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Blair T. Johnson Title: Professor Departmental Program: Social E-mail: blair.t.johnson@uconn.edu Office: BOUS 179 Office Phone: (860) 486-2511 Web site: http://johnson.socialpsychology.org/ Department of Psychology 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020 University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269-1020 Preferred Means of Contact: E-mail

Research Interests:

• Social-cognitive aspects of the structure and change of attitudes and stereotypes.
• Factors in the psychology and prevention of HIV-infection
• The theory and practice of research synthesis or meta-analysis
• The history of social psychology
• Detailed description. My research is generally concerned with the topic of social influence, a central topic in social psychology (e.g., see Baron, Byrne, & Johnson, 1998). All of my research topics (listed above) are concerned with aspects of social influence: Changing attitudes underlies many forms of social influence, such as HIV prevention (e.g., convincing people to use condoms consistently). Research synthesis is literally a way to integrate data that have accumulated from the studies that have been conducted within a literature (see Johnson, 1989, 1993). Nonetheless, given that researchers in those studies use each others' methods, meta-analysis often boils down tracking patterns of social influence. More importantly, conducting meta-analyses is a form of scientific social influence: By cumulating and then publishing the knowledge known about a phenomenon (an empirical history of a literature, as it were), subsequent researchers can conduct more informed and knowledge-rich studies. Even the study of the history of social psychology easily fits under the social influence umbrella: How, why, and with what means social psychologists have studied the phenemona that they have frequently boils down to social influence. Many areas of research interest, such as attitudes, rise and fall in popularity; standards of judging the contribution of studies change. I currently study each of these deceptively diverse, but actually quite similar, topics. Ongoing projects include (a) the NIMH-supported Syntheses of HIV & AIDS Research Project (SHARP), which is a series of meta-analyses relevant to HIV prevention, (b) studies of risky sexual attitudes and behavior, and (c) a series of studies on the nature of argument quality.

Representative Publications:

• Johnson, B. T., & Eagly, A. H. (2000). Quantitative synthesis of social psychological research. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology (pp. 496-528). London: Cambridge University Press.
• Johnson, B. T., & Eagly, A. H. (1989). Effects of involvement on persuasion: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 290-314.
• Johnson, B. T., & Nichols, D. R. (1998). Social psychologists, expertise in the public interest: Civilian morale research during World War II. Journal of Social Issues, 54, 53-77.
• Weinhardt, L. S., Carey, M. P., Johnson, B. T., & Bickham, N. (1999). Effects of HIV Counseling and testing on sexual risk behavior: Meta-analytic review of published research, 1985-1997. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1397-1405.
• Albarracin, D., Johnson, B. T., Fishbein, M., & Muellerleile, P. A. (in press). Theories of reasoned action and planned behavior as models of condom use: A Meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin.

Other:

• Associate Editor, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1999 and 2000.
• Consulting Editor, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1/96-present.
• Consulting Editor, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1/94-12/97.
• Awarded Research Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation,
• Awarded NIH Scientist Development Award, 1995.