Welcome to the Social Justice Neuroscience and Psychology Laboratory at the University of Chicago. The aim of our research is to understand how to decrease discrimination. Specifically, our research explores how social categories such as race, gender, and sexual orientation influence prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Broadly, we are interested in how perception, emotion, cognition, and motivation shape intergroup relations and social justice. The ultimate goal of our work is to use empirical evidence to inform policy by identifying and characterizing robust and reliable interventions for prejudice and discrimination, and testing the constraints of these interventions in producing lasting reductions in inequality.
Our lab explores social psychological theory by integrating across the social and neural sciences. We utilize innovative neuroscience and behavioral research methods and quantify when and why intervention is successful. We use a range of techniques, employing a multi-level approach from hormonal determinants (e.g. cortisol), to neural activations (e.g. EEG, fMRI), to behavioral outcomes, with the ultimate goal of understanding social change in real-world situations, such as in economic and judicial contexts. Such an approach will provide insight into the origins of discrimination, how specific interventions operate, and under what circumstances these techniques are practical and predicative of bias reduction.
OUR RESEARCH