Michael Inzlicht

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Michael Inzlicht
Born (1972-06-20) June 20, 1972 (age 53)
Alma mater Brown University
McGill University
Scientific career
Fields Social Psychology
Neuroscience
Cognitive Sciences
Institutions University of Toronto
Wilfrid Laurier University
New York University

Michael Inzlicht is a social psychologist and neuroscientist, working as a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Although he has published papers on the topics of prejudice, academic performance, and religion, his most recent interests have been in the topics of self-control, where he borrows methods from affective and cognitive neuroscience to understand the underlying nature of self-control, including how it is driven by motivation. [1]

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In the early 2000s, he and his colleagues claimed to demonstrate that small, seemingly benign characteristics of an environment could play a large role in determining how stereotyped groups perform on academic tests. They found, for example, that the number of men in a small group could determine whether women succeeded (fewer men) or failed (more men) a math test. The claimed phenomenon is known in psychology as stereotype threat. [2] [3] However, in later years he suggested that work on stereotype threat might not be replicable. [4] [5]

In his later work, Inzlicht studied 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 his work explores the building blocks of control, including its neural, cognitive, emotional, and motivational foundations. [6] [7] [8] He also explores how self-control can be influenced by various cultural and situational factors, including mindfulness meditation, [9] quality of motivation, [10] religious belief, [11] and stigmatization. [12] Some of his work uses an interdisciplinary approach, which combines neuroimaging, cognitive reaction time measurement, physiological techniques, and behavioral techniques to understand and explain social behaviour. [8] [13]

Inzlicht is a vocal advocate for open science reform. [14] In addition to criticizing the status quo and the replication crisis in psychology, [15] [16] [17] he has expressed doubts about the replicability of his own past scientific work, [18] [19] such as his research on ego depletion. [20]

Selected Awards & Honours

Selected publications

See also

References

  1. Professional Profile: Michael Inzlicht.
  2. APA Online: College women underperform on tests when in the minority.
  3. Inzlicht, Michael; Ben-Zeev, Talia (2000). "A threatening intellectual environment: Why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males". Psychological Science. 11 (5): 365–371. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.24.1847 . doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00272. PMID   11228906. S2CID   2887128.
  4. Stereothreat , retrieved 2018-03-23
  5. Michael Inzlicht (2024-12-18). "Revisiting Stereotype Threat". Substack.
  6. Saunders, Blair; Milyavskaya, Marina; Inzlicht, Michael (2015). "What does cognitive control feel like? Effective and ineffective cognitive control is associated with divergent phenomenology". Psychophysiology. 52 (9): 1205–1217. doi:10.1111/psyp.12454. PMID   26041054. S2CID   206286673.
  7. Inzlicht, Michael; Schmeichel, Brandon (2012). "What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control". Perspectives on Psychological Science. 7 (5): 450–463. doi:10.1177/1745691612454134. PMID   26168503. S2CID   3899310.
  8. 1 2 Inzlicht, Michael; Bartholow, Bruce; Hirsh, Jacob (2015). "Emotional foundations of cognitive control". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 19 (3): 126–132. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.01.004. PMC   4348332 . PMID   25659515.
  9. Teper, Rimma; Segal, Zindel; Inzlicht, Michael (2013). "Inside the mindful mind: How mindfulness enhances emotion regulation through improvements in executive control". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 22 (6): 449–454. doi:10.1177/0963721413495869. S2CID   146587497.
  10. Legault, Lisa; Inzlicht, Michael (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 (1): 123–138. doi:10.1037/a0030426. PMID   23106250. S2CID   3899238.
  11. Inzlicht, Michael; Tullett, Alexa; Good, Marie (2011). "The need to believe: a neuroscience account of religion as a motivated process". Religion, Brain, & Behavior. 1 (3): 192–251. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2011.647849. S2CID   18064680.
  12. Inzlicht, Michael; Kang, Sonia (2010). "Stereotype threat spillover: How coping with threats to social identity affects aggression, eating, decision making, and attention". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 99 (3): 467–481. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.600.1063 . doi:10.1037/a0018951. PMID   20649368.
  13. Inzlicht, Michael; Shenhav, Amitai; Olivola, Christopher Y. (2018). "The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 22 (4): 337–349. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.01.007. PMC   6172040 . PMID   29477776.
  14. "Ghost Effects | By Patchen Barss | Winter 2018 | University of Toronto Magazine". magazine.utoronto.ca. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  15. Yong, Ed. "Psychology's Replication Crisis Can't Be Wished Away". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  16. "How much of the psychology literature is wrong?". apa.org. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  17. Engber, Daniel (2016-03-06). "Everything Is Crumbling". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  18. "Guest Post: Check Yourself before you Wreck Yourself". sometimes i'm wrong. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  19. "Psychology's Replication Crisis Is My Crisis". Undark. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  20. Michael Inzlicht (2025-01-29). "The Collapse of Ego Depletion". Substack.