Research
I study how social identities - people's conceptions of themselves grounded in the groups they belong to - influence conformity and dissent, intergroup relations, solidarity and social change, public health, and leadership. Currently, we are particularly interested in relationships between institutions and identities, and their implications for issues ranging from discrimination to privacy to behaving badly online.
In 2021, I published my first book with longtime collaborator (and grad school officemate), Jay Van Bavel. The Power of Us received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and a warm review in Science. We were awarded the William James Award from the American Psychological Association for the best book of 2021.
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Selected Recent Publications
Full list of publications at Google Scholar.
Van Bavel, J. J. & Packer, D. J. (2021). The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony. Little, Brown Spark.
Van Bavel, J. J., Packer, D.J., Ray, J. L., Robertson, C., & Ungson, N. D. (in press). How social identity tunes moral cognition. Handbook on the Psychology of Morality.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., Selvanathan, H. P., Gaffney, A. M., Steffens, N. K., Packer, D. J., Van Bavel, J. J., Ntontis, E., Neville, F., Vestergren, S., Jurstakova, K., & Platow, M. J. (2022). Examining the plausibility of Donald Trump’s denial of responsibility for the 2020 assault on the U.S. Capitol: A dual-agency model of identity leadership and engaged followership. Leadership Quarterly.
Van Bavel, J. J., Pärnamets, P., Reinero, D., & Packer, D. J. (2022). How neurons, norms, and institutions shape cooperation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 65, 50-105.
Van Bavel et al. (2022). National identity predicts public health support during a pandemic. Nature Communications, 13.
Marsh, J. K., Ungson, N. D., & Packer, D. J. (2021). Bring out your experts: The relationship between perceived expert causal understanding and pandemic behaviors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27, 785-802..
Packer, D. J., Ungson, N. D., & Marsh, J. K. (2021). Conformity and reactions to deviance in the age of COVID. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 24, 311-324.
Marsh, J. K., Ungson, N. D., & Packer, D. J. (2021). Of pandemics and zombies: The influence of prior concepts on COVID-19 pandemic-related behaviors. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 5207
Van Bavel et al. (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour, 4, 460-471.
