Robyn K Mallett
Biographic Data
| ID | 2818908 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robyn K Mallett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robyn K |
| FAMILY NAME | Mallett |
| SIGNATURE | MALLETT R K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Loyola University Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8091-1493 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 408 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
An Intervention to Increase Belonging and Support Retention for Faculty of Color and Women Faculty
Faculty of Color and women faculty face significant obstacles (e.g., isolation, marginalization, tokenism) on the road to tenure and promotion. We translate social psychological research on the contact hypothesis and belonging and adapt previous interventions at other universities to deliver an institutional‐level intervention designed to support faculty belonging and retention. This study utilizes a faculty climate survey and institutional‐level…
Men’s responses to being confronted for sexism with and without humor
Confronting bias can reduce prejudice and subsequent discriminatory behavior. However, people often hesitate to confront because of the perceived costs. Humorous confrontation may mitigate these costs. Using hypothetical scenarios, humorous confrontation was found to be similarly effective as serious confrontation, but with fewer social costs (Woodzicka, Julie A., Robyn K. Mallett & Kala J. Melchiori. 2020. Gender differences in using humor to re…
Social costs of bias confrontation are persistent but independent of bias reduction
Although interpersonal confrontation is a powerful means of curbing bias, perpetrators often levy social costs on confronters. Two experiments with U.S. undergraduate participants tested whether social costs and bias reduction have separate underlying processes that occur independently or are interrelated. We also investigated the effect of perpetrator–confronter proximity on social costs (Experiment 1) and persistence of social costs (Experiment…
Experience Matters: Civic Discussion Increases Self-Efficacy and Reduces Forecasted Discomfort in Future Conversations
Interpersonal conversation about civic issues lays groundwork for cooperation and collective action, yet such conversation is uncommon. Across three studies (total N = 2,066), we find that (a) hesitation to discuss a civic topic is predicted by forecasted discomfort about such conversations (Study 1), (b) individuals tend to overestimate discomfort in such future civic conversations (Study 1), (c) forecasted discomfort is lower for those with gre…
Indigenous Alaskan and mainstream identification explain the link between perceived discrimination and acculturative stress
Drawing from the rejection-identification model, acculturation, and acceptance threat literatures, we examined how Indigenous and mainstream identification influence the effect of discrimination on acculturative and physical stress. A community sample of 126 Indigenous Alaskans reported discrimination, identification with Indigenous Alaskans and mainstream Americans, and acculturative and physical stress. As perceptions of personal discrimination…
Exploring the bidirectional connection between belonging and women’s self-sexualization
Women’s self-sexualization and belonging may be inextricably connected. Self-sexualization, or intentionally engaging in activities to appear sexually appealing to others, may carry intrapersonal costs but also interpersonal benefits. Integrating objectification, belonging, and ostracism theories, we tested whether social exclusion increases women’s self-sexualization and whether self-sexualization reduces anticipated social exclusion. First, we …
Gender differences in using humor to respond to sexist jokes
We examine the degree to which women and men use humor to confront sexist jokes. We also test the social benefits and perceived effectiveness of confronting with humor. One-hundred-sixty-four (46% female) participants read about a male coworker who made a sexist joke and reported how they would respond in an open-ended format. Women were more likely than men to say they would respond with humor. Specifically, 16% of women, compared to 4.5% of men…
Zero‐sum beliefs shape advantaged allies’ support for collective action
Three studies ( N 1 = 1,019; N 2 = 312; N 3 = 494) tested whether seeing intergroup relations as inherently antagonistic shaped advantaged social groups’ allyship intentions. More specifically, we tested whether endorsing zero‐sum beliefs related to their willingness to support system‐challenging and system‐supporting collective action. Zero‐sum beliefs were negatively correlated with system‐challenging and positively correlated with system‐suppo…
Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination: The Science of Changing Minds and Behaviors
Ignoring sexism increases women’s tolerance of sexual harassment
Women often ignore gender harassment (i.e., sexism). Two studies tested whether ignoring real or imagined sexism increases tolerance of sexual harassment and decreases support for survivors. In Study 1 (n = 252) undergraduate women were randomly assigned to receive a sexist or offensive remark delivered in a serious or humorous manner. Compared to women who confronted sexism, women who ignored it aligned attitudes with behavior and reported more …
What Did He Mean by that? Humor Decreases Attributions of Sexism and Confrontation of Sexist Jokes
Affect and understanding during everyday cross-race experiences
The present research uses an event sampling method to test whether, compared to same-race interactions, everyday cross-race contact is better characterized by the presence of negative affect or the absence of positive affect. Everyday intergroup interactions have some positive and negative aspects, so the present research independently assesses positive affect and negative affect along with felt understanding and misunderstanding. Across 3 studie…
It’s just a (sexist) joke: Comparing reactions to sexist versus racist communications
Two experiments test whether using humor moderates the effect of the type of prejudice (racist or sexist) on evaluations of discriminatory communications. Experiment 1 examined a) the offensiveness of sexist and racist humor and b) whether jokes were judged as confrontation-worthy compared to statements expressing the same prejudicial sentiment. Racist jokes and statements were rated as more offensive and confrontation-worthy than sexist statemen…
Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project
Although replication is a central tenet of science, direct replications are rare in psychology. This research tested variation in the replicability of 13 classic and contemporary effects across 36 independent samples totaling 6,344 participants. In the aggregate, 10 effects replicated consistently. One effect – imagined contact reducing prejudice – showed weak support for replicability. And two effects – flag priming influencing conservatism and …
Commentaries and Rejoinder on
While direct replications such as the “Many Labs” project are extremely valuable in testing the reliability of published findings across laboratories, they reflect the common reliance in psychology on single vignettes or stimuli, which limits the scope of the conclusions that can be reached. New experimental tools and statistical techniques make it easier to routinely sample stimuli, and to appropriately treat them as random factors. We encourage…
Self-Confrontation via a Carbon Footprint Calculator Increases Guilt and Support for a Proenvironmental Group
Guilt occurs when people realize they have violated personal or social standards for behavior. For example, past research found that confronting Whites for racist behavior created guilt, which motivated behavior change. Carbon footprint calculators provide a venue for self-confrontation about the impact of one's behavior on the environment. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to learn their carbon footprint was larger or smaller than …
Mortality Salience Motivates the Defense of Environmental Values and Increases Collective Ecoguilt
In highlighting the potentially catastrophic effects of environmentally harmful behavior, proenvironmental campaigns may inadvertently induce what social psychologists call mortality salience. An uncomfortable awareness of one's inevitable demise, mortality salience motivates individuals to act in line with important social values and to feel guilty when they fail to do so. Guilt, in turn, motivates proenvironmental behavior. It is unclear, howev…
Eco-Guilt Motivates Eco-Friendly Behavior
Despite widespread support for environmentalism, few people consistently engage in proenvironmental behavior. The present research investigates the potential of eco-guilt to increase engagement in proenvironmental behavior. Eco-guilt is guilt that arises when people think about times they have not met personal or societal standards for environmental behavior. Highlighting instances when people fail to meet standards for environmental protection s…
Moving beyond prejudice reduction: Pathways to positive intergroup relations.
