Anthony Pratkanis is interested in how the social world influences our attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. His research program has investigated such topics as the delayed effects of persuasion, attitudes and memory, groupthink, affirmative action, subliminal persuasion, mass communications, source credibility, persuasion and democracy, and a variety of influence tactics such as the pique technique, phantoms, the projection tactic, and altercasting.
Most recently, Professor Pratkanis has evaluated the success of the U.S. military’s psychological warfare campaign in Iraq, as well as the Bush administration’s attempts to build public support for military action domestically and abroad.