Primary Interests:
- Group Processes
- Intergroup Relations
- Prejudice and Stereotyping
- Self and Identity
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Laurie O'Brien |
My primary research interests are stigma and prejudice. I have studied these topics from both the perpetrators' and targets' perspectives. My research focuses on several interrelated topics: how stigma puts individuals at risk for experiencing threats to their social identity, how ideologies that legitimize status differences between groups affect outcomes such as personal entitlement and well-being, and how people perceive prejudice and discrimination both perpetrated by and directed at the self. These three lines of research explore the interface between the self and prejudice. Collectively, they demonstrate how being either a target or perpetrator of prejudice can challenge one’s sense of self-worth.
I am also interested more broadly in the psychology of legitimacy. For example, I have studied how people seek to undermine the legitimacy of parties attempting to change the social hierarchy. From a functional perspective, my various lines of research share a common interest in the processes that create, perpetuate, and legitimize group differences in social status.
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Laurie O'Brien
Department of Psychology
2007 Percival Stern Hall
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118
United States
Phone: (504) 862-3320
Fax: (504) 862-8744