Department of Psychology, Social Psychology Area
New York University
Incoming Assistant Professor (Fall 2026)
Department of Psychology, Cognitive Science Area
Stony Brook University
Center for Conflict and Cooperation
6 Washington Place, Room 522
New York, NY 10003
raunak [dot] pillai [at] nyu [dot] edu
I am a social cognitive psychologist studying the nature of beliefs and belief updating.
My research examines the basic psychological processes by which we distinguish true from false information in our social environments. A central aim of my work is to address this question by integrating distinct theoretical perspectives from cognitive, social, and political psychology. Thus, I investigate how mental processes like memory, language processing and decision-making shape what people believe, as well as how such individual-level faculties are affected by interpersonal processes like social influence and intergroup dynamics to ultimately shape macro-level phenomena like the formation of public opinion. In addressing these basic questions, I aim to inform solutions to pressing problems like the spread of false and misleading information online.