Russell Hutter

University of Leeds, Institute of Psychological Sciences, Faculty Member

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I am an Associate Professor in Social Psychology. My current research interests focus on social cognition, social cognitive neuroscience, and cognition. Specifically, my research centres on how social category conjunctions (multiple categorizations) are represented. This includes the role of inhibition and executive function involving some aging and patient work.

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Social cognition and attitudes

Causal reasoning and social-category combination

Causal reasoning has been proposed as critical for deriving impressions from conflicting social-c... more Causal reasoning has been proposed as critical for deriving impressions from conflicting social-category information, but research to date has relied primarily on participant introspection. To provide a more objective test, we adapted methods from studies of the causal status hypothesis, which asserts that features that 'cause' or 'explain' the presence of other features are more central to mental representation. We hypothesized that 'emergent' attributes (that are part of neither constituent stereotype but are part of the combination, and that tend to characterise incongruent rather than congruent social-category combinations) would possess this 'causal status' – particularly in the case of incongruent-category combinations, because of the presumably greater need for causal reasoning to reconcile incongruent versus congruent categories. Participants generated attributes for targets that belonged to multiple social categories, where the stereotypes associated with these categories were congruent, incongruent, or unrelated to one another (in terms of gender and occupational stereotypes); participants then rated the typicality and goodness-of-fit of target individuals whose descriptions highlighted gender-constituent attributes, role-constituent attributes, or emergent attributes. The results indicated that emergent attributes were more central to participants' representations of the social-category combinations – particularly for incongruent-category combinations – suggesting that causal reasoning is implicated in social-category combination and emergent-attribute generation.

‘Baby brain’ in pregnancy: A review of social psychological explanations and future research directions

Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Jun 11, 2022

The colloquial concept of 'baby brain' suggests that throughout pregnancy and into the immediate ... more The colloquial concept of 'baby brain' suggests that throughout pregnancy and into the immediate postpartum period, women have reduced cognitive abilities and are more distracted, forgetful, and incompetent. To date, a plethora of cognitive and neuropsychological research testing the cognitive functioning of pregnant women relative to other groups has yielded inconsistent and unclear findings. However, there is a notable lack of literature that adopts a social psychological perspective, critically assessing the contribution of social context to the 'baby brain' phenomenon. In this paper, we review the current 'baby brain' literature and outline two potential social perspectives that provide insights into this research area: stereotype threat theory and objectification theory. We argue that inconsistencies in the 'baby brain' cognitive literature may be impacted by under-explored social phenomena, which may result from activation of stereotypes or objectifying cues throughout pregnancy and into early new motherhood. We end with suggestions for future social and personality psychological research directions in the area of 'baby brain'.

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Him or Them: The Effect of Individuating Social Category Conjunctions

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Blame it on her ‘baby brain’? Investigating the contents of social stereotypes about pregnant women's warmth and competence

British Journal of Social Psychology, Oct 17, 2022

The Stereotype Content Model proposes that social stereotypes broadly exist along two dimensions:... more The Stereotype Content Model proposes that social stereotypes broadly exist along two dimensions: warmth and competence. This framework has been used to investigate the contents of stereotypes of gendered groups in a range of contexts. However, it has not been extensively applied to perceptions of pregnant women. This is important, given how pregnant women are typically framed by society to have ‘baby brain’ or reduced competence. Therefore, we investigated the contents of social stereotypes of pregnant women. In Study 1, participants (N = 590) rated a target group (pregnant women) and thirteen other comparison groups on perceptions of warmth (compassion, empathy and comfort) and competence (mathematics ability, logic and memory). Pregnant women were generally stereotyped to have low competence and high warmth, relative to other groups. Study 2 (N = 54) then descriptively investigated the wider contents of stereotypes related to pregnant women, new mothers, men and women using a trait generation task. Generated traits were coded within the dimensions of warmth and competence. This showed, again, that pregnant women were assigned traits related to warmth and poor competence. Taken together, these studies confirmed that perceptions of low competence and ‘baby brain’ in pregnancy is broadly held by a non‐pregnant sample.

