My research focuses on social cognitive neuroscience and uses neuroimaging (fMRI) to explore how automatic and controlled processes interact in producing emotion and emotion regulation, self-knowledge, feelings of social exclusion, attributions about other individuals, placebo effects and automatic behavior. Theoretically, my laboratory relies on Disruption Theory (Lieberman, 2003) to examine how thinking about emotional experiences (a controlled process) can disrupt the neural activity of brain areas that support basic emotional experiences (a largely automatic process).