The LTP Lab examines how 1) lay beliefs about prejudice affect marginalized and privileged group members’ performance, behavior, and health, 2) how and when prejudice confrontations reduce prejudice and impact the health of confronters, and 3) how individual and organizational claims of allyship are perceived. The LTP Lab leverages multiple methodologies, including behavioral, implicit cognition, and physiological, to examine basic and applied questions about how people perceive, experience, and combat prejudice in their day to day lives.
Lay Theories of Prejudice
How do lay theories of prejudice, theories everyday people have about the ways prejudice operates in themselves, others, and society broadly, influence how and when members of stigmatized groups anticipate facing discrimination?
Past research from the LTP Lab has found that White women anticipate negative gender-based treatment from an individual with negative attitudes towards Black Americans, and Black and Latino men anticipate more positive treatment at companies with gender-inclusive bathrooms and gender diversity awards due to a lay theory that prejudices co-occur.
The LTP Lab is currently exploring how such lay theories are learned and how such theories influence attention to identity threat cues and coping responses to discrimination.
Prejudice Confrontations
Do prejudice confrontations influence perpetrator's future expressions of prejudice and impact the health of confronters?
Past LTP Lab research has found that after being confronted, perpetrators used fewer stereotypes about multiple stigmatized groups one week later due to prolonged rumination and has proposed that confrontations serve as an active coping strategy.
The LTP Lab is currently exploring attentional bias to prejudice and diversity messages by individuals who have been confronted for making stereotypical remarks, as well as how prejudice confrontation styles influence confronters' rumination and cardiovascular recovery.
Claims of Allyship
How do marginalized and privileged groups perceive claims of allyship from organizations and individuals?
Past LTP Lab research has found that when organizational claims of allyship are perceived as mere norm adherence (rather than internally motivated), marginalized group members anticipate lower belonging.
The LTP Lab is currently exploring how structural bias impacts perceptions of organizational and individual claims of allyship.
