Her training and scholarship fall at the intersection of social and cultural psychology. Through her research, she aims to broaden our understanding of how individuals in various cultural contexts can thrive, especially through close relationships. Her research has focused on the ways culture influences individuals' altruistic behaviors in close relationships, such as forgiveness, adjustment, and sacrifice. More recently, she has expanded her research interest to the moral basis of social and cultural cognition, examining how people process information about themselves and their social surroundings based on underlying cultural ideals and assumptions. Her teaching interests include various topics of social and cultural psychology and research methods.
She has published papers in leading academic journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Joo has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in psychology from Korea University, and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Iowa State University.