This edited volume moves beyond social psychology's traditional focus on prejudice reduction, to explore novel approaches to improving relations and fostering empathy between members of socially dominant ingroups and oppressed/victimized outgroups. Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction examines the dynamics of attitudinal change from the individual to the group levels and proposes a proactive analytical framework that scholars and researchers on ethn…
Do I belong? It depends on when you ask
A feeling of belonging to an academic context is a critical determinant of academic achievement and persistence, particularly for students of color. Despite the fact that students of color are generally more susceptible to fluctuations in belonging uncertainty than White students, survey design can unintentionally mask this reality. We investigated whether context effects undermine the accurate assessment of belonging uncertainty in junior high a…
The unexpectedly positive consequences of confronting sexism
The role of system-justification motivation, group status and system threat in directing support for hate crimes legislation
Increasing positive intergroup contact
Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Proactive Coping with Racial Discrimination
Proactive coping with racial discrimination takes three forms: self-focused coping, situation-focused coping, and avoidance. Overall, African Americans used self-focused coping more than situation-focused coping or physical avoidance, though there were interesting differences between retrospective recall of racial discrimination and daily reports. Relative to reports during the diary week, when recalling how they typically dealt with racial discr…
Seeing Through Their Eyes: When Majority Group Members Take Collective Action on Behalf of an Outgroup
We examined majority group members' collective action on behalf of a minority group, focusing on the role of outgroup perspective taking and group-based guilt. As expected, outgroup perspective taking was positively associated with heterosexuals' collective action in response to hate crimes against non-heterosexuals and Whites' action in response to hate crimes against Blacks (Studies 1 and 2). This association was partially mediated by group-bas…
Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project
Although replication is a central tenet of science, direct replications are rare in psychology. This research tested variation in the replicability of 13 classic and contemporary effects across 36 independent samples totaling 6,344 participants. In the aggregate, 10 effects replicated consistently. One effect – imagined contact reducing prejudice – showed weak support for replicability. And two effects – flag priming influencing conservatism and …
The unexpectedly positive consequences of confronting sexism
Seeing Through Their Eyes: When Majority Group Members Take Collective Action on Behalf of an Outgroup
We examined majority group members' collective action on behalf of a minority group, focusing on the role of outgroup perspective taking and group-based guilt. As expected, outgroup perspective taking was positively associated with heterosexuals' collective action in response to hate crimes against non-heterosexuals and Whites' action in response to hate crimes against Blacks (Studies 1 and 2). This association was partially mediated by group-bas…
Understanding Subtle Sexism: Detection and Use of Sexist Language
Expect the unexpected: Failure to anticipate similarities leads to an intergroup forecasting error
People often expect interactions with outgroup members to go poorly, but little research examines the accuracy of these expectations, reasons why expectations might be negatively biased, and ways to bring expectations in line with experiences. The authors found that intergroup interactions were more positive than people expected them to be (Pilot Study, Study 1). One reason for this intergroup forecasting error is that people focus on their dissi…
What Did He Mean by that? Humor Decreases Attributions of Sexism and Confrontation of Sexist Jokes
Judgments of Sexism: A Comparison of the Subtlety of Sexism Measures and Sources of Variability in Judgments of Sexism
We compared the subtlety of four measures of sexism and sources of variation in male and female psychology students' judgments that beliefs from these scales and everyday behaviors were sexist. Participants judged traditional gender role and hostile sexist beliefs as more sexist than benevolent and modern sexist beliefs, indicating the latter were more subtle measures of sexism. Participants also judged traditional gender role behaviors as more s…
It’s just a (sexist) joke: Comparing reactions to sexist versus racist communications
Two experiments test whether using humor moderates the effect of the type of prejudice (racist or sexist) on evaluations of discriminatory communications. Experiment 1 examined a) the offensiveness of sexist and racist humor and b) whether jokes were judged as confrontation-worthy compared to statements expressing the same prejudicial sentiment. Racist jokes and statements were rated as more offensive and confrontation-worthy than sexist statemen…
Increasing positive intergroup contact
Commentaries and Rejoinder on
