Overall
I am fascinated by our social world and how it influences our perceptions of others, the decisions we make, and our interactions with other.
Many of my research ideas come from observations in the real world. I owe much of my love for research, and my successful research projects to my advisors at
UVA,
Dr. Stacey Sinclair and Dr. Bobbie
Spellman, to my advisor (and collaborator) at Rice Dr. Mikki Hebl , to all the wonderful colleagues and
collaborators I have worked with in the SPI lab, Sinclair Lab, the Spellman Lab, and the Hebl Lab , and of course to all the wonderful students and
research assistants that I have worked with over the years.
Interpersonal Factors
In order to promote and enhance diversity, equality, and cultural understanding, a majority of my research investigates the transmission of stereotypic and egalitarian attitudes. In particular, my research in this area focuses on three key factors: social tuning (aligning one's views with an interaction partner), perspective taking (considering another person's viewpoint), and cultural orientation.
Social Tuning. Social tuning occurs when an individual aligns his/her views with the ostensible views of an interaction partner to gain a sense of shared reality (Hardin & Conley, 2000). I aim to understand when and why social tuning occurs because this provides important insights into how prejudiced and egalitarian views are spread. For instance, my collaborators and I wondered if a desire for shared reality could lead people to align themselves with their partner's apparent views and consequently self-stereotype (Sinclair, Huntsinger, Skorinko, & Hardin, 2005). We found that those experiencing affiliative motivation (e.g., desire to get along) aligned their views with the perceived views of their partner more than those experiencing low affiliative motivation. More surprisingly, this occurred even if this made the individual self-stereotype (e.g., be more gender traditional)! This shows that people use the perceived views of others as a basis for how they see themselves in a given interaction.
However, just how explicit do these perceived views need to be? In another set of experiments, we examined whether an experimenter's subtle endorsement of an attitude towards feminine beauty (e.g., wearing a tshirt with the slogan ÒEvery BODY is beautifulÓ) influenced participants' implicit self-esteem. When no endorsement was made (control/blank t-shirt condition), heavier women had lower implicit self-esteem than normal weight women. However, when the subtle endorsement was made, heavier women had higher implicit self-esteem than normal weight women (Weisbuch, Sinclair, Skorinko, & Eccleston, 2009)! Thus, very subtle cues influence social tuning and implicit self-views--including self-esteem.
Perspective Taking. My research in social tuning caused me to wonder more about the process by which people try to understand other's viewpoints (or perspective taking). More specifically, I am interested in when and how perspective taking influences self-views, attitudes, and perceptions of others. For instance, I found that perspective takers who visualized an older family member picked up on the perceived conservative attitudes of this target and reported enjoying an article about sex less than non-perspective takers who also visualized an older family member (Skorinko, Sinclair, & Conklin, 2012). But, based on my work in social tuning, I wondered if taking the perspective of a stranger could influence attitudes towards the self and others. In several different studies, I found that perspective takers, compared to non-perspective takers, will adjust their views towards the perceived views of their interaction partners (whether prejudiced or egalitarian) and consequently this results in self-stereotyping and attitude transformation (Skorinko, Lun, & DiGiovanni, under review; Skorinko, Lun, & DiGiovanni, under review). Likewise, perspective taking with a defendant in the courtroom lowered perceptions of culpability and recidivism (Skorinko, Laurent, Bountress, Nyein, & Kuckuck, revise and resubmit). In addition, and again stemming from my social tuning work, I wanted to know if subtle contextual cues moderated the reductions in stereotyping observed in past research. I found that when a target confirmed stereotypes of their group, perspective takers anchored on these available stereotypes and stereotyped more than when the target did not confirm stereotypes of their group (Skorinko & Sinclair, 2012)! Taken together, this line of research shows that perspective taking serves not only as a cue to other's views, but also is an important component in self-views, attitude transmission, and stereotyping (including self-stereotyping).
Cultural Orientation. One's cultural orientation may also influence the extent to which individuals realize the views of others, consequently affecting attitude formation, transmission, and interpersonal relations. This topic is exceptionally important given the rise in cultural/ethnic conflicts (e.g., Israelis and Palestinians, etc.), and the lack of research on how these processes operate in the non-Western world (Fiske, 2000; Williams & Spencer-Rodgers, 2010). Using the social tuning model, my colleague and I examined whether collectivists (i.e., Easterners) were more likely to engage in social tuning than individualists (i.e., Westerners). And, we found that in the absence of affiliative motivation, collectivists, or Hong Kong participants, more readily adopted the egalitarian attitudes subtly endorsed by the experimenter than American participants. More surprisingly, priming cultural orientation replicated these effects. In other words, Hong Kong participants primed with an individualistic mindset were less likely to engage in social tuning than Hong Kong participants primed with a collectivist mindset (Skorinko & Lun, under review)! I even took two students to
Costa Rica recently to conduct a cross-cultural project looking at why collectivists engage in social tuning more chronically.