Math Question Type and Stereotype Threat: Evidence from Educational Settings

Social Cognition, Jun 1, 2016

The mere effort account of task performance posits that task evaluation apprehension leads to per... more The mere effort account of task performance posits that task evaluation apprehension leads to performance concerns, motivating task-takers to do well and thus potentiating a dominant response. When applied to stereotype threat (ST), mere effort posits that ST motivates test-takers to disprove a stereotype, facilitating a prepotent solve response, augmenting solve type question (e.g., equations) performance, but decreasing comparison type question (e.g., estimations) performance. We tested the mere effort account of ST. In Experiment 1, undergraduates (women) engaged in a practice statistics exam. ST did not facilitate performance on solve questions, but it debilitated performance on comparison questions. In Experiment 2, middle and high school students (girls and boys) engaged in a math practice exam. ST augmented girls' performance on solve questions and debilitated performance on comparison questions. The manipulation that produced stereotype threat in girls lifted boys' performance. This research documents mere effort ST effects in educational settings.

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Agency Comp. Warmth Prejudice as Context-Specific Evaluations: A Matter of Shifting Standards and Evaluative Dimension

Gender x Dimension: F(1, 86) = 7.97, p <.01, ηp2 =.09

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Individuation through emergent attributes application in incongruent social conjunctions

The importance of relative subgroup and superordinate identification in common in-group contexts

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Tackling student binge drinking: Pairing incongruent messages and measures reduces alcohol consumption

British Journal of Health Psychology, 2014

This is a repository copy of Tackling student binge drinking: pairing incongruent messages and me... more

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Transfer appropriate forgetting: The cue-dependent nature of retrieval-induced forgetting

Journal of Memory and Language, 2004

Retrieval-induced forgetting is the failure to recall a previously studied word following repeate... more Retrieval-induced forgetting is the failure to recall a previously studied word following repeated retrieval of a related item. It has been argued that this is due to retrieval competition between practiced and unpracticed items, which results in inhibition of the non-recalled item, detectable with an independent cue at final test. Three experiments were conducted in which two cues were associated with a target item at encoding. All three studies demonstrated retrieval-induced forgetting when the same retrieval cue was present at practice and test, but not when the second encoding cue was used as an independent probe at final test. These data are not compatible with a general inhibitory account of retrievalinduced forgetting, but support a context-specific account of the phenomenon.

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Goal prioritization and behavior change: Evaluation of an intervention for multiple health behaviors

Health Psychology

Memory and mood changes in pregnancy: a qualitative content analysis of women’s first-hand accounts

Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 2022

OBJECTIVE This qualitative study aimed to explore how pregnant women and new mothers self-report ... more OBJECTIVE This qualitative study aimed to explore how pregnant women and new mothers self-report changes to their mood and memory during pregnancy. BACKGROUND Researchers have investigated the various changes that women report throughout their pregnancy. Despite this evidence base, there is a notable lack of studies that take a qualitative approach to understanding how pregnant women and women in the postpartum period experience memory and mood changes through their pregnancy. METHOD The present study involved a qualitative content analysis of women's first-hand accounts. Of the 423 participants who responded, 118 participants provided textual responses to questions about their memory and 288 participants provided textual responses to questions about their mood. Data were collected online via a free-text survey and analysed using both deductive inductive open coding. RESULTS A qualitative content analysis generated four overall categories: two typologies of self-reported memory changes in pregnancy ('short-term memory lapses' and 'chronic memory fog') and two typologies of self-reported mood changes ('mood instability and constant change' and 'low mood and parenting anxiety'). CONCLUSION These typologies represent unique profiles of the memory and mood changes that women experience during pregnancy and serve to accompany and expand the quantitative literature, which documents the changes women experience during pregnancy.

