Talk title: Neural predictors of attitude and behavior change: Self-transcendence effects on intergroup and health outcomes

What promotes adaptive attitude and behavior change?  My research program examines self-transcendence, or the process of redirecting attention from self-interests to the wellbeing of others, as a key mechanism of increasing receptivity to change.  In this talk, I will present psychological and neurocognitive mechanisms of self-transcendence that help make people more open to change in the domains of intergroup attitudes and health behavior. In the intergroup domain, engaging positive other-directed processing can increase considerations of stigmatized outgroup members as potential social partners.  In the health domain, focusing on interpersonal values increases subsequent receptivity to self-relevant health information and predicts greater longitudinal behavior change.  Across these domains, a set of social neuroscience investigations relevant to self-transcendence helps develop generalizations about the nature of real-world attitude and behavior change, with a particular focus on predicting increased receptivity in terms of underlying neural bases of self and social processing.