Professor Robert S. Wyer, Jr., has research interests in social cognition, cognitive mediators of inferences, and beliefs about people and events. His specific interests include the role of construct accessibility in the interpretation of and memory for information, the cognitive representation of person and event information in memory, and the cognitive organization of beliefs and attitudes; communication processes in natural conversations and their effects on person impressions, determinants of human elicitation; the role of stories and narratives in information processing; visual vs. verbal information processing; consumer judgment and decision making.

Professor Wyer is a past editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and the Journal of Consumer Psychology. He has received a number of awards, including the 2008 Distinguished Scientist Award (from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology), the 1998 Thomas M. Ostrom Award for Distinguished Contributions to Person Memory and Social Cognition, and the Alexandr von Humboldt Special Research Prize for Distinguished Scientists. Dr. Wyer is currently a Visiting Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Primary Interests:

Attitudes and Beliefs
Culture and Ethnicity
Interpersonal Processes
Judgment and Decision Making
Nonverbal Behavior
Person Perception
Personality, Individual Differences
Social Cognition

Attitudes and Beliefs
Culture and Ethnicity
Interpersonal Processes
Judgment and Decision Making
Nonverbal Behavior

Person Perception
Personality, Individual Differences
Social Cognition

Books:

Journal Articles:

Adaval, R., Isbell, L. M., & Wyer, R. S. (2007). The impact of pictures on narrative-based impression formation: A process interference model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 352-364.
Adaval, R., & Wyer, R. S. (2004). Communicating about a social interaction: Effects on memory for protagonists' statements and nonverbal behaviors. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(4), 450-465.
Colcombe, S J,. & Wyer, R. S. (2002). The role of prototypes in the mental representation of temporally related events. Cognitive Psychology, 44, 67-103.
Shen, H., & Wyer, R. S. (2008). Procedural priming and consumer judgments: Effects on the impact of positively and negataively valenced information. Journal of Consumer Research, 34, 727-737.
Wyer, R. S., & Collins, J. E. (1992). A theory of humor elicitation. Psychological Review, 99, 663-688.
Wyer, R. S., Hung, I. W., & Jiang, Y. (2008). Visual and verbal processing strategies in comprehension and judgment. Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Wyer, R. S., & Radvansky, G. A. (1999). The comprehension and validation of social information. Psychological Review, 106, 89-118.
Xu, A. J., & Wyer, R. S. (2007). The effect of mindsets on consumer decision strategies. Journal of Consumer Research, 34, 556-566.

Other Publications:

Wyer, R. S. (2007). Principles of mental representation. In A. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.). Social psychohlogy: Handbook of basic principles, 2nd ed. (pp. 285-231). New York: Guilford.
Wyer, R. S., Adaval, R., & Colcombe, S. J. (2002). Narrative-based representations of social knowledge: Their construction and use in comprehension, memory and judgment. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 131-197). San Diego: Academic Press.
Wyer, R. S., & Albaraccin, D. (2005). Belief formation, orgnaizatioin and change: Cognitive and motivational influences. In D. Albarracin, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.) Handbook of attitudes and attitude change (pp. 273-322). Mahwah, NJH: Erlbaum.
Wyer, R. S., Clore, G. L., & Isbell, L. M. (1999). Affect and information processing. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 31, pp. 1-77). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Robert S. Wyer
Department of Marketing
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Clear Water Bay
Kowloon
Hong Kong

Phone: 011 (852) 2358 7713
Fax: 011 (852) 2358 2429