Justin Preddie Assistant Professor, Psychology and Africana Studies |
Education
Teaching Interests
At Muhlenberg, I teach a range of courses across the major that reflect both the scientific foundation and the sociocultural applications of psychology.
As an instructor, I prioritize teaching students to practice reflexive critical engagement with deeply embedded systems of power. My hope is that students will complete my courses having a comprehensive knowledge of the relevant content but more importantly, they will be attuned to the inextricable link between diversity and social justice and will have learned to consider how structures of power influence their own values, interests and engagement with bodies of knowledge in and out of the classroom.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
My research is broadly oriented towards issues of stereotyping, impression formation, person perception and prejudice reduction.
In my primary line of research, I use intersectionality as both a theoretical orientation and an analytic framework to consider and understand how we perceive and evaluate group members with intersecting marginalized identities (e.g., gay Black men).
My secondary line of research interrogates the relationship between constructions of national identity, perceived group threats and support for immigration policy. In this work, we examine how patriotism and nationalism predict stances on immigration policy and the degree to which inclusion of perceived threat attenuates the relationship between different forms of national identity and immigration policy.
My third line of work explores how perceptions of allyship and allyship behavior differ as a function of intersecting social identities (particularly race, gender, and sexual orientation) and the potential downstream consequences for inter-minority coalition building and collective action.