William Cunningham
- Media Contact
- SPN Mentor
Our research takes a social cognitive neuroscience approach to understand the cognitive and motivational processes underlying emotional responses. Of primary interest are the affective evaluations of people and objects that guide thought and behavior. To better understand these processes, our lab uses methods and theories from both social psychology (e.g., models of attitudes and latency-based evaluation measures) and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., biological models of emotion and fMRI/EEG methods). By using the "toolboxes" of each discipline with their distinct strengths and weaknesses, a more complete picture of emotion is likely to emerge. Current research examines how motivation and emotion-regulation (which can occur at both automatic and controlled levels of processing) contribute to emotional and evaluative states. This work suggests that evaluative states are constructed moment to moment from multiple component processes that integrate relevant information from various sources such as automatically activated attitudes and situational contexts. In addition, recent work examines how different discrete emotions contribute to evaluative judgments. For example, how do dislike and hatred differ in terms of experience, processing and behavioral outcomes? With his students and collaborators, he has applied his work to the study of prejudice (and prejudice reduction), political attitudes, and development (emotional regulation in children).
Primary Interests:
- Attitudes and Beliefs
- Emotion, Mood, Affect
- Ethics and Morality
- Intergroup Relations
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Neuroscience, Psychophysiology
- Prejudice and Stereotyping
- Research Methods, Assessment
- Social Cognition
Research Group or Laboratory:
- Social Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory
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Video Gallery
Virtue of Doubt
Journal Articles:
- Beer, J. S., Stallen, M., Lombardo, M. V., Gonsalkorale, K., Cunningham, W. A., & Sherman, J. W. (2008). The Quadruple Process model approach to examining the neural underpinnings of prejudice. NeuroImage. 43 775-783
- Cunningham, W. A., Espinet, S. D., DeYoung, C. G., & Zelazo, P. D. (2005). Attitudes to the right -- and left: Frontal ERP asymmetries associated with stimulus valence and processing goals. NeuroImage, 28, 827-834.
- Cunningham, W. A., Johnson, M. K., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Neural components of social evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 639-649.
- Cunningham, W. A., Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Separable neural components in the processing of Black and White faces. Psychological Science, 15, 806-813.
- Cunningham, W. A., Kesek, A., Mowrer, S.M. (in press). Distinct orbitofrontal regions encode stimulus and choice valuation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
- Cunningham, W. A., Nezlek, J. B., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Implicit and explicit ethnocentrism: Revisiting the ideologies of prejudice. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1332-1346.
- Cunningham, W. A., Preacher, K. J., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). Implicit attitude measures: Consistency, stability, and convergent validity. Psychological Science, 12, 163-170.
- Cunningham, W. A., Raye, C. L., & Johnson, M. K. (2005). Neural correlates of evaluation associated with promotion and prevention regulatory focus. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 5, 202-211.
- Cunningham, W. A., Raye, C. L., & Johnson, M. K. (2004). Implicit and explicit evaluation: fMRI correlates of valence, emotional intensity, and control in the processing of attitudes. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 1717-1729.
- Cunningham, W. A., Van Bavel, J. J., & Johnsen, I. R. (2008). Affective flexibility: Evaluative processing goals shape amygdala activity. Psychological Science, 19, 152-160.
- Cunningham, W. A., & Zelazo, P. D. (2007). Attitudes and evaluations: A social cognitive neuroscience perspective. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 97-104.
- Cunningham, W. A., Zelazo, P. D., Packer, D. J., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2007). The iterative reprocessing model: A multilevel framework for attitudes and evaluation. Social Cognition, 25, 736-760.
- Phelps, E. A., Cannistraci, C. J., & Cunningham, W. A. (2003). Intact performance on an indirect measure of race bias following amygdala damage. Neuropsychologia, 41, 203-208.
- Phelps, E. A., O'Connor, K. J., Cunningham, W. A., Funayama, E. S., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2000). Performance on indirect measures of race evaluation predicts amygdala activation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 729-738.
- Van Bavel, J. J., Packer, D. J, & Cunningham, W. A. (2008). The neural substrates of in-group bias: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation. Psychological Science, 19(11), 1131-1139.
Courses Taught:
- Attitudes
- Psychology of Emotions
- Social Cognition
- Social Neuroscience
- Structural Equation Modeling
William Cunningham
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
100 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3
Canada
- Phone: (614) 247-6139