Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta's Home Page

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LAB MEMBERS

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

	GRADUATE RESEARCHERS
	Matthew Hunsinger mhunsing@psych.umass.edu My research focuses on automatic outgroup cognition and psychological factors that increase or decrease automatic bias. More specifically, I am examining the impact of negative group-related emotions (anger, disgust, and fear) on automatic outgroup attitudes and group-relevant cognition, e.g., object identification. My research aims to understand if these emotions increase automatic bias, the mechanisms underlying the increase in bias, and whether the bias can be attenuated.
	Jane Stout jgstout@psych.umass.edu My work focuses on the way that subtle cues in the social environment influence one's sense of belonging and competence. In my primary line of research, I look at the way that women respond to subtle sexism (e.g., the use gender-exclusive language like mankind, chairman) in terms of whether they feel threatened or challenged by it. In a second line of work, I look at the impact of seeing same-sex role models in math and science domains on women's interest and perceived ability in those disciplines.
	Kumar Yogeeswaran kumar@psych.umass.edu http://people.umass.edu/kyogeesw At the broadest level, my research interests lie in the realm of intergroup relations. This interest is fuelled by the desire to understand how people’s membership in particular groups (e.g. ethnic, racial, or national groups) shape their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward others as well as their own self-conceptions. For my research, I use different methods including reaction time measures, self-report measures, and electrophysiological measures. My primary research examines Americans’ perceptions of diversity—its antecedents and consequences. Recent research demonstrates that Americans of all races perceive White individuals as more authentically American than ethnic minorities born and raised in the United States. Based on these findings, I am interested in two broad questions: (a) Do race-based stereotypes about who is authentically American influence people's behaviors and judgments toward individuals who are not White? (b) If race-based stereotypes about who is authentically American lead to discriminatory behavior, what are conditions that strengthen versus weaken these stereotypes? Outside my primary line of work, I am involved in research investigating: (1) the relationship between intergroup emotion and implicit prejudice using Event-Related Brain Potentials (in collaboration with Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta and Ariel Pressman); (2) the role of implicit stereotypes in the legal domain (in collaboration with Dr. Jerry Kang & Dr. Gary Blasi at the UCLA Law School); and (3) the effect of threat and anxiety on intergroup relations (in collaboration with Dr. David Butz at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst).
	Melissa McManus mmcmanus@psych.umass.edu My current research seeks to provide a unified explanation for several forms of prejudice that, thus far, seem to be unrelated using people’s core motivation for certainty and social order as the guiding theme. Specifically, my first-year project explores perceptions of target individuals who are either prototypical or counter-prototypical of their racial groups and the reasons as to why prototypical individuals may be preferred over counter-prototypical individuals. I am also currently developing a social categorization study exploring the impact of colorblind ideology (the idea that individuals should not notice racial differences) and social norms on group categorization and stereotyping. My other research interests include implicit attitudes, stereotyping and prejudice as they relate to gender and sexuality, and intergroup emotions. In the little bit of spare time I have after research and coursework, I moonlight as a karaoke superstar and amateur knitter.
	UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS
	Alison Eccleston My main research interests lie in studying implicit bias and race relations in the United States in relation to the sociopolitical ideologies of multiculturalism and assimilation. My honors thesis (in collaboration with Kumar Yogeeswaran and Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta) explores how White Americans perceive and respond to Asian Americans and White ethnic group members who exemplify these dominant ideologies of assimilation and multiculturalism, and how such perceptions translate into perceptions of these ethnic groups as a whole.
	Levi Adelman The United States is a nation of immigrants from different parts of the world. Over the course of its history, this country has seen several attempts to integrate people of different ethnic backgrounds as a way of fostering harmonious intergroup relations within society. For my honors thesis (in collaboration with Kumar Yogeeswaran and Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta), I am interested in studying how people perceive and respond to different expressions of ethnic identification and the psychological mechanism behind such effects.