Sylvia Perry (on leave 2022-2023)
Associate Professor
- sylvia.perry@northwestern.edu
- Website
- Swift 227
Research Interests:
My research investigates how individual difference factors interact with situational factors to affect intergroup contexts, educational and healthcare settings, and people’s sense of belonging and psychological well-being. These individual difference factors range from the different ways in which people respond to stressful intergroup contexts (such as interracial interactions between White medical providers and minority patients) to how people differentially cope with environmental stressors (such as the identity and stereotype threat minorities experience in academic and healthcare settings). With some of my current lines of research I am investigating: (1) whether there are individual differences in people’s awareness of their racially biased tendencies and the consequences of this “awareness”; (2) the situational and individual difference factors that influence parents’ willingness to have, and physiological responses to, race discussions with their children; (3) the impact of medical school racial climate on medical student and patient outcomes.
Selected Publications:
Perry, S. P., *Wages, J. E., *Skinner-Dorkenoo, A. L., Burke, S. E., Hardeman, R. R., Phelan, S. M. (in press). Testing a self-affirmation intervention for improving the psychosocial health of Black and White medical students in the U.S. Journal of Social Issues Special Issue on Self-Affirmation in Educational Contexts.
Abaied, J. L., Perry, S. P. (2021). Socialization of racial ideology by White parents. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000454
*Skinner, A. L., *Patel, B., *Osnaya, A., & Perry, S. P. (2020) Mimicking others’ nonverbal signals is associated with increased attitude contagion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Special Issue on Nonconscious Mimicry, 44, 117-131 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-019-00322-1
Onyeador, I. N., Wittlin, N. M., Burke, S. E., Dovidio, J. F., Perry, S. P., Hardeman, R. R., Dyrbye, L. N., Herrin, J., Phelan, S. M., van Ryn, M. (2020). The value of interracial contact for reducing Anti-Black bias among Non-Black physicians: A CHANGE Study Report. Psychological Science, 31, 18-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619879139
*Skinner, A. L., & Perry, S. P. (2020). Are attitudes contagious? Exposure to biased nonverbal signals can create novel social attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46, 514-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219862616
*Skinner, A. L., Perry, S. P., & Gaither, S. E. (2020). Not quite monoracial: Biracial stereotypes explored. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46, 377-392. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219858344
Perry, S. P., *Skinner, A. L., & Abaied, J. L. (2019). Bias awareness predicts color conscious racial socialization methods among White parents. Journal of Social Issues: Special Issue on Research on Race and Racism, 75, 1035-1056. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12348
Perry, S. P., Hardeman, R., Burke, S., Cunningham, B., Burgess, D. J., & van Ryn, M. (2016). The impact of everyday discrimination and racial identity centrality on African American medical student well-being: A report from the medical student CHANGE study. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 3, 519-526. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-015-0170-3
Perry, S. P., Murphy, M. C., & Dovidio, J. F. (2015). Modern Prejudice: Subtle, but unconscious? The role of bias awareness in Whites’ perceptions of personal and others’ biases. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 61, 64-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.06.007