Psychology of Inequality

Our research examines the dynamics of inequality and combines an experimental focus on how context shapes decision-making

This research theme focuses on the psychological antecedents and consequences of inequality, fleshing out the ways in which societal change both reflects and shapes the individual citizen and their relationships with others.

Inequalities in living conditions and outcomes within nations and across the globe have a strong psychological dimension. Poverty shapes our cognition, emotion, and sociality in ways that matter for decision-making and wellbeing, while experiences of injustice and marginalisation have a corrosive impact on social cohesion, trust, and mental health. At the same time, our behavioural sensitivity to identity, ideology, and status sheds light on how we come to tolerate inequality in the first place, and the political possibilities to improve it.

Researchers in this theme are leading voices in the field of social psychology, who also draw on theory and methods from community and cultural psychology, economics, sociology, and political science. Our research examines the dynamics of inequality as they play out in Global North and Global South settings, and combines an experimental focus on how context shapes decision-making, with a bottom-up, qualitative examination of experiences of exclusion in people’s own voices.

Research on the development of political attitudes uses longitudinal and cross-national surveys, combined with behavioural genetics analyses and pairing with national registry data, to examine how basic orientations toward the resolution of collective resource dilemmas are shaped by forces at the familial, social, and societal level, and influence political outcomes.

Cutting across this methodological diversity is a commitment to a ‘societal’ approach to psychology, wherein the social mind plays a key role at the root, and the resolution, of the most pressing issues of our time.

Expertise and resources

Below you can find experts, research and media focussed on the psychology of inequality.

Dr Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo

Associate Professor

Dr Ilka Gleibs

Associate Professor

Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch

Professor in Social Psychology

Dr Celestin Okoroji

Visiting Fellow

Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Associate Professor

Professor Elizabeth Stokoe

Whitehead, K.A, Raymond, G., & Stokoe, E. (2024). Analyzing social categories in talk-in-interaction. In J.D. Robinson, R. Clift, K. Kendrick, & C. Raymond (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of research methods in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press.

McGovern, P., Obradovic, S., & Bauer, M.W. (2023). . The Sociological Review, 71(5), 1213-1233.

Frings, D., Gleibs, I. H., & Ridley, A. M. (2020). . Social Psychology of Education, 23(1), 171-188.

Garcia-Lorenzo, L., Sell-Trujillo, L., & Donnelly, P. (2018). . Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 14810).

Jovchelovitch, S., & Priego-Hernandez, J. (2012). . London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

Kteily, N. S., Sheehy-Skeffington, J., & Ho, A. K. (2017). . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(1), 136.

Okoroji, C., Gleibs, I. H., & Jovchelovitch, S. (2020). . British Journal of Psychology.

Sheehy-Skeffington, J. (2020). . Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 183-188.

Sheehy-Skeffington, J., & Rea, J. (2017). (pp. 1-73). York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Sheehy-Skeffington, J., & Thomsen, L. (2020). . Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 146-152.

The Psychology of Intergroup Inequality

March 2021

Speakers: Jim Sidanius (Harvard University) and Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington (禁漫天堂).

Listen to the podcast recording of The Psychology of Intergroup Inequality via 禁漫天堂 Player.

Watch via the 禁漫天堂 YouTube channel.

Share

Lead image_PBS Departmental Seminar Series_PBS teaching_747x420

Events Explore our upcoming public lectures and talks

Woman on empty train wearing face mask_sourced via Canva_747x420

Current research theme Crisis and conflict

16 9 ratio-City_1998_1400x787_16-9_sRGBe

Current research theme People, work and organisations

Factory pipe and smoke_sourced via Canva 747x420

Current research theme Planetary health

Yellow smiling balloon faces_stock image via Canva_747x420

禁漫天堂