Russell Hutter has research interests in social category combination, representation, inhibition and executive function. For example, how do we perceive and cognitively represent congruent (e.g., "male" and "mechanic") versus incongruent (e.g., "male" and "midwife") social category combinations? Is this process effortful, and do we need to inhibit the stereotypical attributes associated with the constituent categories? His research has shown that that we do indeed require executive resources to adequately perceive new and unfamiliar category conjunctions versus familiar conjunctions -- in other words, we need to attend more closely to these combinations. If our cognitive resources are limited, then we are less able to construct a coherent impression for incongruent conjunctions, but this does not occur for congruent conjunctions.

Dr. Hutter is also interested in aspects of identity and the mere exposure effect. Crisp and Hutter (under review) have found that the classic mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968) is moderated by social identity threat when targets are outgroup members. That is, greater exposure to outgroup members leads to greater liking under normal conditions. However, when outgroup members appear to threaten ingroup identity (e.g., by ostensibly rating ingroup names as less likeable), then a reversal of the mere exposure effect is observed -- more exposure leads to less liking. A recent vein of Dr. Hutter’s research involves the observation that physical movements can influence emotion and subsequent cognitions -- embodied cognition (Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988). Currently, he is investigating the effects of embodied cognition on potential bias reduction and aggression.