My research program focuses broadly on the processes underlying and the outcomes of stereotyping and prejudice. Much of this work focuses specifically on how our perceptions of others and ourselves are constrained by social categorization processes. Research in both social psychology and cognitive science indicates that we spontaneously and automatically categorize others and ourselves into social categories (e.g., sex, race, religion, etc.). Much of my work focuses on how such categories are represented in memory, and how such social categorization influences basic perceptual processes, such as face and emotional expression perceptions, as well as how such social categorization processes can be modulated by other important social stimuli.

Specifically, much of my ongoing research investigates how social categorization processes influence the perception of faces and facial expressions. For example, some ongoing research investigates how negative stereotypes of social groups (e.g., African Americans) bias the perception of, attention to, and interpretation of facial expressions. In another line of research, we are investigating how social categorization processes might influence tendencies to have difficulty encoding and recognizing faces of different racial outgroups.

Bernstein, M., Young, S., & Hugenberg, K. (2007). The Cross-Category Effect: Mere social categorization is sufficient to elicit an own-group bias in face recognition. Psychological Science, 18, 709-712.

Hugenberg, K., Miller, J., & Claypool, H. (2007). Categorization and individuation in the Cross Race Recognition Deficit: Toward a solution for an insidious problem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 334-340.

Hugenberg, K., Bodenhausen, G. V., & McLain, M. (2006). Framing discrimination: Effects of inclusion versus exclusion mind-sets on stereotypic judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1020-1031.

Hugenberg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2004). Ambiguity in social categorization: The role of prejudice and facial affect in race categorization. Psychological Science, 15, 342-345.

Hugenberg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2003). Facing prejudice: Implicit prejudice and the perception of facial threat. Psychological Science, 14, 640-643.