Valerie Purdie-Vaughns



Assistant Professor (Ph.D., 2004, Stanford University)

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Research Interests

     My primary area of research is stigma and intergroup processes. Given the pervasiveness of stigma in interpersonal, intergroup, and international contexts, I believe that investigating targets of stigma sheds light on basic psychological processes. Two inter-related research projects are described below:

Contextual cues and reduction of threat in mainstream intellectual settings
     How can social institutions structure their environments to diminish threat and foster intergroup trust? My research demonstrates that settings where the inclusion process occurs (e.g., schools, the workplace) provide targets of stigma with subtle contextual cues that signal the value of their social identity, information that is perhaps more important than the prejudiced attitudes of individual members of the institution. Targets of stigma attend to these cues, which impact their experience of threat and degree to which they trust a given setting. I apply this framework to explore how contextual cues signaling minority representation and diversity messages affect African-Americans in workplace and educational settings. My research also examines how cues signaling gender representation and leadership style affect women in legal settings.

Do crime and mental illness have a face?
     Why is there an over-representation of certain groups in the American criminal justice system and an under-representation of these same groups in institutions assisting the mentally ill? The first step in this research involved identifying people’s perceptions of criminality. In a study with police officers, holding attractiveness of faces constant, males faces that are highly representative of the African-American category were more likely to be rated as criminal than less representative faces. The reverse was found for European-American faces. In these studies, the interaction between stereotypicality and race was examined. Current studies examine the relationship between stereotypicality, criminality, and mental illness.

     Other interests include multicultural messages and perceptions of stigma, fear of stigma and avoidance of health behaviors, beliefs about equality and stigma in international contexts, and interpersonal rejection and romantic relationships.

Sample Publications