Social Psychology

KU Social Psychology has achieved a national reputation for excellence in this area, and aspects of this core theme are central to work of Glenn Adams (Decolonial and Liberation Psychology perspectives), Monica Biernat (stereotyping processes), Chris Crandall (prejudice), and Ludwin Molina (power and intergroup relations). One tangible manifestation of this theme is the 2004 conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, hosted at KU and funded by the American Psychological Association, National Science Foundation, and American Psychology and Law Society. KU Social Psychology faculty members collaborated to edit a book based on the conference, Commemorating Brown: The social psychology of racism and discrimination. In 2024, we celebrated the career and retirement of Distinguished Professor Nyla Branscombe with a conference on Social Identity Theory and intergroup relations. Funded by the Jack Brehm Endowment and attended by many former students and colleagues, the conference resulted in the edited volume, Handbook of Social Identity Research.

This core theme is central to the work of Glenn Adams, who studies personal relationship processes as a window into the sociocultural foundations of mind, and Omri Gillath, who uses techniques of cognitive psychology and social neuroscience to study brain mechanisms associated with sex, love, attachment, and prosociality. This theme is also evident in work of Chris Crandall (friendship, attraction and social influence) and Katie Hoemann (emotions as dynamic, relational events). One tangible manifestation of this theme is the KU Close Relationships Interest Group (directed by Gillath), an interdisciplinary forum for relationship research in which members of the KU Social Psychology faculty play a foundational role. Another tangible manifestation of this theme is a 2009 mini-conference of the International Association for Relationship Research organized and hosted at KU with funding from the American Psychological Association. The organizers (Gillath, Adams, and Adrianne Kunkel from the KU Department of Communication Studies) edited a book, Relationship science: Integrating evolutionary, neuroscience, and sociocultural approaches, to disseminate ideas inspired by presentations at the conference. These activities have given KU a reputation as an emerging international center of excellence in the interdisciplinary study of personal relationships.

This core theme is showcased by the work of Katie Hoemann, who studies how the experience and understanding of emotion varies by situation, by person, and by culture. Hoemann directs the Emotions in Context (EMIC) Lab, which uses tools that capture emotions in the field of everyday life, and that allow individuals and communities to speak for themselves. Among other current faculty, this theme appears in work by Omri Gillath (attachment motivational system), Mark Landau (existential motivations using terror management theory), and Chris Crandall (justification motivations). Earlier manifestations of this theme include classic work by the late Jack Brehm (cognitive dissonance, reactance motivation, and intensity of emotions), Professor Emeritus Dan Batson (the empathy altruism hypothesis), and Professor Emerita Nyla Branscombe (collective identity and intergroup emotions). 

Cultural Psychology, Decolonial Psychology, Political Psychology, Social Identity Theory, and Evolutionary Psychology, a final core theme of KU Social Psychology is not a particular topic area, but rather an intellectual orientation toward various collective-level perspectives that link social psychology to other social sciences.

This core theme is exemplified by the work of Glenn Adams, who considers sociocultural foundations of mind via the theoretical perspective of cultural psychology; Omri Gillath, who uses the framework of evolutionary psychology to inform his research on close relationships; Katie Hoemann, who understands emotions as constructed by culture and language; and Ludwin Molina and Chris Crandall, whose work includes a focus on political psychology. Faculty and students in the KU Social Psychology Program have collaborated on research projects, team-taught graduate seminars, and jointly organized conferences and symposia with faculty from African Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Communication Studies, Economics, Geography, History, International Studies, Political Science, and Sociology (for example, the Culture and Psychology Research Group, directed by Adams).