Michael Inzlicht
- Media Contact
- SPN Mentor
For the past few years, Michael Inzlicht has primarily focused on improving our understanding of self-control and the related concepts of cognitive control and executive function (mental processes that allow behavior to vary adaptively depending on current goals). Much of Michael's work explores the building blocks of control, including its neural, cognitive, emotional, and motivational foundations. At the same time—and at a different level of analysis—Michael also explores the various ways that self-control can be influenced by various cultural and situational factors, including mindfulness meditation, quality of motivation, religious belief, and stigmatization. It is hoped that by understanding the basic processes that contribute to self-control, the field will gain a better understanding of how to improve self-control and help people reach their longstanding goals.
A central feature of Michael's work is that he takes a social affective neuroscience approach to address questions of interest. Thus, he combines neuroimaging, cognitive reaction time, physiological, and behavioral techniques to understand and explain social behavior. This interdisciplinary approach provides a fuller, more integrated understanding of social behavior, emotion, and the brain. While using techniques borrowed from neuroscience and peripheral physiology, Michael's work is firmly grounded in basic psychological science. That is, his work measures basic biological states, be they from the brain or body, to understand something about the human mind, something about human psychology.
Primary Interests:
- Culture and Ethnicity
- Emotion, Mood, Affect
- Neuroscience, Psychophysiology
- Prejudice and Stereotyping
Research Group or Laboratory:
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Video Gallery
Self-Control, Gratification Delay, Ego-Depletion, and the Replication Crisis
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79:48 Self-Control, Gratification Delay, Ego-Depletion, and the Replication Crisis
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57:30 The Replication Crisis
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51:49 Replication Schmeplication? The State of Behavioral Science
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1:08:03 "The Wander Podcast" Interview
Journal Articles:
- Good, M., Inzlicht, M., & Larson, M. J. (2015). God will forgive: Reflecting on God’s love decreases neurophysiological responses to errors. Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 10, 357-363.
- Gutsell, J. N., & Inzlicht, M. (2010). Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 41-845.
- Inzlicht, M., & Al-Khindi, T. (2012). ERN and the placebo: A misattribution approach to studying the arousal properties of the error-related negativity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 799-807.
- Inzlicht, M., Bartholow, B. D., & Hirsh, J. B. (2015). Emotional foundations of cognitive control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19, 126-132. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.01.004
- Inzlicht, M., & Ben-Zeev, T. (2000). A threatening intellectual environment: Why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males. Psychological Science, 11, 365-371.
- Inzlicht, M., & Berkman, E. (2015). Six questions for the resource model of control (and some answers). Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9/10, 511-524.
- Inzlicht, M., Gutsell, J. N., & Legault, L. (2012). Mimicry reduces racial prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 361-365. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.06.007
- Inzlicht, M., Legault, L., & Teper, R. (2014). Exploring the mechanisms of self-control improvement. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 302-307. doi: 10.1177/0963721414534256
- Inzlicht, M., McKay, L., & Aronson, J. (2006). Stigma as ego depletion: How being the target of prejudice affects self-control. Psychological Science, 17, 262-269.
- Inzlicht, M., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2012). What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 450-463. doi:10.1177/1745691612454134
- Inzlicht, M., Schmeichel, B. J., & Macrae, C. N. (2014). Why self-control seems (but may not be) limited. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 127-133. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2013.12.009
- Inzlicht, M., Tullett, A. M., & Good, M. (2011). Existential neuroscience: A proximate explanation of religion as flexible meaning and palliative. Religion, Brain, & Behavior, 1, 244-251. doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2011.653537
- Legault, L., Al-Khindi, T., & Inzlicht, M. (2012). Preserving integrity in the face of performance threat: Self-affirmation enhances neurophysiological responsiveness to errors. Psychological Science, 3, 1455-1460.
- Legault, L., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Self-determination, self-regulation, and the brain: Autonomy improves performance by enhancing neuroaffective responsiveness to self-regulation failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 123-138. doi:10.1037/a0030426.
- Milyavskaya, M., Inzlicht, M., Hope, N., & Koestner, R. (2015). Saying ‘No’ to temptation: Want-to motivation improves self-regulation by reducing temptation rather than by increasing self-control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 677-693. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000045
- Proulx, T., Inzlicht, M., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2012). Understanding all inconsistency compensation as a palliative response to violated expectations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 285-291.
- Saunders, B., Rodrigo, A., & Inzlicht, M. (in press). Mindful awareness of feelings increases neural performance monitoring. Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral Neuroscience. doi: 10.3758/s13415-015-0375-2
- Teper, R., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Meditation, mindfulness, and executive control: The importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring. Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 8, 85-92. doi:10.1093/scan/nss045.
- Teper, R., Segal, Z., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Inside the mindful mind: How mindfulness enhances emotion regulation through improvements in executive control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 449-454. doi: 10.1177/0963721413495869
- Teper, R., Zhong, C., & Inzlicht, M. (2015). How emotions shape moral behavior: Some answers (and questions) for the field of moral psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9/1, 1-14. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12154.
Courses Taught:
- Fundamentals of Social Psychology
- Psychology of Prejudice
- Psychology of the Self
Michael Inzlicht
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail
Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4
Canada
- Phone: (416) 208-4826
- Fax: (416) 287-7642
- Skype Name: michael_inzlicht