Research

I study the social cognitive processes involved in creating stereotypes and prejudice, with a focus on how these processes interface with structural motivations and environments. I approach these topics with a variety of methodological tools, including behavioural studies, computational models, eye-tracking, and neuroimaging.

One line of research examines how basic processes of learning and category formation contribute to stereotypes and bias. This research found a critical role for avoidance in maintaining inaccurate negative stereotypes (Allidina & Cunningham, 2021, JEP: General), both by removing opportunities for information-gain and by directly reinforcing further avoidance.

Further, follow-up work demonstrated that avoidance alters the very structure of perceivers’ social representations (Allidina, Mack, & Cunningham, under review). Using computational models of category learning, my collaborators and I found that environments in which avoidance prevented information-gain were less likely to produce individuation, especially for particularly prejudiced people.

My current work revolves around the role of motivation in social categorization. I examine how motivations stemming from structural inequalities and shared schemas can influence the way we organize the social world through attention (Allidina & Cunningham, 2023, PSPR). Rather than assuming that people simply divide the social world into the most salient categories available to them, this work aims to uncover how the very categories we form can perpetuate systemic inequalities.

My postdoctoral work examines these questions in two ways. First, I use similarity perceptions to examine the relative weight perceivers place on dimensions like race, gender, and age when making sense of others. Second, I use artificial social groups to understand the causal effects of motivations and the mechanisms through which they act on attention.

In a third line of work, I examine how people navigate trade-offs between their goals to help themselves, to help their ingroup members, and to help or hurt outgroup members (Allidina & Cunningham, 2024, JESP). In a series of behavioural and eye-tracking experiments, I found that different goals are pursued in a sequential manner: when people are unable to help themselves, they shift their attention to their ingroup (but not to the outgroup), greatly increasing the amount they try to help their own group members.

In follow-up work, I turned to understanding the neural mechanisms of these effects. I am currently using neuroimaging to examine the differential processes involved in navigating self-other tradeoffs for ingroup and outgroup members.