About Me
Andre Oliver
I am a Social Cognitive Psychologist and Post-Doctoral Associate at the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS). After earning my BA and MA in Psychology at San Francisco State University (SF State), I earned my PhD in Psychology from the Graduate Center at City University of New York (CUNY). My research focuses on how identity and context shape our perceptions of others (e.g., faces, expectations) and how that influences decision-making. Across my academic career, my research has two broad foci:
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Investigating how basic psychological theory can explain how people perceive others.
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Applying basic psychological research to decision-making and behavior in social domains such as economics, criminal justice, education, and technology.
The goal of this research is to better understand person perception as a way to reduce cognitive bias and social inequality.
Research
What Mental Representations Tell us about Person Perception
Reverse Correlation Paradigm
In my research, I design experiments to investigate how people's mental representations (i.e., mental images) of specific social categories influence their perceptions and behaviors. For example, I examine how social identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender) has top-down influences on mental representations of faces of people from different social groups and the consequences of those mental representations. I also explore how people's meta-representations--the mental images people expect others to have--are related to intergroup interaction. Most recently, I have been interested in how people meta-represent artificial minds and in using generative reverse correlation to visualize photorealistic mental images.
Using Social Psychological Research to Inform Policy
Interventions to increase Support for Social Equality Policy
My research is also aimed at leveraging social and moral psychology to affect economic policy, policing philosophies, and educational pedagogy, with the goal of reducing social inequality in the U.S. Testing, for example, how race and political ideology interact to affect support for social equity policies. I am also developing interventions that aim to decrease racial disparities in criminal justice, improve intergroup interactions, and increase female representation in STEM fields.
Collaborations
Building Research Partnerships
I actively seek collaborations with fellow researchers and institutions to foster a dynamic research environment and exchange of ideas. By partnering with experts in the field, I aim to engage in impactful research projects and create synergies that advance our collective understanding of social psychology.
Social Equity Research
Discover Insights in Social Psychology
