Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Associate Professor of Social Psychology

Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science

Telephone
0207 966 7165
Room No
CON.4.15
Office Hours
Tuesdays or Wednesdays AM (check LSE for You)
Connect with me

Languages
English
Key Expertise
Political Psychology, Social Psychology, Inequality, Poverty, Prejudice

About me

Jennifer completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology & Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and Masters in Social Psychology at the LSE. She then joined the UK civil service as a social psychologist, applying behavioural insights to the understanding of conflict and terrorism, rising to the role of Senior Strategic Analyst. Jennifer moved to the US to complete her PhD in Psychology at Harvard University, where she was also a Fellow at the Multidisciplinary Programme in Inequality & Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Edmond J. Safra Centre for Ethics (at the Lab on Institutional Corruption, led by Lawrence Lessig). Having commenced a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brunel University, Jennifer joined the LSE as an Assistant Professor in January 2016. Jennifer is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Oslo and Aarhus University, a Faculty Associate at the LSE International Inequalities Institute, and Associate Editor of the British Journal of Psychology (IF = 3.24).

Jennifer’s research has two strands, united by a concern to articulate the mutual influence of psychological and societal processes. The first applies the lens of social dominance theory to explore the psychological foundations and downstream consequences of socio-political attitudes such as egalitarianism. The second draws on socio-ecological psychology to investigate the impact of socioeconomic strain on basic decision-making processes. Both utilise a range of methods, including experiments, longitudinal surveys, cross-national analyses, and occasionally qualitative and computational methods. This research has been funded by the British Academy, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Tobin Project, among others, and is published in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in addition to policy-focused platforms such as the United Nations Development Programme.

Jennifer is also elaborating on the implications of her work for poverty alleviation in domestic and international domains, with a current focus on community engagement through the Indus Health Network in Sindh, Pakistan.

 

Expertise Details

Political psychology; Intergroup relations & conflict; Behavioural economics of poverty; Inequality & social stratification; Power & status; Evolutionary psychology; Quantitative methods (surveys; experiments; scale development; longitudinal analysis)