Steven Mesquiti, M.A.

Author

Department of Psychology | Princeton University | sm9518@princeton.edu

Education

Princeton University (2024–Present)
Ph.D. in Psychology | Advisor: Dr. Erik Nook

Texas State University (2019–2022)
M.A. in Psychological Research | Advisor: Dr. Randall Osborne

Southwestern University (2015–2019)
B.A. in Psychology (Minor: Spanish)

Funding & Fellowships

  • 2026 — Princeton University Data Driven Social Science Graduate Fellowship ($1,200)
  • 2025 — Princeton University Data Driven Social Science Graduate Fellowship ($1,200)
  • 2025 — Princeton University Data Driven Social Science: Data-Driven Approaches to Building Equitable Language-Based Mental Health Assessments ($4,283)
  • 2025 — New Jersey Health Foundation: Investigating Racial Equity of Psycholinguistic Measures of Mental Health (PI: Erik C. Nook; $34,867; #PC 42-25)
  • 2024–25 — Princeton University William G. Bowen Merit Fellowship
  • 2022 — Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management Behavioral Research Fellowship (Finalist [Declined]; $35,000)
  • 2021 — Masters in Psychological Research Graduate Competitive Scholarship
  • 2020–21 — Texas State University Graduate College of Liberal Arts Scholarship
  • 2020 — Texas State University Thesis Research Support Fellowship ($1,070)
  • 2019 — Texas State University Graduate College of Education Scholarship
  • 2015 — Southwestern University Mood Scholar

Publications

  • Sahi, R. S., Mesquiti, S., Hull, T. D., Vine, V., & Nook, E. C. (under revision). Affect labeling is linked with better mental health in psychotherapeutic conversations. Nature Mental Health.
  • Mesquiti, S. & Nook, E.C. (2026). Large Language Models in Mental Health Treatment and Research. Annual Reviews BioMedical Data Science. DOI
  • Mesquiti, S., Cosme, D., Nook, E.C., Falk E.B., Burns S. (2026). Predicting Psychological and Subjective Well-being through Language-based Assessments of Well-being. Communications Psychology. DOI
  • Muzekari, B., Cooper, N., Resnick, A., Paul, A. M., Torres-Grillo, O. E., Andrews, M. E., Mattan, B., Scholz, C., Johnson, D., Carreras-Tartak, J., Cakar, M. E., Hao, S., Zhou, E., Beard, E., Mesquiti, S., Sayed, F., Fichman, M. A., Lydon-Staley, D. M., Barnett, I. J., … Falk, E. B. (2025). Naturalistic Tobacco Retail Exposure and Smoking Outcomes in Adults Who Smoke Cigarettes Daily. JAMA Network Open. DOI
  • Mesquiti, S., Seraj, S., Weyland, A. H., Ashokkumar, A., Boyd, R. L., Mihalcea, R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2025). Analysis of social media language reveals the psychological interaction of three successive upheavals. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 5740. DOI
  • Kang, Y., Mesquiti, S., Baik, E.S., & Falk, E. B. (2024). Empathy and Helping: The Role of Affect in Response to Others’ Suffering. Scientific Reports, 15, 3256. DOI
  • Mesquiti, S., Seraj, S. (2023). The Psychological Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Business Leadership. PLOS One. DOI

Works in Progress

  • Kang, Y., Mesquiti, S. & Falk, E. B. (in prep). The Effect of Compassion Training on Emotional Support Giving.
  • Mesquiti, S., Stade E. C., Hull, T.D., Nook, E. C. (in prep). The Meaning of “I”: Semantic Self-Representation Tracks Internalizing Symptoms Within and Across Persons in Psychotherapy.
  • Mesquiti, S., Carey, R. M., Daw, N. & Nook, E. C. (in prep). Racial differences in the linguistic markers and machine learning prediction of internalizing symptoms.

Invited Talks

  • 2026 — Investigating Racial Sensitivity in Language-Based Assessments of Mental Health. Social Psychology Seminar, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
  • 2026 — Investigating Racial Sensitivity in Language-Based Assessments of Mental Health. DDSS Connect: Interdisciplinary Exchange.
  • 2025 — Predicting Mental Health Outcomes with the Latent Meaning of “I” in a Large Therapy Dataset. DDSS Connect: Interdisciplinary Exchange.
  • 2025 — Tracking Shifts in the Latent Meaning of “I” and Its Connection to Mental Health Outcomes in a Large Therapy Dataset. Social Psychology Seminar, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
  • 2022 — Within-and between-person effects of autonomous motivation on goal pursuit. Duckworth Lab.
  • 2021 — The whole truth and nothing but the truth: an analysis of the variability of prosocial lying in the Netherlands and the United States. Texas State University Psychology Department Brown Bag.
  • 2021 — The truth about prosocial lying: Cross-cultural differences in prosocial lying. Southwestern Psychological Association (Virtual).

