Scientist
Dr. Michael Steven Prentice
Member of the Everyday Media Lab
Mike Prentice is a postdoctoral researcher at the IWM Everyday Media Lab as of October 2023. His primary role there is to advance a DFG-funded project on the potential benefits of social media use for professional purposes (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter/X), with a particular focus on how such social media can help people become better aware of who knows what in professional spheres and use that knowledge to make strides in their careers. His research interests also include values, well-being, and well-doing. These include, for example, researching and developing (digital) interventions and tools for helping people cultivate values that include the well-being of others and pursue well-doing goals consistent with those values. Current research along those lines focuses on how practicing death reflection promotes value orientations conducive to well-doing.
Mike Prentice studied Psychology and Philosophy (Knox College, BA) and Social and Personality Psychology (York University, MA) and received a doctoral degree in Social and Personality Psychology from the University of Missouri in 2015 with a graduate minor in psychological statistics and methods. His dissertation examined the role of values in people’s everyday situation perceptions, need satisfactions, and well-being and was awarded the Distinguished Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Missouri for 2015. He has since worked as a postdoc at the University of Salzburg, Wake Forest University, and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen.