Dr. Cacioppo and his lab have three major lines of ongoing research that all rest on multi-level integrative analyses of social behavior.

In a program of research supported by NIMH, Dr. Cacioppo is seeking to understand the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying affect and emotion, with a particular emphasis on individual differences in affective processing.

In a program of research supported by NIA, Dr. Cacioppo is conducting a study of social connectedness and health. A unique aspect of this study is the simultaneous collection of economic, sociological, interpersonal, psychological, autonomic, endocrine, and immunological data in a longitudinal, population-based design.

Dr. Cacioppo is particularly interested in the control of glucose metabolism during aging. In a program of research supported by NSF, he and his lab are examining cognitive and emotional processes underlying social categorizations, stereotyping, and prejudice. He has developed experimental paradigms for creating social categories and prejudices in the lab, and he is using traditional social psychological (explicit and implicit) measurements as well as event-related brain potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the psychological and neural mechanisms.