Welcome!

Our lab uses theories and methods from social psychology, cognitive neuroscience (e.g., fMRI, EEG), and related disciplines to investigate how people see and understand themselves and others. Most of our current work focuses on face processing, intergroup bias, and the interplay of social perception and mental and physical health.

We are located steps from 🌴 😎 ⛰ 🏖 🏄🏿‍♀️ 🌊 🐬 in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara. Check out the UCSB drone footage 👇 to see our beautiful campus.

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Selected Publications

All Publications

Hong, Y., Reed, M., Ratner, K. G. (2023). Facial stereotypes of competence (not trustworthiness or dominance) most resemble facial stereotypes of group membership. Social Cognition, 41(6), 562–578.

Madison, A. A., Way, B., Ratner, K. G., ..., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2023). Typhoid vaccine does not impact feelings of social connection or social behavior in a randomized crossover trial among middle-aged female breast cancer survivors. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 107, 124–131.

Hong, Y., Mayes, M. S., Munasinghe, A. P., Ratner, K. G. (2022). Scrutinizing whether mere group membership influences the N170 response to faces: Results from two preregistered event-related potential studies. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 34(11), 1999-2015.

Ratner, K. G., Hamilton, D. L., Brewer, M. B. (2022). On vagueness and parochialism in psychological research on groups. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45, e119.

Hong, Y., Ratner, K. G. (2021). Minimal but not meaningless: Seemingly arbitrary category labels can imply more than group membership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(3), 576-600.

Ratner, K. G. (2020). Social Cognition. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford University Press.

Welborn, B. W., Hong, Y., Ratner, K. G. (2020). Exposure to negative stereotypes influences representations of monetary incentives in the nucleus accumbens. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 15(3), 347–358.

Ratner, K. G., Kaczmarek, A. R., Hong, Y. (2018). Can over-the-counter pain medications influence our thoughts and emotions?. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5(6), 82-89.

Ijzerman, H., Lindenberg, S., ..., Hong, Y., ..., Ratner, K. G, ... (2018). The Human Penguin Project: Climate, social integration, and core body temperature. Collabra: Psychology, 4(1), 37.

Ratner, K. G., Katona, L. B. (2016). The peacebuilding potential of healthcare training programs. Conflict and Health, 10:29.

Kaul, C., Ratner, K. G., Van Bavel, J. J. (2014). Dynamic representations of race: Processing goals shape race decoding in the fusiform gyri. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(6), 326-332.

Young, A. I., Ratner, K. G., Fazio, R. H. (2014). Political attitudes bias the mental representation of a presidential candidate's face. Psychological Science, 25(2), 503-510.

Ratner, K. G., Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D. H. J., van Kippenberg, A., Amodio, D. M. (2014). Visualizing minimal ingroup and outgroup faces: Implications for impressions, attitudes, and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(6), 897-911.

Ratner, K. G., Kaul, C., Van Bavel, J. J. (2013). Is race erased? Decoding race from patterns of neural activity when skin color is not diagnostic of group boundaries. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8, 750-755.

Ratner, K. G., Amodio, D. M. (2013). Seeing us vs. them: Minimal group effects on the neural encoding of faces. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(2), 298-301.

Ratner, K. G., Halim, M. L., Amodio, D. M (2013). Perceived stigmatization, ingroup pride, and immune and endocrine activity: Evidence from a community sample of Black and Latina women. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(1), 82-91.

Ratner, K. G., Kubota, J. T. (2012). Genetic contributions to intergroup responses: A cautionary perspective. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6:223.

Amodio, D. M., Ratner, K. G. (2011). A memory systems model of implicit social cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(3), 143-148.