William Cunningham
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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).
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William Cunningham
Department of Psychology
Ohio State University
1827 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210
United States
Phone: (614) 247-6139