, and respond to uncertainty.
Dr Ella Moeck is a Lecturer in Psychology at Adelaide University who researches the intersection between cognitive and social psychology. Ella completed her PhD in 2019 at Flinders University before spending a few years working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne. In 2024, Ella started a balanced teaching and research role at Adelaide University, where she directs the Emotion, Memory and Uncertainty lab.
Ella’s research centres around the interactions between cognition and emotion. Broadly, she aims to understand how everyday stressful events shape people’s emotions, and ability to manage their emotions. Recently, Ella has been focusing on emotional functioning during uncertain events, like waiting for medical test results, exam grades, or the outcomes of court proceedings. She has also been investigating the association between emotions and social media, with a focus on the occurrence and consequences of seeing negative content online. Ella’s research combines experimental and experience sampling methods, where people complete multiple smartphone surveys each day. This type of method means she researches people in the moments when they experience stressors in their day-to-day