Varying cognitive targets and response rates to enhance the question-behaviour effect: An 8-arm Randomized Controlled Trial on influenza vaccination uptake

Social Science & Medicine, 2017

Rationale: The question-behaviour effect (QBE) refers to the finding that survey questions about ... more Rationale: The question-behaviour effect (QBE) refers to the finding that survey questions about a behaviour can change that behaviour. However, little research has tested how the QBE can be maximized in behavioural medicine settings. The present research tested manipulations of cognitive targets (questions about anticipated regret or beneficence) and survey return rates (presence vs. absence of a sticky note requesting completion of the questionnaire) on the magnitude of the QBE for influenza vaccination in older adults. Method: Participants (N ¼ 13,803) were recruited from general practice and randomly allocated to one of eight conditions: control 1 (no questionnaire); control 2 (demographics questionnaire); intention and attitude questionnaire (with or without a sticky note); intention and attitude plus anticipated regret questionnaire (with or without a sticky note); intention and attitude plus beneficence questionnaire (with or without a sticky note). Objective records of subsequent influenza vaccination from general practice records formed the dependent variable. Results: Intention-to-treat analyses indicated that receiving an influenza vaccination questionnaire significantly increased vaccination rates compared to the no questionnaire, OR ¼ 1.17, 95% CI ¼ 1.01, 1.36 and combined control conditions, OR ¼ 1.13, 95% CI ¼ 1.01, 1.25. Including the sticky note significantly increased questionnaire return rates, OR ¼ 1.25, 95% CI ¼ 1.04, 1.50. However, there were no differences in vaccination rates between questionnaires containing different cognitive targets, a sticky note or not, and no interactions. There were no significant differences in the per-protocol analyses, i.e. among respondents who completed and returned the questionnaires. Conclusion: The QBE is a simple, low-cost intervention to increase influenza vaccination rates. Increasing questionnaire return rates or asking anticipated regret or beneficence questions in addition to intention and attitude questions did not enhance the QBE.

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Applying individuation to conflicting social categories

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2014

The ability to differentiate individuals from their group memberships (individuation) is useful i... more The ability to differentiate individuals from their group memberships (individuation) is useful in forming impressions when social categorization fails to do so. This method is particularly valuable when encountering incongruent social category conjunctions (e.g., female bricklayer). We tested the notion that individuation is initiated when applying cognitively effortful explanatory, emergent attributes to incongruent conjunctions. Incongruent category conjunctions were more likely to be comprised of emergent attributes and individuation moderated the application of these attributes in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, individuation again moderated emergent attribute application for incongruent conjunctions, but cognitive load attenuated the relationship. Allowing or preventing the generation of attributes did not affect individuation for incongruent conjunctions in Experiment 3. This ruled out the possibility that emergent attributes cause increased individuation, but does not rule ou...

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Single-Item Daily Measures

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2016

Intentions, Goal Priority, Goal Conflict, and Exercise Behavior Measures

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2016

Directional cell migration plays an important role in physiological processes, such as living bei... more Directional cell migration plays an important role in physiological processes, such as living beings protection from infections and virus, wound healing, cancer metastasis, etc. Cell migration, among other things, depend on exposure of chemical concentration gradients on cells. Recently, microfluidic devices have been applied to the study of cell migration. These devices allow to perform precise configure and manipulation of chemical gradients that is opening up new possibilities in studies of complex interactions of cells within a population and an environment. The review is devoted to achievements related to the development of microfluidic devices for the study of chemical gradients influence on cell migration. Moreover, a classification of these devices and their comparison with conventional approaches used in cell biology to solve similar problems have been highlighted.

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Health-Protection and Health-Risk Behavior Measures

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2016

Testing the role of action and inaction anticipated regret on intentions and behaviour

British Journal of Social Psychology, 2016

Anticipated regret has been suggested as a useful addition to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TP... more Anticipated regret has been suggested as a useful addition to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) that captures affective influences. However, previous research has generally: (1) assessed the impact of anticipated regret in relation to one behaviour (action or inaction) when considering TPB variables in relation to the alternative behaviour; (2) not controlled for affective attitudes or past behaviour; and (3) examined only one or two behaviours. In two studies across several behaviours the present research showed that even when controlling for affective attitudes, past behaviour, and other TPB variables towards action, action and inaction anticipated regret each added to the prediction of intentions across multiple behaviours. The two studies also showed that inaction regret was generally the stronger predictor, although action regret was important for some types of behaviour. Implications and issues for further research are discussed.

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Math Question Type and Stereotype Threat: Evidence from Educational Settings

Social Cognition, 2016

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Russell Hutter

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