Chad  Forbes

  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Psychology
  • 561-297-3373
  • forbesc@fau.edu
  • Boca Raton - BS-12, 213

Education

  • B.A., Long Beach State University, M.A., University of Arizona, Ph.D., University of Arizona, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Research Interests

  • The role of systemic bias and social stereotypes in shaping stigmatized individuals’ brain network interactions, memories, domain identification, self-perceptions, and health over time. 
  • How social stereotypes shape perceivers’ brain network interactions and perceptions of stigmatized individuals to perpetuate bias. 
  • Developing strategies that optimize learning environments for stigmatized individuals at multiple stages of development.  
  • The role of autobiographical memory reconstruction processes in self-enhancement and self-esteem maintenance processes. 
  • How stress alters brain network interactions to influence executive function, memory, and emotion regulation 

Research Description

The Forbes Social Neuroscience Laboratory at Florida Atlantic University examines the tenets and dynamic modulation of self and identity as a function of biology, memory, context, and time. We are particularly interested in how these factors interact and are shaped in relation to societal forces like systemic bias and negative group stereotypes that engender prejudice towards and stigma amongst the disenfranchised in our society. Specifically, the Forbes lab employs a variety of methods, including brain-based measures targeting more non-conscious and affective psychological processes (e.g., EEG, fMRI and genetics) and big data assessments targeting systemic societal factors (e.g., regional levels of bias, segregation and diversity), to better understand how priming negative stereotypes associated with stigmatized individuals in our society, e.g. ethnic minorities and women, may ironically engender situations where these individuals inadvertently reinforce the stereotype. These situations of stereotype reinforcement can bias the way stigmatized individuals perceive themselves in certain domains and bias how others perceive them to adversely affect various behavioral and health outcomes among the stigmatized. More recently we have examined how employing more targeted strategies in the classroom can optimize learning environments for stigmatized individuals by countering the deleterious consequences that individual bias, and systemic racism and sexism have on their desire to persevere in stigmatize domains. Through this truly interdisciplinary approach we have discovered mechanistic explanations for hollowed psychological and philosophical questions concerning how one comes to know thyself in relation to their social world. 

Recent Publications

  • Liu, M., Backer, R. A., Amey, R. C., & Forbes, C. E. (2021). How the brain negotiates divergent executive processing demands: Evidence of network reorganization during fleeting brain states.  NeuroImage. 
  • Splan, E., & Forbes, C. E. (2021). Associations of Regional Racial Attitudes with Chronic Illness in the United States.  Social Science & Medicine. 
  • Splan, E., & Forbes, C. E. (2021). Fight or flight: The role of context on biased intergroup shooting behaviors.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 
  • Liu, M., Backer, R. A., Amey, R. C., Splan, E. E., Magerman, A., & Forbes, C. E. (2021). Context matters: Situational stress impedes functional reorganization of intrinsic brain connectivity during problem solving.  Cerebral Cortex,  31(4), 2111-2124. 
  • Olcaysoy Okten, I., Magerman, A.B., & Forbes, C.E. (2020). Behavioral and neural indices of trust formation in cross-race and same-race interactions.  Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics. 
  • Thornson, K. R., Forbes, C. E., Magerman, A. B., & West, T. V. (2019). Under threat but engaged: Stereotype threat leads women to engage with female but not male partners in math.  Contemporary Educational Psychology. 
  • Forbes, C. E., Amey, R., Magerman, A. B., Duran, K., & Liu, M (2018). Stereotype-based stressors facilitate emotional memory neural network connectivity and encoding of negative information to degrade math self-perceptions among women.  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 
  • Liu, M., Amey, R., & Forbes, C. E (2017). On the role of situational stressors in the disruption of global neural network stability during problem solving.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29(12), 2037-2053.  
  • Leitner, J.B., Ayduk, O., Mendoza-Denton, R., Magerman, A., Amey, R., Kross, E., & Forbes, C. E. (2017). Self-distancing Improves Interpersonal Perceptions and Behavior by Decreasing Medial Prefrontal Cortex Activity During the Provision of Criticism.  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 
  • Forbes, C. E., Duran, K. A., Leitner, J. B., & Magerman, A. (2015). Stereotype Threatening Contexts Enhance Encoding of Negative Feedback to Engender Underperformance and Anxiety. Social Cognition, 33(6), 605. 
  • Forbes, C. E., Leitner, J. B., Jordan, K., Magerman, A., Schmader, T., & Allen, J. J. B. (2014). Spontaneous default mode network phase locking moderates performance perceptions under stereotype threat.  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.nsu145 
  • Forbes, C. E., & Leitner, J. B. (2014). Stereotype threat engenders neural attentional bias towards negative feedback to undermine performance.  Biological Psychology.  DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.07.007 
  • Forbes, C. E. (2014). On social neuroscience methodologies and their applicability to group processes and intergroup relations.  Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.DOI:10.1177/1368430214546070 
  • Leitner, J. B., Hehman, E., Jones, J. M., & Forbes, C. E. (2014) Self-enhancement influences medial frontal cortex alpha power to social rejection feedback.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.  DOI:10.1162/jocn_a_00645