Who are we?

We are a social psychological experimental lab that studies human implicit social cognition. We have ongoing collaborations with social and cognitive psychologists, social neuroscientists, and computer scientists.

Research questions we are interested in

How do we change people's feelings and beliefs about other individuals and groups?

How do new types of learning and new experiences change our impressions of others?

This question is especially important for understanding our implicit impressions. Implicit impressions are those feelings and beliefs that are activated spontaneously and rapidly whenever we perceive the corresponding stimuli, and shape and influence cognition and behavior.

Although some research suggests that implicit impressions can be hard to update, our lab has been studying the ways in which we can effectively change our implicit social cognition of individuals and groups.

  • Using learning theories and experimental studies with adult humans, we have identified some circumstances in which implicit impressions can be changed in a lasting and robust way.

    Some of our work is about how we change our impressions of other individuals, based on faces and behaviors.

    We also examine how people form and update implicit impressions about many other kinds of stimuli such as groups, artwork, morality, goal pursuit, and robots!

  • We might want to change our impressions of others for many reasons. Usually the more we learn about people, the more we need to adjust (slightly or sometimes dramatically) our initial impressions of them. After all, our first impressions can sometimes be based on irrelevant or biased information, as is the case with misinformation or disinformation. Maybe a co-worker we initially learned about through gossip seemed selfish but turns out to be kind and generous. Or a politician who seemed to have an honest face is actually deceptive. Or, perhaps someone we judged as immoral has been proven innocent of any wrongdoing. When and how can we change our impressions and judgments of others?

    This question is especially important when talking about our implicit impressions. Some research suggests that implicit impressions can be especially hard to update. For example, if we form initial negative memories about someone, even if we say we have changed our mind about them after learning something positive, our implicit impressions may remain negative.

  • Surdel, N., Bigman, Y. E., Shen, X., Lee, W.-Y., Jung, M. F., & Ferguson, M. J. (2024). Judging robot ability: How people form implicit and explicit impressions of robot competence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(5), 1309–1335. pdf

    Kurdi, B., Krosch, A. R., & Ferguson, M. J. (2023). Oppressed Groups Engender Implicit Positivity: Seven Demonstrations Using Novel and Familiar Targets. Psychological Science, 34(10), 1069-1086. pdf

    Katz, J. H., Mann, T. C., Shen, X., Goncalo, J. A., & Ferguson, M. J. (2022). Implicit impressions of creative people: Creativity evaluation in a stigmatized domain. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 169, Article 104116. pdf

    Kurdi, B., Mann, T. C., & Ferguson, M. J. (2022). Persuading the Implicit Mind: Changing Negative Implicit Evaluations With an 8-Minute Podcast. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(3), 688-697. pdf

    Shen, X., Maiolatesi, A. J., Mann, T. C., & Ferguson, M. J. (2023). The Relation Between Updated Implicit Evaluations and the Trust Game. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14(8), 911-921. pdf

When and how do people exhibit prejudice toward others?

  • People can express prejudice toward others in blatant as well as subtle ways. We examine both types in different settings.

    For subtle biases, we have found that when discussing women versus men professionals, we are significantly more likely to use the person's full name rather than last name only. We have found evidence for this effect across political, science, and academic domains. What does this new evidence of this kind of gender bias mean? When people hear a professional described by only the surname (versus full name), we show that people assume that professional is more eminent and famous, which can then lead to judgments of greater quality. We also showed that scientists referred to by last name (versus full name) are significantly more likely to be seen as deserving of a National Science Foundation career award.

  • Can prejudice emerge in our hand movements? We have shown that White people display implicit bias toward Black people in a mousetracking paradigm. We are further testing this novel way to measure prejudice, and have shown that the bias measured with mousetracking significantly predicts discriminatory behavior and decision-making.

    We are also tracking how norms about prejudice have changed in recent years according to political ideology and affiliation. We have shown that some segments of the American citizenry have increased significantly in their willingness to express blatant prejudice toward a number of minoritized groups, including Muslims, Black people, and immigrants. We are examining when, why, and how these types of behaviors are emerging.

  • Kurdi, B., Krosch, A. R., & Ferguson, M. J. (2023). Oppressed Groups Engender Implicit Positivity: Seven Demonstrations Using Novel and Familiar Targets. Psychological science, 34(10), 1069–1086. pdf

    Ruisch, B. C., Ferguson, M. J. (2023). Did Donald Trump’s presidency reshape Americans’ prejudices? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(3), 207–209. pdf

    Melnikoff, D., Stillman, P., Mann, T., Shen, X., & Ferguson, M. J. (2021). Tracking prejudice: A mouse-tracking measure of evaluative conflict predicts discriminatory behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12, 266-272 pdf

    Gruber, J., Mendle, J., Akinola, M., … Ferguson, M. J., …Williams, L. A. (2020). The Future of Women in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(3), 483-516. pdf

    Atir, S., & Ferguson, M. J. (2018). How gender determines the way we speak about professionals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(28), 7278–7283. pdf

    Ruisch, B. C., Lewis, Jr. N., A., Ferguson, M. J. (accepted in principle). When and why women are (dis)favored in the hiring process: The effects of gender and qualification strength on hiring decisions. Nature Human Behaviour. (original research and registered report proposal) pdf

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How can people avoid temptations?

  • When and how do we stick more closely to our long-term goals (e.g., health, financial, social) rather than succumb to short-term temptations? Our research identifies crucial psychological factors that often go undetected when we merely introspect on what explains our own or others’ behaviors. Namely, we study the cognitive processes that unfold unintentionally and sometimes non-consciously, and have uncovered variables that are significantly predictive of people’s abilities to control their behavior.

  • We examine people’s implicit positivity toward their long-term goals and their implicit beliefs about the importance of the actions needed to achieve their long-term goals. These variables predict whether someone will persist at studying and succeed at school. Or get up early and go to the gym at the crack of dawn.

    We also examine the spatial and temporal cognitive dynamics of decision-making in self-control choices. When we reach for the apple rather than the cookie after dinner, how much does our arm movement veer toward that cookie? Does this subtle, implicit physical movement reflect our ability to resist those temptations? Even though we may end up grabbing that apple, our findings show that the degree to which we veer toward the cookie on the way to the apple predicts our overall average success in self-control. Using a paradigm called “mouse-tracking”, we have identified this kind of spatial conflict as a unique predictor of self-control.

    We have studied people’s self-control in the areas of financial decision-making, schoolwork, standardized testing performance, exercise and fitness, and prejudice.

  • Stillman, P., Krajbich, & Ferguson, M. J. (2020). Using dynamic monitoring of choices to predict and understand risk preferences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117 (50), 31738-31747. pdf

    Stillman, P., & Ferguson, M. J. (2019). Decisional Conflict Predicts Impatience. Journal for the Association of Consumer Research, 4 (1), 47-56. pdf

    Stillman, P., Shen, X., & Ferguson, M. J. (2018). How Mouse-tracking Can Advance Social Cognitive Theory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(6), 531-543. pdf

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