Stigmas and Stereotyping
I am also interested in better understanding how different stigmas and stereotypes (e.g., based on race, weight, disability, sexual orientation, etc.) influence our perceptions, our decisions, and even our interpersonal relationships with others. Mainly, my research in this area focuses on understanding how overt stigmas (or visible stigmas) and implicit (or unconscious) stereotypes influence decisions in an attempt to gain insight into techniques that could improve both interpersonal relationships and social justice.
In the Workplace. My colleagues and I wondered if feeling a sense of moral good would increase immoral acts (e.g., supporting discriminatory policies). To initiate a subtle sense of moral good, participants wrote about a positive experience with either a Black friend or acquaintance. We found that writing about a positive experience with a Black friend increased support for more discriminatory workplace policies more so than writing about a positive experience with a Black acquaintance (Bradley-Geist, King, Skorinko, Hebl, & McKenna, 2010).
Looking more specifically at workplace policies, many diversity and anti-discrimination policies place the impetus of discussing one's stigma in the hands of the applicant. However, the ramifications of discussing one's stigma, especially during an interview, are unclear. Thus, I investigated whether acknowledging an overt stigma (e.g., a physical disability) reduces stereotyping and discrimination. I found that applicants who acknowledged their stigma sooner in an interview were viewed more favorably and recommended for hire more so than those who acknowledged their stigma later in an interview (Hebl & Skorinko, 2005). Thus, even though acknowledging the disability early may seem counterintuitive it helps!
In the Courtroom. Another area where stigmas may have serious consequences is in the courtroom. In particular, I questioned whether crime stereotypes influence mock juror's memories, decisions, and attitudes towards immigration policies. We found that certain crimes were associated with different groups of people. Moreover, when the crime was stereotypic in nature (e.g., White defendant committing a White crime), mock jurors' demonstrated more biased decisions and false memories than when the crime was not stereotypic in nature (Skorinko & Spellman, under review).
Stereotype Reduction. In addition to looking at when stigmas may negatively influence decisions, I am also interested in discovering ways to combat these negative ramifications. For instance, in one set of studies we examined whether altering a ticket price could improve consumer's opinions of women's sporting teams because marking research shows that consumers valued higher-priced items. We found that people undervalued the women's team when their ticket price was less than the men's price. However, raising the price of the women's tickets to be higher than the men's tickets increased the value placed on the team (Hebl, Guiliano, King, Knight, Shapiro, Skorinko, & Wig, 2004)! My colleagues and I also wondered if sharing an alma mater could help reduce discrimination as well. We sent faculty members a CV of an ostensible assistant professor candidate whose gender, quality (average or excellent), and alma mater (same or different) was manipulated. We found that excellent female candidates sharing an alma mater were highly recommended for hire; whereas, average female candidates sharing an alma mater were denigrated (Skorinko, Ruggs, Miller, & Hebl, under review). Thus, subtle contextual factors, such as value and similarity, influence our decisions about stigmatized others.
Subtle Social Environmental Cues
I am intrigued by subtle cues in our environments (e.g., a name below a color, a price, a message on a tshirt), and how these cues can influence our perceptions, our decisions, and even our interpersonal relationships with others.
Names. Fascinated by friends claiming their green walls were not green but rather "quiet kiwi", I, along with my colleagues at Rice University,investigated whether the name of the color of a product (e.g., paint sample, cosmetics) could influence liking of the color and the product. Since colors are vibrant stimuli and people have personal color preferences, it seemed unlikely that the name stamped at the bottom of a color swatch (e.g., Quiet Kiwi) or a lipstick tube (e.g., Precious Pink) could influence consumers' preferences. However, we found that the name really does matter as "fancy" names (e.g., Mocha) positively influenced color and product preference, purchasing behavior, and the perceived value of items more so than generic names (e.g., Brown) (Skorinko, Kemmer, Lane, & Hebl, 2006).
Prices. Intrigued by the observation that tickets to women's sporting events (especially NCAA) cost less than men's tickets, I, along with my colleagues at Rice University,wondered if alterations in relative ticket pricing of women's team tickets could improve consumer's opinions of women's sporting teams. Using NCAA basketball as a model, we found that a disparity in ticket price existed as ticket prices for women's games cost significantly less than men's games. In subsequent studies, we manipulated whether the women's game ticket price was higher, lower, or equal to the men's ticket price, and found that people undervalued the women's team when their ticket price was less than the men's price. But, raising the price of the women's tickets to be higher than the men's tickets increased the value placed on the team, the desire to attend a game, and the enjoyment participants got out of the game (Hebl, Guiliano, King, Knight, Shapiro, Skorinko, & Wig, 2004).
To see an example of how we ran this study, please visit the Ticket Disparity Study Site
