Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences

• Cognitive neuroscience

• Social neuroscience
• Social cognition & aging
• Impression formation
• Stigma
• Stereotyping & prejudice
• Functional MRI

Successfully navigating novel social interactions requires that we be able to engage in fast and efficient person perception. To achieve this goal, we rely on categorization and stereotyping. However, evaluating others on the basis of categorical knowledge can sometimes produce pernicious outcomes, particularly in the case of stereotyping and prejudice (e.g., based on an individual’s race, gender, or appearance). In order to develop effective interventions to overcome these negative effects, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that underlie stereotyping. My research uses a multi-faceted and novel approach that incorporates behavioral, cognitive, and neuroimaging techniques to identify the mechanisms underlying stereotyping and prejudice from three converging perspectives: first, how perceivers form stereotypes; second, how the formation of stereotypes changes over the adult lifespan; and finally, how stereotypes affect their targets (through stereotype threat).

• Krendl, A.C., Zucker, H.R., & Kensinger, E.A. (2017). Identifying social stigma in 340 ms: Examining the effects of emotion regulation on the ERP response to negative social stimuli. Social Neuroscience, 12(3), 349-360.
• PCassidy, B.S., Lee, E.J. & Krendl, A.C. (2016). Influences of age and executive function on neural response to race. SCAN, 11(11), 1752-1761.
• Krendl, A.C. (2016). An fMRI investigation of the effects of culture evaluations of stigmatized individuals. NeuroImage, 124, 336-349.
• Krendl, A.C., †Rule, N.O., Ambady, N. (2014). Does aging impair first impression accuracy: Differentiating Emotion Recognition from Complex Social Inferences. Psychology & Aging, 29(3), 482-490. doi.org/10.1037/a0037146 †equal authorship
• Rule, N.O., Krendl, A.C., Ivcevic, Z., Ambady, N. (2013). Accuracy and consensus in judgments of trustworthiness from faces: behavioral and neural correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(3), 409-426.
• Krendl, A.C., Moran, J.M., Ambady, N. (2012). Does context matter in evaluations of stigmatized individuals? An fMRI study. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, . doi:10.1093/scan/nss037
• Krendl, A.C. & Ambady, N. (2010). Older adults’ decoding of emotions: Role of dynamic versus static cues and age-related cognitive decline. Psychology & Aging, 25(4), 788-793.
• Krendl, A.C., Heatherton, T.F., & Kensinger, E.A. (2009). Aging minds twisting attitudes: An fMRI investigation of age differences in inhibiting prejudice. Psychology & Aging, 24(3), 530-541.
• Krendl, A.C., Richeson, J.A., Kelley, W.M., & Heatherton, T.F (2008). The negative consequences of threat: An fMRI investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying women’s underperformance in math. Psychological Science, 19(2), 168-175.
• Krendl, A.C., Macrae, C.N., Kelley, W.M., Fugelsang, J.F., & Heatherton, T.F. (2006). The good, the bad, and the ugly: An fMRI investigation of the functional anatomic correlates of stigma. Social Neuroscience, 1(1), 5-15.