Calvin Lai studies how people create, interpret, and maintain social group distinctions. Lai is particularly interested in implicit biases: automatic or unconscious mental processes that create a gap between what people value (e.g., racial equality) and what people do (e.g., racial discrimination). His research focuses on (1) learning how implicit biases change, (2) understanding the consequences of implicit bias for behavior, and (3) developing interventions to reduce the impact of implicit biases on behavior.