Tara C. Dennehy

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 Science, 3, 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 & Masculinity, 15, 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, 1-9. doi: 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 Psychology, 53, 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 Sciences, 4, 230-239. doi: 10.3390/brainsci4020220
Dennehy, T. C. (2014). Inherence is an aspect of psychological essentialism. Commentary on Cimpian & Salomon. Brain & Behavior Sciences, 37, 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 Psychology, 47, 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.