While direct replications such as the “Many Labs” project are extremely valuable in testing the reliability of published findings across laboratories, they reflect the common reliance in psychology on single vignettes or stimuli, which limits the scope of the conclusions that can be reached. New experimental tools and statistical techniques make it easier to routinely sample stimuli, and to appropriately treat them as random factors. We encourage…
Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Proactive Coping with Racial Discrimination
Proactive coping with racial discrimination takes three forms: self-focused coping, situation-focused coping, and avoidance. Overall, African Americans used self-focused coping more than situation-focused coping or physical avoidance, though there were interesting differences between retrospective recall of racial discrimination and daily reports. Relative to reports during the diary week, when recalling how they typically dealt with racial discr…
Zero‐sum beliefs shape advantaged allies’ support for collective action
Three studies ( N 1 = 1,019; N 2 = 312; N 3 = 494) tested whether seeing intergroup relations as inherently antagonistic shaped advantaged social groups’ allyship intentions. More specifically, we tested whether endorsing zero‐sum beliefs related to their willingness to support system‐challenging and system‐supporting collective action. Zero‐sum beliefs were negatively correlated with system‐challenging and positively correlated with system‐suppo…
Do I belong? It depends on when you ask
A feeling of belonging to an academic context is a critical determinant of academic achievement and persistence, particularly for students of color. Despite the fact that students of color are generally more susceptible to fluctuations in belonging uncertainty than White students, survey design can unintentionally mask this reality. We investigated whether context effects undermine the accurate assessment of belonging uncertainty in junior high a…
Affect and understanding during everyday cross-race experiences
The present research uses an event sampling method to test whether, compared to same-race interactions, everyday cross-race contact is better characterized by the presence of negative affect or the absence of positive affect. Everyday intergroup interactions have some positive and negative aspects, so the present research independently assesses positive affect and negative affect along with felt understanding and misunderstanding. Across 3 studie…
The role of system-justification motivation, group status and system threat in directing support for hate crimes legislation
African Americans’ Attitudes Toward Cigarette Excise Taxes
Objectives. This study examined African Americans’ opinions regarding cigarette excise taxes and other tobacco control issues. Methods. A stratified cluster sample of US congressional districts represented by African Americans was selected. African Americans from 10 districts were interviewed. Results. Forty-seven percent of respondents stated that taxes on tobacco products should be increased, whereas about 30% believed that they should be reduc…
Gender differences in using humor to respond to sexist jokes
We examine the degree to which women and men use humor to confront sexist jokes. We also test the social benefits and perceived effectiveness of confronting with humor. One-hundred-sixty-four (46% female) participants read about a male coworker who made a sexist joke and reported how they would respond in an open-ended format. Women were more likely than men to say they would respond with humor. Specifically, 16% of women, compared to 4.5% of men…
The Influence of Inequality, Responsibility and Justifiability on Reports of Group-Based Guilt for Ingroup Privilege
Although members of several social groups report feeling guilt because of their group’s actions, average reports of group-based guilt tend to be quite low. We investigate three antecedents of group-based guilt derived from research on social justice and interpersonal emotion. We find that Whites, men and women perceive inequality, responsibility and justifiability of group differences to the same extent. Moreover, each factor is a key antecedent …
An Intervention to Increase Belonging and Support Retention for Faculty of Color and Women Faculty
Faculty of Color and women faculty face significant obstacles (e.g., isolation, marginalization, tokenism) on the road to tenure and promotion. We translate social psychological research on the contact hypothesis and belonging and adapt previous interventions at other universities to deliver an institutional‐level intervention designed to support faculty belonging and retention. This study utilizes a faculty climate survey and institutional‐level…
Social costs of bias confrontation are persistent but independent of bias reduction
Although interpersonal confrontation is a powerful means of curbing bias, perpetrators often levy social costs on confronters. Two experiments with U.S. undergraduate participants tested whether social costs and bias reduction have separate underlying processes that occur independently or are interrelated. We also investigated the effect of perpetrator–confronter proximity on social costs (Experiment 1) and persistence of social costs (Experiment…
African Americans’ Attitudes Toward Cigarette Excise Taxes
