Kevin Ochsner is currently a Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University.
Kevin received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his Masters degree and Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. He also received postdoctoral training in social psychology at Harvard and functional neuroimaging at Stanford University.
Kevin is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from The Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Columbia University’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award, and the APA Division 3 New Investigator Award.
In 2010 Kevin was identified as 27th most cited Social Psychologist of all time, corrected for stage of career, in an article on citation impact by Nosek et al. published in PSPB. In 2008 Kevin was identified as the most cited Assistant Professor in Social Psychology in an article published in SPSP’s Diologue.
Along with Sarah Wolley, Kevin is Co-Director of the Psychology Undergraduate Honor’s Program. His teaching includes seminars on social cognitive neuroscience as well as a lecture course on experimental psychological methods for studying emotion and social cognition.
Research Focus
Kevin’s research interests include the psychological and neural processes involved in emotion, self-control, and person perception.
All of his work employs a social cognitive neuroscience approach that seeks to integrate the theories and methods of social psychology on the one hand, and cognitive neuroscience on the other.
Select Publications
1. Wager, T. D., Davidson, M., Hughes, B. L., Lindquist, M. A., & Ochsner, K. N. (2008). Prefrontal-subcortical pathways mediating successful emotion regulation. Neuron, 59, 1037-1050. PMID: 18817740
2. McRae, K., Ochsner, K. N., Mauss, I. B., Gabrieli, J. D. E. & Gross, J. J. (2008). Gender Differences in Emotion Regulation: An fMRI study of Cognitive Reappraisal. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 11, 145-162. PMID: requested but not available yet
3. Kross, E., Davidson, M., Weber, J. & Ochsner, K. N. (2009). Coping with emotions past: The neural bases of regulating affect associated with negative autobiographical memories. Biological Psychiatry, 65, 361-366. PMID: 19058792
4. Ochsner, K. N., Ray, R., Robertson, E., Cooper, J., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2009). Top-down and bottom-up processes in emotion generation. Psychological Science, 20(11), 1322-1331. PMID: 19883494
5. Koenigsberg, H. W., Fan, J., Ochsner, K. N. et al. (2009). Neural correlates of the use of distancing by borderline patients to regulate emotional responses to negative social cues. Biological Psychiatry, 66(9),854-863. PMID: 19651401
6. McRae, K., Hughes, B., Chopra, S., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Gross, J. J., & Ochsner, K. N. (2010). The neural bases of distraction and reappraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 248-262. PMID: 19400679
7. Kober, H., Mende-Siedlecki, P., Kross, E. F., Weber, J., Mischel, W., Hart, C. L. & Ochsner, K. N. (2010). A prefrontal-striatal pathway underlies the cognitive regulation of craving. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 14811-14816. PMID: 2067912
8. Ochsner, K. N. & Lieberman, M. D. (2001). The emergence of social cognitive neuroscience. American Psychologist, 56, 717-734. PMID: 11558357
9. Lieberman, M. D., Ochsner, K. N., Gilbert, D. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2001). Do amnesics exhibit cognitive dissonance reduction? The role of explicit memory and attention in attitude change. Psychological Science, 12, 135-140. PMID: 11340922
10. Ochsner, K. N., Bunge, S. A., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 1215-1229. PMID: 12495527
11. Anderson, M. C, Ochsner, K. N, Gabrieli, J. D. E, Kuhl, B., Cooper, J., Robertson, E., & Glover, G. (2004). Neural Systems Underlying the Suppression of Unwanted Memories. Science, 303, 232-235. PMID:14716015
12. Ochsner, K. N., Knierim, K., Ludlow, D., Hanelin, J., Ramachandran, T. & Mackey, S. (2004). Reflecting upon feelings: An fMRI study of neural systems supporting the attribution of emotion to self and other. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(10), 1748-1772. PMID: 15701226
13. Ochsner, K. N. & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5), 242-249. PMID: 15866151
14. Zaki, J. Bolger, N. & Ochsner, K. N. (2008). It takes two: The interpersonal nature of empathic accuracy. Psychological Science,19(4), 399-404. PMID: 18399894
15. Zaki, J., Bolger, N., Weber, J. & Ochsner, K. N. (2009). The neural bases of empathic accuracy.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1167, 16-30. PMID: 19549849