I am a PhD candidate at McGill University, where I am a member of the McGill Laboratory of Attachment and Prosociality (i.e., Bartz Lab), headed by Dr. Jennifer Bartz. My main research aim is to use the prediction error minimization (PEM) framework to explain the epistemic features of close relationships, gaslighting, and attachment stability and change. My work on gaslighting, conducted with Dr. Suzanne Wood, Dr. Jennifer Bartz, and Sherry Li, has attained national and international media attention and is used in the training materials at Women Aware. In addition to my work on gaslighting and PEM, I have had the privilege to work on projects examining individual differences in how oxytocin impacts social cognition while involved with the Bartz Lab.
I have had a lifelong love of music, and in a roundabout way, this love of music is what led me to psychology and behavioral neuroscience. In high school, I read McGill alumnus Daniel Levitin’s book This Is Your Brain on Music and followed it up with Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia. As a young aspiring musician, both books fascinated me, but as a high schooler predominantly interested in art and music, who avoided math and science, I felt out of my depth with the more scientific elements of the books. Throughout my teenage years and early adulthood, I continued to focus on music. I had a lot of fun and performed in every province between British Columbia and Quebec, but became increasingly interested in going to university to study psychology and philosophy. Eventually, I enrolled at the University of Toronto to study Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Philosophy. I was very interested in the philosophical and theoretical elements of cognitive science, where I was first introduced to the idea of predictive processing, as well as the biological elements of psychology, taking all of Dr. Suzanne Wood’s biopsychology courses. When I discovered the massive literature gap with regard to gaslighting, I decided that I would like to apply a biopsychological lens to the study of gaslighting. Taking Dr. Wil Cunningham’s social-cognitive neuroscience seminar solidified my desire to study gaslighting with a multidisciplinary lens. I was fortunate enough to be accepted as a graduate student by Dr. Bartz in 2021, as she is one of the rare Canadian scientists using a social-cognitive neuroscience approach. When I arrived at the Bartz Lab, I was shocked to see some of Daniel Levitin’s old equipment lying around. I had come full circle.
Throughout my academic career, I have also served on the board of directors for a conference aimed at promoting research around psychedelic psychotherapy, done an internship with Lyft Urban Solutions where I analyzed bike-share data, and another internship with Predictive Success.
While I rarely play music anymore, in my spare time I listen to a ton of it, read fiction and non-fiction, hit the gym, and most importantly, spend as much time with my beautiful wife and smelly dog as I can.
Willis Klein 