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Robb Willer

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Robb Willer
Born1977 (age 47–48)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCornell University
Scientific career
InstitutionsStanford University
Websitewww.robbwiller.org

Robb Willer (born 1977) is an American social psychologist who studies politics, morality, status, cooperation, and masculinity. He is a professor of sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior at Stanford University.[1]. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Cornell University in sociology[2][3].


Teaching

Prior to moving Stanford, Professor Willer was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley's Sociology Department[4]. Willer was the 2009 recipient of the Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching[5], the only teaching award given by the UC-Berkeley student body.

Research

Robb Willer has published more than 40 scientific articles in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, and Psychological Science[6][7]. He has received grants from the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the National Science Foundation[8]. As of July 12, 2017, his h-index was 28 and his i10-index was 47, with 4,797 citations[9].

Much of Willer's research focuses on political psychology and sociology, exploring both sources of political polarization and ways it can be reduced[10][11]. He and Matthew Feinberg developed the idea of "moral reframing[12]." Based on moral foundations theory, moral reframing is a technique of political persuasion in which a political message draws a connection between a given issue and the audience's assumed moral values[13]. Willer's talk on political communication has been viewed over 1 million times since it was posted on the TED website January 20, 2017[14]

Willer's other research on politics emphasizes the effects of various forms of threat and anxiety on political attitudes, for example, the effects of racial status threats[15], terror threats[16], and masculinity threats[17]. He has studied masculine overcompensation, showing that men whose masculinity has been threatened tend to adopt more stereotypically masculine attitudes on issues like war and gay rights[18].

His Masters thesis concerned the effects of academic status on the evaluation of unintelligible academic texts, using the text from the Sokal affair.

He contributed research to the best-selling book Modern Romance: An Investigation[19], by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg.

Media Coverage

Willer's research has also received widespread media coverage including from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, Science, Nature, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Scientific American, Harper’s, Slate, CNN, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and National Public Radio.

References