Conference Presentations

  • Mesquiti, S., Carey, R. M., Daw, N., & Nook, E. C. (2026). Investigating Racial Equity of Psycholinguistic Measures of Mental Health. Oral presentation to be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. Columbus, OH.
  • Huang, E., Whiting, C., Mesquiti, S., Baran, S. S., & Nook, E. C. (2026). Linguistic markers of self-representation reflect emotional experiences in expressive writing. Poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. Columbus, OH.
  • Mesquiti, S., Stade E. C., Hull, T.D., Nook, E. C. (2026). Tracking shifts in the latent meaning of “I” and its connection to mental health outcomes in a large therapy dataset. Poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Affective Science. Pittsburgh, PA.
  • Mesquiti, S., Nook, E. (2025, March). Investigating Racial Sensitivity in Language-Based Assessments of Mental Health. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Affective Science.
  • Mesquiti, S., Cosme, D., Nook, E., Falk E., Burns S. (2025, February). Predicting Well-being with Language-based Assessments. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Mesquiti, S., Burns S., Cosme, D., Falk E. (2024, February). Enhancing Psychological Well-being Prediction Through Natural Language Analysis. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Mesquiti, S., Mobasser, A., Falk, E., Pfeifer, J. H., & Cosme, D (2023, February). Within-and between-person effects of autonomous motivation on goal pursuit. Poster submitted to the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Spehar, A., Muzekari, B., Butler, T. B., Mesquiti, S., Cosme, D., Falk, E. (2022, August). Exploring the Relationships between Linguistic Arousal, Emotional Tone, and Sharing Behaviors. Poster presented at the annual University of Pennsylvania MindCORE student show case. Philadelphia, Pa. Github
  • Andrews, M. E., Cooper, N., Paul, A., Johnson, D., Muzekari, B., Mesquiti, S.C., Torres, O., Resnick, A., Scholz, C., Mattan, B., Barnet, I., Henriksen, L., Strasser, A., & Falk, E. B. (2023, May). Compounding effect of microaggressions and exposure to tobacco advertising on stress and smoking. Annual conference of the International Communication Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
  • Santana, C., Mesquiti, S.C., Carreras-Tartak, J., Kang, Y., Falk, E. (2022, August). Relating Collective and Self-Focus Language in Social Support with Self-Reported Depression. Poster presented at the annual University of Pennsylvania MindCORE student show case. Philadelphia, Pa.
  • Woolfolk, Z., Cosme, D., Butler, T., Carreras-Tartak, J., Mesquiti, S.C., Kang, Y., Falk, E. (2022, August). Racial Homophily in Emotion Sharing Network. Poster presented at the annual University of Pennsylvania MindCORE student show case. Philadelphia, Pa.
  • Mesquiti, S.C. (2022, April). Exploring Cognitive Language of CEOs during the COVID-19 Pandemic Over Time and its Connection to Decision Processing. Poster presented at the annual Texas State University Psychology Department Showcase. San Marcos, Tx.
  • Mesquiti, S.C., Tsai, J. L., Marion, J., Olivarez, O., Blackburn, K., Durland, M. (2022, February). The linguistic lifespan of a CEO: Exploring the way cognitive language unfolds over time and its connection to decision processing. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Haskard-Zolnierek, K., Mesquiti, S.C., & Snyder, M. (2022, February). Associations between patient satisfaction and physician and nurse word use. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (virtual).
  • Mesquiti, S.C., Kok, R., Clegg, J. M., Warnell, K. R. (2021, April). The truth behind prosocial lies: A linguistic analysis of lying to be polite. Poster presented at the annual Texas State University Psychology Department Showcase. San Marcos, Tx.
  • Mesquiti, S.C., Domer, K., Warnell, K. R., Clegg, J. M. (2021, February). More than a disappointing gift: Examining variability in when and how we prosocially lie. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (virtual).
  • Domer, K., Mesquiti, S.C., Warnell, K. R., Clegg, J. M. (2021, February). More than a social norm: Examining who we lie to and what we lie about. Poster presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (virtual).
  • Mesquiti, S.C. (2019, April). Internship at the Central Texas Treatment Center. Poster presented at Southwestern University Creative Works Symposium, Georgetown, Tx.

Mentorship

  • Song Ting Tang — Thesis Student, Princeton University (2025–Present)
  • Emi Yun — Thesis Student, Princeton University (2024–2026)
  • Arden Spehar — Summer MindCORE REU Student, University of Pennsylvania (2022)
  • Carlos Santana — Summer MindCORE REU Student, University of Pennsylvania (2022)

Skills

Natural Language Processing & Computational Linguistics
Transformer-based language models, semantic projection & embedding-based measurement, topic modeling (LDA), dictionary-based methods (DLATK), language-based mental health assessment.

Machine Learning & Statistical Methods
Supervised learning & fine-tuning (LoRA/PEFT), ridge regression, mixed-effects/multilevel modeling, moderation & mediation analysis.

Programming & Computing
R (proficient), Python (moderate), SQL, Bash, reproducible research (Quarto)

Research Methods
Longitudinal & clinical text data, large-scale social media data, within- and between-person designs, mixed-method design, open science practices.

Peer Review

  • Behavior Research Methods
  • Clinical Psychological Science
  • Journal of Medical Internet Research
  • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

References

  • Erik Nook — Assistant Professor of Psychology, Princeton University | enook@princeton.edu
  • James Pennebaker — Professor Emeritus of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin | pennebaker@utexas.edu
  • Emily Falk — Professor of Communication, Psychology, Marketing, and OID, Vice Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania | efalk@falklab.org