Research
Laboratory for the Study of Social & Cultural Phenomena
Current Research Lines
- The Intergroup Sensitivity Effect (ISE) Among Racial Groups - One important stimulus for growth is to receive and thoughtfully respond to legitimate
criticism. This is true for both individuals and groups. The ISE refers to the tendency
for people to react more negatively when their ingroup is criticized by an outgroup
member versus an ingroup member. We are conducting studies to document the ISE among
racial groups and explore ways that the ISE can be reduced so that legtimate criticism
is more likely to lead to growth.
- Collaborators: Dr. Diana Riser, Columbus State University & Jessica Bray, University of Texas at El Paso
- Resistance to Change and Political Ideology - The motivated social cognition model of political ideology posits that one core
facet of conservative ideology is resistance to change (RTC). My students and I recently
developed a survey measure of RTC (White et al., 2019). At the same time, several
other researchers were also developing their own RTC measures. I am currently collaborating
with all of these researchers to distill items from these many measures down into
one or two cross-culturally valid measures of RTC.
- Collaborators: Mark Brandt (Tilberg University), Shaul Oreg (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Onurcan Yilmaz (Kadir Has University), Artur Nilsson (Lund University), & Flavio Azevedo (Friedrich Schiller University)
Interested in an Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) position?
I recruit and accept new URAs by application only. Each spring semester I send an email to all psychology majors announcing that I am currently accepting applications for URA positions in my lab. The email contains the application form and requires that you also obtain at least two recommendations from other faculty members. To be eligible for an URA position, you must have earned at least a B in PSYC 2500, commit to working in my lab for a minimum of two semesters, and sign up for PSYC 4400 (Directed Studies) for at least one of those semesters.
If selected, you would help with my ongoing lines of research (see above). In the process you would learn about study conceptualization/design, materials preparation, securing IRB approval, study pre-registration, data collection, data prep and analysis in SPSS, and the presentation of research results at professional conferences.
Current Undergraduate Research Assistants (URAs) - Grace Bowe, Avery Britt, Alondra Guerrero, Isabela Layton, Christopher Pauyo
URA Alumni - Brooke Cassanova. Amilynn Graham, Charles Harben, Ida Hepso, Scarlet Hernandez, Kaelyn Ireland, Dakota Kinney, Caleb Lang, Chloe McLaughlin, Kyle Sheinfeld, Logan Turner, CaSaundra White
Selected Publications
White, K. R. G., Kinney, D., Danek, R. H., Smith, B., & Harben, C. (2020). The Resistance to Change-Beliefs Scale: Validation of a new measure of conservative ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(1), 20–35. https://doi-org.proxy.kennesaw.edu/10.1177/0146167219841624
Jung, K. H., White, K. R. G., & Powanda, S. (2019). Automaticity of gender categorization:
A test of the efficiency feature. Social Cognition, 37, 122-144.
https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2019.37.2.122
