I am interested in the cognitive processes that influence social judgment, behavior, and motivation outside of conscious awareness. My work investigates these effects from two complementary perspectives. The first examines the basic cognitive mechanisms that underlie nonconscious processes. Conceptually, this approach is summarized by the Situated Inference Model (Loersch & Payne, 2011). This theory provides a novel mechanism for understanding both how and when accessible information will exert an influence on judgment, behavior, and motivation and is supported by a number of research lines testing its various predictions. My second area of work is focused on understanding the overarching social influences that have shaped these nonconscious processes. This research examines the various ways that belonging to social groups influences behavior outside of conscious awareness and includes work examining how social forces affect our responses to music and alcohol advertising. I also examine the impact of alcohol consumption on the mental processes that produce the above effects and the neural underpinnings of these processes as measured by event-related brain potentials. PDFs for this work are available for download on my homepage.