David Amodio is an American scientist who examines the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying social behavior, with a focus on self-regulation and intergroup relations.
[5][6] His research has revealed that social motivations and attitudes can shape the earliest stages of face processing in vision.
[10][11] Amodio is also the author of an influential review of the brain's role in social cognition,[12] and he has received attention for his study showing that political liberals and conservatives differ in patterns of brain activity associated with cognitive control[13]—an early example of research in the field of political neuroscience.
Although his questions often address classic social psychological issues, Amodio's approach is interdisciplinary; he integrates theory and methodology from social psychology, cognitive and affective neuroscience, and psychophysiology to inform his hypotheses and the designs of his studies.
Amodio has been recognized for his research contributions with awards such as the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House, the Janet T. Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science, the F. J. McGuigan Early Career Investigator Prize from the American Psychological Foundation, the Early Career Award for Contribution to Social Cognition from the International Social Cognition Network, and the SAGE Young Scholars Award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.