GRADUATE RESEARCHERS

Levi Adelman

ladelman@psych.umass.edu

My work focuses generally on the psychology of intergroup relations and understanding what inhibits positive interactions between groups and what can be done to improve those interactions.

Currently my work is looking at how different minority groups interact in order to understand when they compete vs. cooperate with each other. Other lines of study that I am interested in include the study of beliefs that get in the way of conflict resolution and reconciliation for groups that are in conflict with each other. I am also interested in stereotyping and stereotype threat and the factors that lead some individuals to improve their performance while performance decreases for other individuals.

Tara C. Dennehy

tdennehy@psych.umass.edu

http://people.umass.edu/tdennehy/

I received my Master of Arts in Psychological Research (Mind, Brain, & Behavior) at San Francisco State University in May 2011. With Dr. Buju Dasgupta, my research aims to examine (a) the impact of situational threatening cues on women and minorities' interpersonal behavior in acheivement domains, and (b) factors relating to the underrepresentation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. This second line of research is based on the Stereotype Inoculation Model developed by Dr. Buju Dasgupta (Dasgupta, 2011, Psychological Inquiry). For more information about my research, please visit my webpage.

Melissa McManus Scircle

mmcmanus@psych.umass.edu

My research seeks to identify interventions that reduce stereotyping and prejudice. My dissertation research examines how different ways of describing multiculturalism can, in some cases, increase bias toward ethnic minority groups, and in other cases decrease bias. A second line of research examines whether educating people about, or making people aware of, implicit (unconscious) race bias influences peoples’  attitudes, behaviors, and emotional responses to the message, and identifies what type of educational message is more vs. less effective. Together these two lines of research provide valuable insight into how to present prejudice-reduction messages to the public in an effective manner. In a final separate line of research I am working on an NSF-funded project that seeks to identify effective interventions to inoculate girls and women’s self-concept against negative gender stereotypes that allege women are weaker in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) compared to men.

When I’m not conducting research, you might find me teaching a class (I love teaching Junior Year Writing), cooking/baking, knitting, running, or playing with my pet rabbit, Thumper.

Kumar Yogeeswaran (PhD, 2012)

kumar@psych.umass.edu

http://people.umass.edu/kyogeesw

At the broadest level, my research interests lie in the realm of intergroup relations. This interest is fuelled by the desire to understand how people’s membership in particular groups (e.g. ethnic, racial, or national groups) shape their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward others as well as their own self-conceptions. For my research, I use different methods including reaction time measures, self-report measures, and electrophysiological measures.

My primary research examines Americans’ perceptions of diversity—its antecedents and consequences. Recent research demonstrates that Americans of all races perceive White individuals as more authentically American than ethnic minorities born and raised in the United States. Based on these findings, I am interested in two broad questions:
(a) Do race-based stereotypes about who is authentically American influence people's behaviors and judgments toward individuals who are not White?
(b) If race-based stereotypes about who is authentically American lead to discriminatory behavior, what are conditions that strengthen versus weaken these stereotypes?

Outside my primary line of work, I am involved in research investigating: (1) the relationship between intergroup emotion and implicit prejudice using Event-Related Brain Potentials (in collaboration with Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta and Ariel Pressman); (2) the role of implicit stereotypes in the legal domain (in collaboration with Dr. Jerry Kang & Dr. Gary Blasi at the UCLA Law School); and (3) the effect of threat and anxiety on intergroup relations (in collaboration with Dr. David Butz at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst).

Kumar is now an Associate Professor at University of Christchurch in New Zealand.

Jane Stout (PhD, 2011)

jgstout@psych.umass.edu

http://blogs.umass.edu/jgstout

My work focuses on the way that subtle cues in the social environment can signal to an individual that, because of the social group to which they belong, s/he may not "fit" in that environment. This poor sense of belonging, which is based on one's social identity is termed social identity threat. I look at the pernicious effects of social identity threat on motivation and achievement as well as interventions and strategies that people might use to promote engagement and confidence in identity threatening achievement contexts.

Jane is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Matthew Hunsinger (PhD, 2010)

Matthew_Hunsinger@urmc.rochester.edu

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/people/28123378-matthew-r-hunsinger

My research spans social psychology and medicine.  My primary interest in social psychology is intergroup bias with a focus on internal and external conditions that attenuate (e.g., meditation) or amplify (e.g., negative emotional states) implicit prejudice and stereotyping.  My biomedical research focuses on pain and pain treatment. Currently, I am conducting secondary analyses on clinical drug trials for analgesics to understand which patient and design characteristics moderate assay sensitivity.

Luis Rivera (PhD, 2006)

luis@psychology.rutgers.edu

http://risclab.rutgers.edu/home.html

My research focuses on the social cognitive processes that influence intergroup attitudes, the self, and behavior, with a special emphasis on those processes that lie outside of conscious awareness, intention, or control. Currently, my research program is guided by the following questions: What are the conditions under which the motivation to affirm one’s self-concept might have a paradoxical effect and exacerbate prejudice? Do stereotypes and prejudices remain confined to people’s minds, or do they manifest in behaviors that shape social inequalities, health disparities, and education performance? Finally, how do implicit and explicit processes work in concert to influence beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors?

Shaki Asgari (PhD, 2003)

SAsgari@iona.edu

http://www.iona.edu/academic/artsscience/departments/psychology/faculty/sasgari.cfm

My first line of research addresses factors that can enhance or deflate stereotypic self-beliefs. 

A major component of this research explores conditions under which exposure to counter-stereotypic environments (i.e., encountering counter-stereotypic ingroup members) can benefit or harm individuals’ beliefs about their own qualities, characteristics and abilities. 

My second line of research focuses on how race and social class might interact to influence performance evaluations in various domains. Of particular interest is the differential and joint influence of race and social class on the evaluation of individuals’ potential for success in highly competitive environments. The outcome of my studies so far show that although in general individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds are perceived as less capable of success in competitive environments, race presents an additive disadvantage so that African Americans from a higher socioeconomic background are evaluated less positively compared to their White American counterparts of the same socioeconomic background. Based on these results, I am currently designing new experiments to investigate individuals’ perception of deservingness as a function of the interaction between social class and race.