Objectives. This study examined African Americans’ opinions regarding cigarette excise taxes and other tobacco control issues. Methods. A stratified cluster sample of US congressional districts represented by African Americans was selected. African Americans from 10 districts were interviewed. Results. Forty-seven percent of respondents stated that taxes on tobacco products should be increased, whereas about 30% believed that they should be reduc…
Understanding Subtle Sexism: Detection and Use of Sexist Language
Judgments of Sexism: A Comparison of the Subtlety of Sexism Measures and Sources of Variability in Judgments of Sexism
We compared the subtlety of four measures of sexism and sources of variation in male and female psychology students' judgments that beliefs from these scales and everyday behaviors were sexist. Participants judged traditional gender role and hostile sexist beliefs as more sexist than benevolent and modern sexist beliefs, indicating the latter were more subtle measures of sexism. Participants also judged traditional gender role behaviors as more s…
The Influence of Inequality, Responsibility and Justifiability on Reports of Group-Based Guilt for Ingroup Privilege
Although members of several social groups report feeling guilt because of their group’s actions, average reports of group-based guilt tend to be quite low. We investigate three antecedents of group-based guilt derived from research on social justice and interpersonal emotion. We find that Whites, men and women perceive inequality, responsibility and justifiability of group differences to the same extent. Moreover, each factor is a key antecedent …
Seeing Through Their Eyes: When Majority Group Members Take Collective Action on Behalf of an Outgroup
We examined majority group members' collective action on behalf of a minority group, focusing on the role of outgroup perspective taking and group-based guilt. As expected, outgroup perspective taking was positively associated with heterosexuals' collective action in response to hate crimes against non-heterosexuals and Whites' action in response to hate crimes against Blacks (Studies 1 and 2). This association was partially mediated by group-bas…
Expect the unexpected: Failure to anticipate similarities leads to an intergroup forecasting error
People often expect interactions with outgroup members to go poorly, but little research examines the accuracy of these expectations, reasons why expectations might be negatively biased, and ways to bring expectations in line with experiences. The authors found that intergroup interactions were more positive than people expected them to be (Pilot Study, Study 1). One reason for this intergroup forecasting error is that people focus on their dissi…
Increasing positive intergroup contact
Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Proactive Coping with Racial Discrimination
Proactive coping with racial discrimination takes three forms: self-focused coping, situation-focused coping, and avoidance. Overall, African Americans used self-focused coping more than situation-focused coping or physical avoidance, though there were interesting differences between retrospective recall of racial discrimination and daily reports. Relative to reports during the diary week, when recalling how they typically dealt with racial discr…
The unexpectedly positive consequences of confronting sexism
The role of system-justification motivation, group status and system threat in directing support for hate crimes legislation
Moving beyond prejudice reduction: Pathways to positive intergroup relations.
This edited volume moves beyond social psychology's traditional focus on prejudice reduction, to explore novel approaches to improving relations and fostering empathy between members of socially dominant ingroups and oppressed/victimized outgroups. Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction examines the dynamics of attitudinal change from the individual to the group levels and proposes a proactive analytical framework that scholars and researchers on ethn…
Do I belong? It depends on when you ask
A feeling of belonging to an academic context is a critical determinant of academic achievement and persistence, particularly for students of color. Despite the fact that students of color are generally more susceptible to fluctuations in belonging uncertainty than White students, survey design can unintentionally mask this reality. We investigated whether context effects undermine the accurate assessment of belonging uncertainty in junior high a…
Eco-Guilt Motivates Eco-Friendly Behavior
Despite widespread support for environmentalism, few people consistently engage in proenvironmental behavior. The present research investigates the potential of eco-guilt to increase engagement in proenvironmental behavior. Eco-guilt is guilt that arises when people think about times they have not met personal or societal standards for environmental behavior. Highlighting instances when people fail to meet standards for environmental protection s…
Self-Confrontation via a Carbon Footprint Calculator Increases Guilt and Support for a Proenvironmental Group
Guilt occurs when people realize they have violated personal or social standards for behavior. For example, past research found that confronting Whites for racist behavior created guilt, which motivated behavior change. Carbon footprint calculators provide a venue for self-confrontation about the impact of one's behavior on the environment. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to learn their carbon footprint was larger or smaller than …
