Research Interests
Identities can be derived from many sources, including membership in social categories (e.g., race/ethnicity, religion, gender) and personal characteristics (e.g., opinions, beliefs). The overarching goal of my work is to better understand how individuals respond to threats to their social and personal identities, with a particular focus on majority versus minority identity.
Currently, I have two primary areas of research within this tradition. In the first, I study the factors that influence majority group members' (e.g., White/European Americans') perceptions of threat from and attitudes toward minority groups, and vice versa. Much of my work in this area examines reasons that majority group members may see multiculturalism - the recognition and celebration of diversity - as threatening, and ways to reduce these feelings of threat. In the second, I study the causes and consequences of stereotyping/prejudice among religious majorities (e.g., negative stereotypes about Christians' scientific abilities) and minorities (e.g., negative stereotypes about atheists' morality and trustworthiness), both within the U.S. and cross-culturally.
That said, I am interested in a wide variety of research topics related to self and identity, intergroup relations, and attitudes/social influence. Feel free to browse my publication list to get a sense of what I have worked on over the years!
Education
Organizational Behavior, PhD, Stanford University
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Psychology
Center for Professional Responsibility in Business and Society Faculty Scholar, Gies College of Business
Recent Publications
Mackey, C., & Rios, K. (2025). Do Demographic Increases in LGBT and Nonreligious Americans Increase Threat? Personality and social psychology bulletin, 51(2), 253-267. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231188278
Itzchakov, G., Reis, H. T., & Rios, K. (2024). Perceiving others as responsive lessens prejudice: The mediating roles of intellectual humility and attitude ambivalence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 110, Article 104554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104554
Mackey, C. D., Rios, K., Scheitle, C. P., Corcoran, K. E., & DiGregorio, B. D. (2024). Science on the mind: Examining question ordering effects when asking about science on large-scale surveys. Public Understanding of Science, 33(8), 998-1008. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241237748
Rios, K., & Mackey, C. D. (2024). Group cohesion. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Social Psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 703-722). Oxford University Press.
Rios, K. (2024). Harnessing the many facets of White identity to reduce feelings of threat and improve intergroup relations. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 27(5), 1014-1026. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302241240688