Dr Brandon Stewart PhD

School of Psychology
Lecturer in Social Psychology

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 4939
Email
b.stewart@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Stewart is an experimental Social Psychologist with research interests in social cognition, intergroup relations, and ageing. Much of his research focuses on how goals and environments influence automatic and controlled thinking to produce prejudice and influence intergroup relations and decision making.

Qualifications

MPH (University of Massachusetts)
MA (Ohio State University)
PhD (Ohio State University)

Biography

Dr Stewart completed his PhD in Social Psychology at the Ohio State University in December 2007. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Social and Cognitive Aging at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia in 2008 and 2009 before moving to the University of Birmingham in January 2010 as a Lecturer in Social Psychology and Social Cognitive Neuroscience.

Teaching

Introduction to Social Psychology at Level 2 (Module Leader), Social Cognition at Level 3 (Module Leader).

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Stewart welcomes applications from enthusiastic students who have performed well in their studies (i.e., first class degree) and who have an interest in experimental psychology studying social cognition, prejudice, intergroup relations, or ageing, especially examining the automatic and controlled components of these phenomena. My students have access to good research computers for conducting experiments as well as the School’s EEG lab and fMRI lab. For information on PhD projects, please email me at b.stewart@bham.ac.uk.

Primary advisor for:

  • Laura Kimberley (Internally and externally imposed egalitarian goals and stereotyping)
  • David Morris (Ideology, morality, intergroup relations, and prejudice reduction)
  • Fyqa Gulzaib (Judging perspectives, intergroup relations, and prejudice reduction)

Secondary advisor for:

  • Laura Healy (Self-regulation, goal striving, and disengagement from sport performance)
  • Doris Mastosic (Coaching, Self-regulation, and sport performance)

Research

Dr Stewart is an experimental Social Psychologist with research interests in social cognition, intergroup relations, and ageing. Much of his research focuses on how goals and environments influence automatic and controlled thinking to produce prejudice and influence intergroup relations and decision making.

Examples of research questions include:

How does changing the framing of appeals about intergroup interactions influence prejudice and collective action, for both majority and minority members?

When do people accept externally imposed egalitarian goals?

Does changing implicit bias (automatic stereotyping/prejudice) alter actual behaviour and decision making?

Why do behavioural measures of executive control fail to tap the same kinds of processes as meta-cognitive measures, and why do these types of measures predict health, happiness, and well-being differently, regardless of age?

Other activities

He also belongs to the following professional societies:

  • Association for Psychological Science
  • Society for Personality and Social Psychology
  • European Association for Social Psychology

Publications

Mastosic, D., Ntoumanis, N., Boardley, I., Sedikides, C., Stewart, B.D., Chatzisarantis, N. (Accepted 2015). Narcissism and Coach Behaviours: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.

Healy, L.C., Ntoumanis, N., Stewart, B.D., & Duda, J.L. (2015) Predicting subsequent task performance from goal motivation and goal failure. Front. Psychol. 6:926. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00926

Ntoumanis, N., Healy, L. C., Sedikides, C., Duda, J., Stewart, B.D., Smith, A., & Bond, J. (2014). When the going gets tough: The “why” of goal striving matters.  Journal of Personality, 82, 225-236. doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12047

Kimberley, L. F., Stewart, B. D., & Quinn, K. A. (under review). The Prospect of Noncompliance with Externally Imposed Egalitarian Goals Increases Stereotype Accessibility. European Journal of Social Psychology.

Stewart, B. D., von Hippel, W., & Henry, J. D. (in press). Evidence for Preserved Emotional Control Despite Deficits in Cognitive Control and Distinct Influences of Affective Words and Faces among Older Adults. Psychology and Aging.

Stewart, B. D., von Hippel, W., & Radvansky, G. A. (2009). Age, race, and implicit prejudice: Using process dissociation to separate the underlying components. Psychological Science, 20, 164-168. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02274.x

Stewart, B. D., & Payne, B. K. (2008). Bringing automatic stereotyping under control: Implementation intentions as an efficient means of thought control. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1332-1345. doi.org/10.1177/0146167208321269

Payne, B. K., & Stewart, B. D. (2007). A process dissociation approach to automaticity and control. In J. A. Bargh (Ed.) Social psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Weary1, G., Vaughn1, L. A., Stewart1, B. D., & Edwards, J. A. (2006). Adjusting for the correspondence bias: Effects of causal uncertainty, cognitive busyness, and causal strength of situational information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 87-94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.01.003

Payne, B. K., Cheng, C. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D. (2005). An inkblot for attitudes: Affect misattribution as implicit measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 277-293. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.277