Education

• Ph.D., Psychology, UC Santa Barbara.

• M.A., Psychology, UC Santa Barbara.

• B.S., Biology/Psychology, Tufts University.

• Specialty Areas: Social Psychology.

Courses Taught

• PSY 150

• PSY 345

Selected Publications

Rutchick, A. M., Slepian, M. L., & Ferris, B. D. (2010). The pen is mightier than the word: Object priming of evaluative standards. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 704–708.

Slepian, M. L., Weisbuch, M., Rutchick, A. M., Newman, L. S., & Ambady, N. (2010). Shedding light on insight: Priming bright ideas. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 696-700.

Rutchick, A. M. (2010). Deus ex machina: The influence of polling place on voting behavior. Political Psychology, 31, 209-225.

Rutchick, A. M., & Eccleston, C. P. (2010). Ironic effects of invoking a common ingroup identity. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32, 109-117.

Filipkowski, K. B., Smyth, J. M., Rutchick, A. M., Santuzzi, A. M., Adya, M., Petrie, K. J., & Kaptein, A. A. (2010). Do healthy people worry? Modern health worries, subjective health complaints, perceived health, and health care utilization. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 17, 182-188.

Rutchick, A. M., Smyth, J. M., & Konrath, S. (2009). Seeing Red (and Blue): Effects of Electoral College depictions on political group perception. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 9, 269-282.

Newman, L. S., *Hernandez, W., *Bakina, D. A., & Rutchick, A. M. (2009). Implicit egotism on the baseball diamond: Why Peter Piper prefers to pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates. NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, 57, 176-181.

Rutchick, A. M., Smyth, J. M., Lopoo, L. M., & Dusek, J. B. (2009). Great Expectations: The biasing effects of reported child behavior problems on educational expectancies and subsequent academic achievement. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28, 392-413.

Rutchick, A. M., Hamilton, D. L., & Sack, J. D. (2008). Antecedents of entitativity in categorically and dynamically construed groups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 1-17.

Johnson, A. L., Crawford, M. T., Sherman, S. J., Rutchick, A. M., Hamilton, D. L., Ferreira, M., & Petrocelli, J. V. (2006). A functional perspective on group memberships: differential need fulfillment in a group typology. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 707-719.

Lickel, B., Rutchick, A. M., Hamilton, D. L., & Sherman, S. J. (2006). Intuitive theories of group types and relational principles. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 28-39.

Research Interests

My students and I study a wide range of questions with one overarching purpose: applying social psychological theory to other (often real-world) contexts.

We are particularly interested in three broad topics:

Social identity and social perception
We examine both basic questions (e.g., categorization, social essentialism) and applied issues (e.g., the implications of social identity for political bipartisanship). Most recently, we have begun research on complex social identities (e.g., multiracial identity, concealable identities) and the relation between these identities, stigma and coping, and health outcomes.

Object priming
A second central topic of interest in our lab is the impact of everyday objects and environments on thought and behavior. We’ve conducted an eclectic set of investigations in this area. For example, we demonstrated that using red pens can influence grading, and that churches used as polling locations can influence voting. More recently, we’ve examined the impact of bottled drinks (Gatorade, beer), formal clothing, and ibuprofen.

Technology
We are also interested in how social psychological processes change when they are technologically mediated. For example, we have examined the inferences people can draw about others based on small bits of online information such as usernames and email addresses, and we have another project underway investigating the effects of technologically mediated distance (e.g., via webcams) on decision-making.