Mahzarin Banaji
Encyclopedia
Mahzarin Rustum Banaji (born 1956) was born and raised in India, in the town of Secunderabad, where she attended St. Ann's High School. Her B.A. is from Nizam College and her M.A. in Psychology from Osmania University
in Hyderabad. In 1986, Banaji received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University
, and was an NIH
postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington
. From 1986-2001 she taught at Yale University
, where she was Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology. In 2001, she moved to Harvard University
as Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology. She also served as the first Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
from 2002-2008. In 2005, Banaji was elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists
. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 2008. In 2009 was named Herbert A. Simon Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
.
Banaji is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
, the American Psychological Association
(Divisions 1, 3, 8 and 9), and the Association for Psychological Science
. She served as Secretary of the APS, on the Board of Scientific Affairs of the APA, and on the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Banaji is President-elect of the Association for Psychological Science in 2009-2010.
Banaji has served as Associate Editor of Psychological Review
and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
and co-edited Essays in Social Psychology for Psychology Press. She currently serves on an advisory board of the Oxford University Press on Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience. She has served or serves on the editorial board of several journals, among them Psychological Science
, Psychological Review, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Social Cognition
, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, and Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation
, the National Institutes of Health, and the Third Millennium Foundation, among other organizations.
Banaji was Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale, and is currently Head Tutor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. Among her awards, she has received Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence, a James McKeen Cattell Fund Award, the Morton Deutsch Award for Social Justice, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2000, her work with R. Bhaskar received the Gordon Allport
Prize for Intergroup Relations. Her career contributions have been recognized by a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association in 2007 and the Diener Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology in 2009.
With Anthony Greenwald
and Brian Nosek, she maintains an educational website], Project Implicit, designed to create awareness about unconscious biases in self-professed egalitarians.
Banaji studies human thinking and feeling as it unfolds in social contexts. 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 other humans that reflect feelings and knowledge (often unintended) about their social group membership (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, class) that underlie the us/them distinction.
From such study of attitudes and beliefs of adults and children, she asks about the social consequences of unconscious thought and feeling. Banaji’s work relies on cognitive/affective behavioral measures and neuroimaging
(fMRI) with which she explores the implications of her work for questions of individual responsibility and social justice in democratic societies.
. A response to some commentary on their article, and their attempt to clarify some of their points.
Osmania University
Osmania University , , since 1918, is a public university located in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. It was established and named after the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan. It is one of the oldest modern universities in India. It is the first Indian University to have Urdu and...
in Hyderabad. In 1986, Banaji received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, and was an NIH
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
. From 1986-2001 she taught at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where she was Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology. In 2001, she moved to Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
as Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology. She also served as the first Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...
from 2002-2008. In 2005, Banaji was elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists
Society of Experimental Psychologists
The Society of Experimental Psychologists , originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1904 to be an ongoing workshop in which members could visit labs, study apparatus, and hear and...
. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 2008. In 2009 was named Herbert A. Simon Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
American Academy of Political and Social Science
The American Academy of Political and Social Science was founded in 1889 to promote progress in the social sciences. Sparked by Professor Edmund J. James and drawing from members of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, and Bryn Mawr College, the Academy sought to...
.
Banaji is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
(Divisions 1, 3, 8 and 9), and the Association for Psychological Science
Association for Psychological Science
The Association for Psychological Science , previously the American Psychological Society, is a non-profit international organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of...
. She served as Secretary of the APS, on the Board of Scientific Affairs of the APA, and on the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Banaji is President-elect of the Association for Psychological Science in 2009-2010.
Banaji has served as Associate Editor of Psychological Review
Psychological Review
Psychological Review is a scientific journal that publishes articles on psychological theory. It was founded by Princeton psychologist James Mark Baldwin and Columbia psychologist James McKeen Cattell in 1894 as a publication vehicle for psychologists not connected with the Clark laboratory of G....
and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is a scientific journal covering Psychology published by Elsevier, and is distributed as part of dues to the membership of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology...
and co-edited Essays in Social Psychology for Psychology Press. She currently serves on an advisory board of the Oxford University Press on Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience. She has served or serves on the editorial board of several journals, among them Psychological Science
Psychological science
Psychological Science is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Association for Psychological Science , published by SAGE Publications. It is one of the most influential journals in psychology.-Publishings:...
, Psychological Review, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Social Cognition
Social cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is a monthly psychology journal of the American Psychological Association. It is considered one of the top journals in the fields of social and personality psychology. Its focus is on empirical research reports; however, specialized theoretical,...
, and Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, the National Institutes of Health, and the Third Millennium Foundation, among other organizations.
Banaji was Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale, and is currently Head Tutor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. Among her awards, she has received Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence, a James McKeen Cattell Fund Award, the Morton Deutsch Award for Social Justice, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2000, her work with R. Bhaskar received the Gordon Allport
Gordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology...
Prize for Intergroup Relations. Her career contributions have been recognized by a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association in 2007 and the Diener Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology in 2009.
With Anthony Greenwald
Anthony Greenwald
Anthony Greenwald is a Social Psychologist and, since 1986, Professor of Psychology at University of Washington.According to Greenwald’s biographical page from the University of Washington, in 1959 he received a B.A. from Yale University. In 1961, he received a M.A. from Harvard University, and in...
and Brian Nosek, she maintains an educational website], Project Implicit, designed to create awareness about unconscious biases in self-professed egalitarians.
Banaji studies human thinking and feeling as it unfolds in social contexts. 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 other humans that reflect feelings and knowledge (often unintended) about their social group membership (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, class) that underlie the us/them distinction.
From such study of attitudes and beliefs of adults and children, she asks about the social consequences of unconscious thought and feeling. Banaji’s work relies on cognitive/affective behavioral measures and neuroimaging
Neuroimaging
Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain...
(fMRI) with which she explores the implications of her work for questions of individual responsibility and social justice in democratic societies.
Major publications
A seminal article on two primary research methods (experimental and ecological) and issues associated with each.. A response to some commentary on their article, and their attempt to clarify some of their points.
- Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4-27.
- Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L., Farnham, S., Nosek, B. A., & Mellott, D. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review, 109, 3-25.
- Green, A. R., Carney, D. R., Pallin, D. J., Ngo, L. H., Raymond, K. L., Iezzoni, L., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Implicit bias among physicians and its prediction of thrombolysis decisions for black and white patients. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22, 1231-1238.
External links
- Mahzarin Banaji's academic web page
- Implicit Project's Harvard Website
- Project Implicit
- A Chance Road to Harvard in The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
- "See No Bias" in the Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
- "The Implicit Prejudice" in Scientific AmericanScientific AmericanScientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
- Session 7 of Beyond Belief conference