Laurie O'Brien, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology,
Tulane University

Understanding Lay Judgments of Prejudice and Discrimination
People often make judgments about what motivates prejudiced behavior or whether a particular event constitutes discrimination. However, these judgments are frequently made with incomplete information. Dr. O’Brien will discuss a series of experiments examining how perceptions of outgroup conflict affect attributions to discrimination in multiracial societies. She will also discuss a series of experiments comparing evaluations of perpetrators who acknowledge or deny their prejudiced transgressions. Together, these two lines of research have important implications for how lay people understand prejudice and discrimination.

This free lecture is made possible in part by a generous endowment from Professor Allen L. Edwards.