Nalini Ambady, Psychologist of Intuition, Is Dead at 54

Her death, from leukemia, was announced by Stanford University, where she had taught since 2011.

In “Blink,” subtitled “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” Mr. Gladwell explored the psychology of intuition, snap judgments and gut reactions. The book prominently features Professor Ambady’s work, which centered on the cognitive processes underpinning intuition. Her findings are notable for upending long-held prejudices about the validity of first impressions.

To make snap judgments, Professor Ambady found, people draw unconsciously on a series of nonverbal cues, including facial expression and body language — things a poker player might call “tells” — which determine their initial response to people and situations.

In an article published in 1992 in the journal Psychological Bulletin, she and the psychologist Robert Rosenthal coined the term “thin slices” to describe these nonverbal snapshots. Significantly, they found that information gleaned from thin slices resembles information garnered from long observation to a far greater degree than supposed.

“In 40 milliseconds, people can accurately judge what we are saying with our expression,” Professor Ambady told The New York Times in 2007.

The upshot, for good or ill, helps determine a welter of daily social choices, including whom one sits next to on the bus and whom one hires for a job.

In a seminal experiment they reported in a 1993 article, Professors Ambady and Rosenthal had students view soundless 10-second videos of professors teaching. The students were asked to rate each professor, none of whom they knew, for qualities including honesty, likability, competence and professionalism.

When their responses were compared with evaluations from students who had studied with those professors for an entire semester, they correlated to a striking degree. The article, published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reported that the correlation held even when the videos were trimmed to only two seconds.

Nalini Ambady (pronounced NAH-lih-nee am-BAH-dee) was born in Calcutta on March 20, 1959. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi, she earned a master’s in psychology from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., followed by a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard.

Before joining the Stanford faculty, Professor Ambady taught at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.; Harvard; and Tufts University.

Professor Ambady’s recent work examined the intersection of first impressions with racial and cultural stereotypes. In a 2011 study, she and colleagues asked subjects to determine the race of people depicted in a series of photographs whose skin tones ranged from very dark to very light.

Viewing photos of people whose race was ambiguous, subjects were more likely to deem them white if they were shown in business attire and more likely to deem them black if they were dressed as janitors.

Professor Ambady, who lived in Palo Alto, Calif., is survived by her husband, Raj Marphatia; two daughters, Maya and Leena; her mother, Vijayalaxmi; her father, Shanker; and a brother, Govind.

Her honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Bill Clinton.

As was widely reported in the news media, Professor Ambady was the subject of a yearlong international campaign to find a bone marrow donor. (When she became ill, she learned that Asians — and minorities in general — are vastly underrepresented in United States donor registries.)

Though the campaign ultimately turned up a dozen potential donors in India, some proved to be imperfect matches. Others declined to follow through with a donation.

On her arrival at Stanford, Professor Ambady founded the Center for Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions, a research institution at the university that seeks to deploy social psychology in the service of social change.

The center’s portfolio encompasses health care, justice and law, conflict resolution and environmental issues. As a result of Professor Ambady’s medical odyssey, it now also includes Be the Donor, an initiative designed to better recruit and retain bone marrow donors.

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