IPC Research

We aim to understand the ways in which social factors interplay with perception, cognition, and behavior. Our broad research interests include the accuracy of spontaneous social judgments from "thin slices" (brief observations) of behavior, the cognitive and behavioral effects of stereotyping, nonverbal and verbal communication in real-life settings, and the role of social and structural group memberships in interpersonal relations. We examine these phenomena at multiple levels of analyses ranging from the neurological and physiological to sociocultural.

Please use the links on the left to find out more about some of the research we're doing!

Thin slice judgments & Nonverbal behavior

Thin Slices
One of the major research directions that our lab pursues is the accuracy of spontaneous social judgments from "thin slices," or very brief observations, of behavior. Research in the lab has demonstrated that judgments made on the basis of thin slices of behavior can be quite accurate. At present, we are investigating the neurological, cognitive, and affective underpinnings of this phenomenon. We are also investigating the generalizability of the phenomenon across different domains, situations, and cultures. The types of social judgments we have explored in recent projects include spontaneous judgments of sexual orientation, group membership, economic success, and political affiliations. In addition, we have been examining how well people make such judgments with minimal information.

Nonverbal Behavior
Nonverbal behavior is an overarching concept that can encompass a wide range of actions, such as facial expressions, verbal tone, verbal intensity, and gestures. The ability to interpret the nonverbal expressions of others and to communicate nonverbally, in turn, is a crucial skill for having successful interpersonal interactions. Our lab’s research explores such nonverbal competence and the consistency of nonverbal behavior, not only as it corresponds with verbal behavior, but also across time, cultures, and situations. For example, we have looked at first impressions and nonverbal expressions across cultures, racial groups, and even in “real-world” versus “virtual” web settings (i.e. through the use of social networking sites). Another one of our studies explored how nonverbal behavior corresponds to the physiological responses accompanying threat and challenge. Additionally, this line of our research focuses on the relationship between the accuracy of recognizing emotional facial expressions (e.g. fearful or angry) and engagement in pro-social, approach-avoidance, and other types of behavior. Thin slices of such nonverbal behavior and overall nonverbal competence may even predict the quality of interpersonal relationships, health outcomes, and work success (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992; Ambady, Koo, Rosenthal, & Winograd, 2002; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002). Moreover, we are interested in how nonverbal expression influences our first impressions and judgments of others in domains such as politeness, sexual orientation, and the use of deception. Finally, in other recent projects we uncover the subtle exposure to and transmission of nonverbal bias in regards to both race and culture (Weisbuch & Ambady, 2009; Weisbuch, Pauker, & Ambady, 2009).

Emotion

Ingroup/outgroup recognition of emotion

At a broadest level, this line of research involves individual and cross-cultural differences in the communication, recognition, and regulation of emotion. One project in this field was a large-scale meta-analytic review of the universality of emotion recognition, specifically the notion of an in-group advantage of emotion recognition. Interestingly, this review found that happiness and anger showed the smallest in-group advantage, suggesting an evolutionary role in emotion recognition. An experimental follow-up to this review conducted with a colleague in India examined specifically the effect of exposure to other cultures on the in-group advantage.

Social function of emotion displays

We have studied interactional function played by the fear and anger expressions. Specifically, we are interested in how the specific forms these expressions take relate to the way people who show them are perceived by others. We have also looked at the implicit associations that may exist between the fear and anger expressions and constructs of youth and maturity. Finally, we are studying the physiology of emotional expression recognition and how it can help us better understand the processing and categorization of these expressions.

Emotion contagion

Emotion contagion is the concept of emotions being transmitted to and felt by others. When we perceive another’s emotion, we may “catch” and feel this same emotion. Our lab’s research is interested in studying this subconscious process of “catching” emotions, and more specifically, how the degree of emotion contagion can predict certain behavioral outcomes. For instance, one very recent study found that the degree of emotion contagion moderated the interaction between emotionally negative families and abnormal eating behaviors (Weisbuch, Ambady, Slepian, & Jimerson, in press).

Social Cognition

We are interested in the way that social factors such as our identities, goals, stereotypes, motivations, desires, beliefs, and personalities influence and interact with our memories, perceptions, and judgments of others. At multiple levels of analysis, we have been examining how higher-order social factors and lower-level construal processes work in concert to drive our interpretations of the social world. One important aspect of this research is uncovering the many interactions between the bottom-up visual and perceptual processes driving construal and the top-down social cognition that guides and constrains these. Our lab also seeks to investigate these person construals and social judgments within the context of race, religion, and culture, and in terms of their consistency and accuracy. For example, we explore the in-group versus out-group advantage in both social cognitive capacities of memory and emotion recognition, and how external factors like the environment (e.g. geographic location or specific objects surrounding us) as well as internal factors like motivation and group membership influences accuracy and automaticity. In addition, our recent work seeks to uncover the cognitive challenges associated with memory and perceptions of ambiguous group members, and the neural underpinning of social and moral judgments. Moreover, we are interested in how the perceptions underlying these social cognitive processes can work to influence our behaviors (e.g. support-seeking, establishing new relationships, enhancing creative problem-solving, approach-avoidance, etc.). Finally, we are investigating the cognitive capacities of self-control, decision-making, and conscious thought in regards to their limits, functions in interpersonal contexts, and in turn, the influence that our social perceptions may have on these capacities.

