Professor of Psychology
Ph.D. New Mexico State University
Area: Social

Contact Information

Email: oybarra@umich.edu
Psychology Office: 3006 East Hall
Psychology Phone: 734-763-3156

Research and Teaching Interests

I conduct research on social intelligence and how people navigate their web of relationships in a mixed motive world.

My research programs fall along four lines, and the common denominator is that the social and the intellectual support each other. I study how people understand and make decisions about the social aspects of the world versus those related to tasks and work, how people make decisions about others and the cognitive biases that may preclude creating social connections, how social interaction and relationships support and enhance cognitive abilities and performance, and how the cognitively stimulating nature of social interaction is affected by trust and the extent to which people mentalize and attempt to coordinate with one another.

Selected Publications

• Ybarra, O., Chan, E., Park, H., Burnstein, E., Monin, B., & Stanik, C. (2008). Life’s recurring challenges and the fundamental dimensions: An integration and its implications for cultural differences and similarities. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 1083-1092.
• Stephan, W.G., Ybarra, O., & Rios Morrison, K. (In press). Intergroup threat theory. In T.D. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook of Prejudice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Ybarra, O. Burnstein, E., Winkielman, P., Keller, M.C., Manis, M., Chan, E., & Rodriguez, J. (2008). Mental exercising through simple socializing: Social interaction promotes general cognitive functioning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 248-259.
• Sanchez-Burks, J., Neuman, E.J., Ybarra, O., Kopelman, S., Park, H., & Goh, K. (2008). American optimism about the consequences of workgroup conflict. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 1, 53-76.
• Ybarra, O., Keller, M.C., Chan, E., Baron, A.S., Hutsler, J., Garcia, S.M., Sanchez-Burks, J., & Rios Morrison, K. (2007). The social prediction dynamic: A legacy of cognition and mixed-motives. In J.P. Forgas, M.G. Haselton, & B. von Hippel (Eds.), Evolution and the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Social Cognition (pp. 263-277). Psychology Press: New York.
• Chan, E., Ybarra, O., & Schwarz, N. (2006). Reversing the affective congruity effect: The role of target accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 365-372.
• Ybarra, O. (2002). Naive causal understanding of valenced behaviors and its implications for social information processing. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 421-441.
• Ybarra, O., & Chan, E., & Park. D.C. (2001). Young and old adults’ concerns with morality and competence. Motivation and Emotion, 25, 85-100.
• Ybarra, O., & Trafimow, D. (1998). How priming the private self or collective self affects the relative weights of attitudes and subjective norms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 362-370.

Editorial Boards/Consulting Editor

• Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• Social Cognition
• Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Honors and Awards

• Best Empirical Paper, International Association of Conflict Management, 2007
• Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize, 2002

Selected Media Attention

• Forbes
• New York Times
• Los Angeles Times
• BBC
• ABCnews
• U.S. News & World Report
• Washington Post
• USA Today

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