Mahzarin Banaji

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Mahzarin Rustum Banaji was born and raised in India, in the town of Secunderabad, where she attended St. Ann's High School. Her B.A. is from Nizam College and her M.A. in Psychology from Osmania University in Hyderabad . She received her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University (1986) under Anthony Greenwald, was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington, and taught at Yale University from 1986 until 2001 where she was Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology. In 2002 she moved to Harvard University as Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Banaji studies human thinking and feeling as it unfolds in social context. Her focus is primarily on mental systems that operate in implicit or unconscious mode. In particular, she is interested in the unconscious nature of assessments of self and other humans that reflect feelings and knowledge (often unintended) about their social group membership (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, class). From such study of attitudes and beliefs of adults and children, she asks about the social consequences of unintended thought and feeling. Her work relies on cognitive/affective behavioral measures and neuroimaging (fMRI) with which she explores the implications of her work for theories of individual responsibility and social justice.

Banaji's claim to fame have been a series of studies around exploring gender and racial bias using "Implicit Association Test" or IAT. A Harvard website carrying some of the tests has proven to be extremely popular. "More than 3 million IATs have been completed on a Web site" according to Science News. Banaji's research on racial and gender attitudes has been covered extensively in the media with PBS, NY Times, and Washington Post - all devoting significant attention.

[edit] Major Publications

Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. 1995 (with A Greenwald) in Psychological Review
A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. 2002. (with A Greenwald, LA Rudman, SD Farnham etc.) in Psychological Review.