Developmental Social Cognition

Neither social factors such as one’s goals, beliefs, desires, and motivations, nor one’s cognitive capacities of memory, perceptions, judgments, and decision-making remain stable over the course of a lifetime. Thus, we are interested in exploring the development of and interactions between these higher- and lower-order processes in children and older adults. For instance, our research has looked at the role of social cognitive factors such as stereotyping, essentialist thinking, group-based expectations, and race/identity salience on performance outcomes including, but not limited to, the following: accuracy of social categorizations, moral functioning, and quantitative performance. Learning how these social influences develop and interact with lower-level perceptual processes through both childhood and late adulthood to predict certain social judgments, decisions, and behaviors may help to elucidate these changes throughout the lifespan, as well as their social consequences.

Social & Cultural Neuroscience

Culture plays a significant role in the way different regions of the brain respond to corresponding social cues (e.g. signals of dominance, fear expressions, etc.), which ultimately has a bearing on our interpersonal communication and behaviors. This branch of our lab’s research takes a closer look at the neural processes underlying our social perceptions in domains including, but not limited to, emotional facial expressions, in-versus-out-group membership, and signals of dominance and subordination, specifically with the goal of comparing these neural substrates across cultural boundaries. Through the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and real-time Mousetracker software, we have been able to examine the underlying neural processes involved in social cognition, perception, and behavior across different domains, cultures, and contexts. For instance, one of our more recent studies found that voting behaviors, reflected in amygdala activation, is largely consistent across cultures (Rule, Freeman, Moran, Gabrieli, Adams, & Ambady, 2009).

Cross-cultural psychology

This area of our research uncovers a broad range of cross-cultural differences and similarities in the way people perform various types of social tasks. We seek to answer the following questions: How does culture shape our neurological responses to certain social cues? What are the neural correlates of person perception across cultures? Our lab has also studied cross-cultural comparisons in the social domains of nonverbal behavior and competence, as well as emotion recognition. For example, we’ve explored cultural stereotypes and nonverbal behavior patterns, people’s ability to decipher the nonverbal expressions of out-group members, universalities and differences in recognizing the emotions of out-group members, and finally, the relationship between degree of cultural exposure and emotion recognition accuracy.

Face Processing

Face processing, a lower-level perceptual process involved in many of our everyday social judgments and categorizations, as well as our memory, plays an important role in our social interactions. Not only do facial expressions convey large amounts of information, such as people’s emotions, social cues, expectations, and identities, but we are also able to extract this information with remarkable automaticity. Our research examines how different cultures, contexts (e.g. familiar versus unfamiliar), and characteristics (e.g. complexity of the facial expression, in-group membership, etc.) influence facial expressions and emotion recognition accuracy. Additionally, we are interested in looking at the effects of this facial and emotion recognition accuracy on specific social outcomes, such as approach-avoidance and pro-social behaviors. We have also looked at the neural correlates of facial perception and social categorizations, as well as the role that vision and gaze plays in this processing. Finally, we have examined how various facial cues impact social perceptions in regards to judgment of group membership (e.g. sexual orientation, political affiliations, etc.) as well as the consistency of these social perceptions across varied orientations and ambiguity of facial cues.

Race and Bias

This line of our lab’s research focuses on the impact of social group membership on various intra-individual and interpersonal processes (e.g. cognition, affect, and behavior), with an emphasis on interactions between members of stigmatized and non-stigmatized groups. In particular, this work examines the automatic, subconscious influences of race on our underlying perceptions and biased behaviors toward out-group members in dyadic interactions. For instance, we have looked at the relationship between subtle exposure and transmission of nonverbal bias in interracial interactions, as well as the role of behavioral scripts for reducing social anxiety. At a neurological level of analysis, we have found that in-group membership relates to an enhancement in emotion recognition and response, and that neurological differences in emotion response may actually distinguish high- from low-prejudiced individuals. Additionally, we are interested in the effects of status role reversals on self-evaluations and automatic biases in dyadic interactions between members of low status, stigmatized groups and members of high-status, non-stigmatized groups. Furthermore, our lab’s research looks at perceptions of, reactions to, and behavior with other group members who either conform to or contradict group norms and stereotypes, as well as the academic achievement of group members in the face of relevant social stereotypes. Within the context of race, for instance, we are currently examining the effects of racially ambiguous stimuli (i.e. multi-racial faces) on our perceptions and memory.

Stereotype susceptibility

Stereotypes, the categories people use to organize their social world, have been found to exert powerful effects on the cognition and behavior of stereotyped individuals. Our research extends this broad finding by examining the effects of stereotypes across multiple levels, with the realization that individuals simultaneously belong to multiple sociocultural group categories which may be associated with either positive or negative stereotypes, depending on the situation. Thus, for instance, an Asian American woman possesses at least two distinct identities, each associated with different and sometimes conflicting domain-specific stereotypes. As an Asian American she is stereotyped to possess superior quantitative skills; as a woman, on the other hand, she is stereotyped to possess poorer quantitative skills. The opposite is true in the domain of qualitative skills. Our research has shown that the subtle activation of these identities produces stereotype-consistent behavior, such that both positive and negative identity-relevant stereotypes differentially affect cognition and behavior. We refer to this process as stereotype susceptibility, and we are now beginning to examine it in other domains, with a broad range of racial and ethnic identities, and across the lifespan.