My research is primarily in the area of social cognition. Specifically, my work focuses on how people make judgments about the mental states (i.e. emotion, intention, and cognition) of others. My current work examines how mind attribution, or the attribution of mental states to an individual or group of people, varies as a function of ingroup and outgroup membership. The ultimate goal of my research is to gain a better understanding of the psychological underpinnings of humanization and/or dehumanization. By gaining a better understanding of what it means to perceive another as being “human” we can gain further insight into complex issues such as prejudice, stereotyping, and even genocide.