Contact

Alumna

PhD, 2021, University of Massachusetts Amherst

MA, 2011, San Francisco State University

BA, 2008, University of California, Santa Cruz

Advisor: 

Buju Dasgupta PhhD

Research Area(s): 

Social Psychology

Dissertation: 

Stereotypes in Interactions: The Interpersonal Consequences of Threatened Belonging

Research

My program of research is centered on understanding the power of stereotype-laden social contexts, and investigating how social interactions and environments can influence perception, judgment, and action. My first line of research examines how stereotypes activated in social situations (by the actions of interaction partners or by peripheral cues) affect dynamic social interactions in high stakes settings, such as job interviews. In a second line of research I identify interventions that powerfully boost individuals’ resilience against negative stereotypes over time. Finally, in a third line of work I explore how violations of gender and race stereotypic expectancies influence perceptions of others without perceivers’ awareness.

Publications

Last updated December 14, 2017

Dennehy, T. C. & Dasgupta, N. (2017). Female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, 5964-5969. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1613117114

Dennehy, T. C., Moore, C., Smith, J., & Dasgupta, N. (2017). Stereotype threat and stereotype inoculation for underrepresented students in the first year of college. In R. S. Feldman (Ed.) The First Year of College: Research, Theory, and Practice on Improving the Student Experience and Increasing Retention (pp. 309-344). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. doi: 9781316811764

Conway, L. G., Boyd, R. L., Dennehy, T. C., Mills, D. J., Repke, M. A. (2017). Political behavior inside and outside the lab: Bringing political research to the real world. Translational Issues in Psychological Science3, 227-230. doi: 0.1037/tps0000129

Berger, C. C., Dennehy, T. C., Bargh, J. A., & Morsella, E. M. (In press). Nisbett & Wilson (1977) revisited: The little that we can know and can tell. Social Cognition, 34, 167-195. doi: 10.1037/a0034683

Ben-Zeev, A., & Dennehy, T. C. (2014). When boys wear pink:  A gendered color cue violation evokes risk taking. Psychology of Men & Masculinity15, 486-489. doi: 10.1037/a0034683

Ben-Zeev, A., Dennehy, T. C., Goodrich, R. I., Kolarik, B. S. & Geisler, M. W. (2014). When an “educated” black male becomes lighter in the mind’s eye: Evidence for a skin tone memory bias. SAGE Open, 4, 1-9doi: 10.1177/2158244013516770

Dennehy, T. C., Ben-Zeev, A., & Tanigawa, N. (2014). “Be prepared”: A mindset for alleviating social identity threat. British Journal of Social Psychology53, 585-594. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12071

Dennehy, T. C., Cooper, S. T., Molapour, T., & Morsella, E. (2014). Is there release from masking from isomorphism between perception and action? Brain Sciences4, 230-239. doi: 10.3390/brainsci4020220

Dennehy, T. C. (2014). Inherence is an aspect of psychological essentialism. Commentary on Cimpian & Salomon. Brain & Behavior Sciences37, 486-487. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X13003695

Morsella, E., Dennehy, T. C., & Bargh, J. A. (2013). Voluntary action and the three forms of binding in the brain. In A. Clark, J. Kiverstein, & T. Vierkant (Eds.), Decomposing the will (pp. 183-198). New York: Oxford University Press.

Ben-Zeev, A., Chan, L., Scharnetzki, L., & Dennehy, T. C. (2012). Hyper-masculinity in the media:  When men “walk into the fog” to avoid affective communication. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1, 53-61. doi: 10.1037/a0027099

Ben-Zeev, A., Dennehy, T. C., & Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Blurring boundaries: Bisexual versus lesbian and heterosexual women’s self-assessed creativity. Journal of Bisexuality, 12, 1-13. doi: 10.1080/15299716.2012.702614

Ben-Zeev, A., Dennehy, T. C., Sackman, R., Olides, A., & Berger, C. C. (2011). Flirting with threat:  Social identity and the perils of the female communality prescription. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology47, 1308-1311. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.05.016

Carillo, J., Corning, A., Dennehy, T. C., & Crosby, F. J. (2011). Relative deprivation theory:  Understanding the dynamics of discontent. In D. Chadee (Ed.), Selected Theories in Social Psychology (pp. 140-160). Oxford, UK:  Blackwell Publishing.

Biography

I am now a postdoctoral researcher working with Dr. Toni Schmader and members of the consortium for Engendering Success in STEM (ESS; http://successinstem.ca/our-team/).

You can find me on twitter @taracdennehy.