Bertram Gawronski
Department of Psychology
University of Western Ontario
Social Science Centre
London, Ontario N6A 5C2
Canada
Home Page
Phone: (519) 661-2111
Fax: (519) 661-3961
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My general research interests are in the domains of attitudes and social cognition; in particular the influence of automatic and controlled processes on human behavior. Adopting a cognitive approach to understanding social phenomena, the research in my lab distinguishes between two fundamental mechanisms of social information processing: associative and propositional processes. The first kind of process forms the basis for reflexive gut-reactions that depend on which associations are activated in our mind (sometimes called “implicit” processes). The second kind of process is represented by more thoughtful, deliberate inferences that aim at validating the information implied by activated associations (sometimes called “explicit” processes). In the UWO Social Cognition Lab, we investigate how these two processes interact with each other, how they jointly influence social judgments and social behavior, and what factors lead to changes in the two kinds of processes. ASSOCIATIVE-PROPOSITIONAL EVALUATION MODEL A substantial amount of this research is based on the Associative-Propositional Evaluation (APE) Model, which has been developed in close collaboration with Galen Bodenhausen (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006, 2007). The original purpose of this model was to provide an integration of apparently inconsistent findings in the literature on implicit and explicit attitude change. In several of our ongoing studies, we use the core assumptions of the APE Model to provide deeper insights into the mechanisms underlying different kinds of evaluative responses. Research in this area has investigated the role of associative and propositional processes in attitude formation and change (e.g., Gawronski & LeBel, 2008); cognitive balance (e.g., Gawronski, Walther, & Blank, 2005); cognitive dissonance (e.g., Gawronski & Strack, 2004); prejudice and stereotyping (e.g., Gawronski, Peters, Brochu, & Strack, 2008); impression formation (e.g., Gawronski, Geschke, & Banse, 2003); decision-making (e.g., Galdi, Arcuri, & Gawronski, 2008); and context effects on evaluative responses (e.g., Rydell & Gawronski, 2009). More recently, several projects with our international collaborators have started to use the distinction between associative and propositional processes in various applied contexts, including political decision-making, consumer behavior, and cognitive biases in anxiety disorders. MECHANISMS UNDERLYING IMPLICIT MEASURES A second line of research addresses the mechanisms underlying various measurement procedures designed to assess automatic associative processes (e.g., implicit association test; affective priming). One product of this research is the Quadruple Process Model (Quad-Model) which disentangles the contribution of four qualitatively distinct processes to performance on implicit measures (Conrey, Sherman, Gawronski, Hugenberg, & Groom, 2005). Expanding on this research, several of our ongoing studies investigate the role of response interference as a mechanism underlying implicit measures. The most recent product of this research is a measurement model that describes the interplay of associative and attentional processes in response interference paradigms (Gawronski, Deutsch, LeBel, & Peters, 2008), which may help to determine whether a given finding is produced by associative processes or instead by method-related mechanisms involved in response interference tasks. Several studies inspired by this model have found that the same experimental manipulation can lead to different effects on otherwise identical measures that presumably assess the same construct (e.g., Deutsch & Gawronski, 2009; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2005; Gawronski, Cunningham, LeBel, & Deutsch, in press). These findings point to the fundamental role of method-related factors in shaping the responses assessed by implicit measures, which has significant implications for theoretical interpretations of implicit measurement scores in studies on attitude formation and change.
 Books:
 Gawronski, B., & Payne, B. K. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Journal Articles:
- Conrey, F. R., Sherman, J. W., Gawronski, B., Hugenberg, K., & Groom, C. (2005). Separating multiple processes in implicit social cognition: The Quad-Model of implicit task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 469-487.
- Deutsch, R., Gawronski, B., & Strack, F. (2006). At the boundaries of automaticity: Negation as reflective operation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 385-405.
- Galdi, S., Arcuri, L., & Gawronski, B. (2008). Automatic mental associations predict future choices of undecided decision-makers. Science, 321, 1100-1102.
- Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2007). Unraveling the processes underlying evaluation: Attitudes from the perspective of the APE Model. Social Cogniton, 25, 687-717.
- Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 692-731.
- Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2005). Accessibility effects on implicit social cognition: The role of knowledge activation and retrieval experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 672-685.
- Gawronski, B., Deutsch, R., LeBel, E. P., & Peters, K. R. (2008). Response interference as a mechanism underlying implicit measures: Some traps and gaps in the assessment of mental associations with experimental paradigms. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 24, 218-225.
- Gawronski, B., Hofmann, W., & Wilbur, C. J. (2006). Are "implicit" attitudes unconscious? Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 485-499.
- Gawronski, B., & LeBel, E. P. (2008). Understanding patterns of attitude change: When implicit measures show change, but explicit measures do not. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1355-1361.
- Gawronski, B., LeBel, E. P., & Peters, K. R. (2007). What do implicit measures tell us? Scrutinizing the validity of three common assumptions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 181-193.
- Gawronski, B., Peters, K. R., Brochu, P. M., & Strack, F. (2008). Understanding the relations between different forms of racial prejudice: A cognitive consistency perspectice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 648-665.
- Gawronski, B., & Strack, F. (2004). On the propositional nature of cognitive consistency: Dissonance changes explicit, but not implicit attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 535-542.
- Rydell, R. J., & Gawronski, B. (2009). I like you, I like you not: Understanding the formation of context-dependent automatic attitudes. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 1118-1152.
- Sherman, J. W., Gawronski, B., Gonsalkorale, K., Hugenberg, K., Allen, T. J., & Groom, C. J. (2008). The self-regulation of automatic associations and behavioral impulses. Psychological Review, 115, 314-335.
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