Research
Broadly, my program of research is designed to advance our current understanding of prejudice and microaggressions directed at people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or other-identified (LGBTQ+). I am trained as a school psychologist and my research interests involve thinking about school systems from a social-psychological perspective. The projects I work on vary and I find myself working closely with other faculty and students from both school and experimental psychology, which is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.
I have two primary lines of inquiry. One is aimed at examining teacher attitudes toward LGBTQ+ parents. From a school psychology perspective, there are important practical implications of this line of work. First, school psychologists, who are trained to provide a broad range of services to teachers, students, and families, must be prepared to work with the increasing number of LGBTQ+ parents with children in the schools.
Second, school psychologists must be prepared to facilitate relationships between these families and their children’s teachers. Third, colleges and universities that educate future teachers must include information about LGBTQ+ issues and the LGBTQ+ community as part of their diversity courses so that they are more prepared to work with these families.
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I have another line of inquiry aimed at understanding the relations among sexual identity, sexual behavior, and attraction. Social and health scientists often measure sexual orientation by asking people to endorse a label that describes them. Research shows, however, that people's self-identified sexual orientation is not necessarily congruent with their sexual behavior or their attraction to others. Over the past five years, I have worked with colleagues to uncover and explain the complexity of this issue and its real-world implications.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Social-psychological phenomena such as prejudice, microaggressions, and discrimination in school settings
Correlates of prejudice including personality traits, motivation to withhold prejudiced reactions
Self-awareness of microaggression perpetration toward people who are LGBTQ+
Relations among self-reported sexual identity, sexual behavior, and sexual attraction
Training practices that promote representation and equity