Mortality Salience Motivates the Defense of Environmental Values and Increases Collective Ecoguilt
In highlighting the potentially catastrophic effects of environmentally harmful behavior, proenvironmental campaigns may inadvertently induce what social psychologists call mortality salience. An uncomfortable awareness of one's inevitable demise, mortality salience motivates individuals to act in line with important social values and to feel guilty when they fail to do so. Guilt, in turn, motivates proenvironmental behavior. It is unclear, howev…
Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project
Although replication is a central tenet of science, direct replications are rare in psychology. This research tested variation in the replicability of 13 classic and contemporary effects across 36 independent samples totaling 6,344 participants. In the aggregate, 10 effects replicated consistently. One effect – imagined contact reducing prejudice – showed weak support for replicability. And two effects – flag priming influencing conservatism and …
Commentaries and Rejoinder on
While direct replications such as the “Many Labs” project are extremely valuable in testing the reliability of published findings across laboratories, they reflect the common reliance in psychology on single vignettes or stimuli, which limits the scope of the conclusions that can be reached. New experimental tools and statistical techniques make it easier to routinely sample stimuli, and to appropriately treat them as random factors. We encourage…
Affect and understanding during everyday cross-race experiences
The present research uses an event sampling method to test whether, compared to same-race interactions, everyday cross-race contact is better characterized by the presence of negative affect or the absence of positive affect. Everyday intergroup interactions have some positive and negative aspects, so the present research independently assesses positive affect and negative affect along with felt understanding and misunderstanding. Across 3 studie…
It’s just a (sexist) joke: Comparing reactions to sexist versus racist communications
Two experiments test whether using humor moderates the effect of the type of prejudice (racist or sexist) on evaluations of discriminatory communications. Experiment 1 examined a) the offensiveness of sexist and racist humor and b) whether jokes were judged as confrontation-worthy compared to statements expressing the same prejudicial sentiment. Racist jokes and statements were rated as more offensive and confrontation-worthy than sexist statemen…
What Did He Mean by that? Humor Decreases Attributions of Sexism and Confrontation of Sexist Jokes
Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination: The Science of Changing Minds and Behaviors
Ignoring sexism increases women’s tolerance of sexual harassment
Women often ignore gender harassment (i.e., sexism). Two studies tested whether ignoring real or imagined sexism increases tolerance of sexual harassment and decreases support for survivors. In Study 1 (n = 252) undergraduate women were randomly assigned to receive a sexist or offensive remark delivered in a serious or humorous manner. Compared to women who confronted sexism, women who ignored it aligned attitudes with behavior and reported more …
Exploring the bidirectional connection between belonging and women’s self-sexualization
Women’s self-sexualization and belonging may be inextricably connected. Self-sexualization, or intentionally engaging in activities to appear sexually appealing to others, may carry intrapersonal costs but also interpersonal benefits. Integrating objectification, belonging, and ostracism theories, we tested whether social exclusion increases women’s self-sexualization and whether self-sexualization reduces anticipated social exclusion. First, we …
Gender differences in using humor to respond to sexist jokes
We examine the degree to which women and men use humor to confront sexist jokes. We also test the social benefits and perceived effectiveness of confronting with humor. One-hundred-sixty-four (46% female) participants read about a male coworker who made a sexist joke and reported how they would respond in an open-ended format. Women were more likely than men to say they would respond with humor. Specifically, 16% of women, compared to 4.5% of men…
Zero‐sum beliefs shape advantaged allies’ support for collective action
Three studies ( N 1 = 1,019; N 2 = 312; N 3 = 494) tested whether seeing intergroup relations as inherently antagonistic shaped advantaged social groups’ allyship intentions. More specifically, we tested whether endorsing zero‐sum beliefs related to their willingness to support system‐challenging and system‐supporting collective action. Zero‐sum beliefs were negatively correlated with system‐challenging and positively correlated with system‐suppo…
Psychology (29 works) · Social Psychology (25 works) · Social Psychology (22 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (21 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (11 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Developmental psychology (7 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)