Research Interests
As an experimental psychologist, my research seeks to understand how humans adaptively respond to new information and how learning unfolding in individual minds is modulated by constraints present in the broader environment. I examine learning primarily in the context of basic social processes. Specifically, I study the ordinary decisions we make every day that are critical to our well-being and even survival: our evaluations of and beliefs about other people. In doing so, I rely on a combination of traditional online and laboratory experiments as well as computational approaches, while drawing on a variety of learning paradigms, including reinforcement learning, evaluative conditioning, propositional learning, and causal learning. These methods help me uncover the basic mechanisms involved in how we acquire and update our impressions of individuals, especially against the backdrop of information about their social group memberships, such as gender, sexual orientation, age, race, and ethnicity.
Education
Bachelor of Arts, Eotvos Loránd University
Master of Arts in Political Science, Central European University
Master of Arts in Psychology, Harvard University
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology, Harvard University
Awards and Honors
Fellow, Society of Experimental Social Psychology
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois
Early Career Award, International Social Cognition Network
SAGE Early-Career Trajectory Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Rising Star, Association for Psychological Science
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
Additional Campus Affiliations
Faculty Affiliate, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Affiliate, Center for Social & Behavioral Science
Affiliate, Siebel Center for Design
Information for prospective graduate students
I will be reading graduate applications in the 2024 cycle (for admission in the summer of 2025). However, I will not be able to individually meet with or engage in lengthy email exchanges with applicants before the interview process. Therefore, to help potential applicants decide whether to apply to work with me, I am making available a document providing information on frequently asked questions about the lab and my mentorship philosophy here.
Recent Publications
Hudson, S. K. T. J., Kurdi, B., Lai, C. K., Johnson, J., & Banaji, M. R. (2024). IMPLICIT ATTITUDES EVOKED BY A SINGULAR AMERICAN SLUR: FIVE EXPERIMENTS ON N***ER AND N***A IN SAMPLES OF BLACK AND WHITE AMERICANS. Social Cognition, 42(1), 161-197. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2024.42.3.161
Kurdi, B., Melnikoff, D. E., Hannay, J. W., Korkmaz, A., Lee, K. M., Ritchie, E., Surdel, N., Vuletich, H. A., Yang, X., Payne, B. K., & Ferguson, M. J. (2024). Testing the automaticity features of the affect misattribution procedure: The roles of awareness and intentionality. Behavior Research Methods, 56(4), 3161-3194. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02291-2
Morehouse, K. N., Kurdi, B., & Nosek, B. A. (Accepted/In press). Responsible Data Sharing: Identifying and Remedying Possible Re-Identification of Human Participants. American Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001346
Charlesworth, T. E. S., Navon, M., Rabinovich, Y., Lofaro, N., & Kurdi, B. (2023). The project implicit international dataset: Measuring implicit and explicit social group attitudes and stereotypes across 34 countries (2009–2019). Behavior Research Methods, 55(3), 1413-1440. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01851-2
Kurdi, B., & Charlesworth, T. E. S. (2023). A 3D framework of implicit attitude change. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(8), 745-758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.05.009
