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
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
Rising Star, Association for Psychological Science
SAGE Early-Career Trajectory Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Early Career Award, International Social Cognition Network
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois
Fellow, Society of Experimental Social Psychology
Additional Campus Affiliations
Faculty Affiliate, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Affiliate, Center for Social & Behavioral Science
Affiliate, Siebel Center for Design
Recent Publications
Kurdi, B., Okura, K., Hehman, E., & Ferguson, M. J. (2025). Cognitive underpinnings and ecological correlates of implicit bias against non-Americans in the United States. Scientific reports, 15(1), Article 15191. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-98384-3
Kurdi, B., Charlesworth, T. E. S., & Mair, P. (2025). International stability and change in explicit and implicit attitudes: An investigation spanning 33 countries, five social groups, and 11 years (2009–2019). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001746
Hudson, S. K. T. J., Kurdi, B., Lai, C. K., Johnson, J., & Banaji, M. R. (2024). Implicit Attitudes Evoked by a Singular American Slur: 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. (2024). Responsible Data Sharing: Identifying and Remedying Possible Re-Identification of Human Participants. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001346