My research seeks to understand how people process information, particularly threatening information, and how the unique processing of threatening information affects judgments and behaviors. I have developed a theoretical model that integrates threat and social cognitive literature to offer a number of testable insights for various fields of study involving both threat responses and later (but still automatic) evaluative processing. For example, I have current lines of research that explore the unique role of threat in underlying certain types of racial prejudice and bias. 

I am interested in the interplay of affect and social cognition. My research explores how nonconscious affective processes inform attitudes and guide behaviors during social interactions. For example, much of my recent research has explored how automatic threat response and implicit attitudes affect people’s perceptions of the police and how threat-related processes shape behaviors during police-civilian interactions.

 I am broadly interested in how threat and perceptions of threat influence social attitudes and behaviors, factors that precipitate perceptions of threat, and drivers of perceptual threat biases. I'm specifically interested in the effects of contamination threat and moral threat on intergroup interactions.

TBD

I am interested in the underlying motivations of people’s unconscious decisions, reactions, and assumptions. I hope to one day use the knowledge gained in the lab to better understand the behavioral patterns of therapeutic patients while I pursue a career in mental health counseling. My hopes for our research is to better understand the cognitive mechanisms of a turbulent and divided world, in pursuit of possible unifying solutions and ideas.

Gianna Avila, Emma Brazer, Anthony Delgado, Lydane Fosso, Maddi Kowalewski, Jaylin Lanagan, Elisabeth Mahepaul, Genessis Naranjo, Beatrice Nichols, Sarah Padron, Emily Richard, Leona Rindle, Nila Samala, Shae Steenbergh, A’Kaysha Studstill, May Sulema, Freya Sykes, Dacey Tietz, Paige Zangara, Emma Zientara