People form mental maps of individuals and groups in society to help them navigate their social environment, avoid obstacles, and reach their goals. Mental maps of human groups not only passively represent social reality; they also actively construct social reality. One example is social stereotypes; people represent groups as located in different regions in their mental maps. I wonder: Where do stereotypes come from? How can we make stereotypes go away?

My research combines insights from social and cognitive psychology, computer science and machine learning, and public policy. I use multiple methodologies to pursue these questions, including cross-national surveys, large-scale online behavioral experiments, naturalistic text analyses, and computational cognitive models, all aiming to provide science-based insights to mitigate intergroup misunderstanding.