Mahzarin Banaji

MAHZARIN R. BANAJI, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, studies human thinking and feeling as they unfold in a social context. Her focus is primarily on mental systems that operate in implicit or unconscious mode. In particular, she is interested in the unconscious nature of assessments of self and others that reflect unintended effects of social group membership (such as age, race/ethnicity, gender, and class). Her work relies on cognitive/affective behavioral measures of adults and children and on neuroimaging (fMRI), with which she explores the implications of her work for theories of individual responsibility and social justice.

Banaji received her PhD from Ohio State University in 1986, was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, and from 1986 to 2001 taught at Yale University, where she was the Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology. In 2002, she moved to Harvard University as the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. With Anthony Greenwald and Brian Nosek, she maintains an educational Web site that has accumulated more than 3 million completed tasks measuring automatic attitudes and beliefs involving self, other individuals, and social groups.

Dr. Banaji served as Secretary of the American Psychological Society, on the Board of Scientific Affairs of the APA, and on the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She has served as Associate Editor of Psychological Review and of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and is currently Co-Editor of Essays in Social Psychology. She serves on the editorial board of several journals, among them Psychological Science, Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and The DuBois Review.

Beyond Edge: Mahzarin Banaji's Home Page