Research
My research areas include social identity threat, intergroup contact, stereotyping and discrimination, cultural psychology, and applications of emerging technologies in the study of intergroup relations. Specifically, my research investigates how stereotyping and prejudice affect underrepresented groups' academic performance, interracial interactions, and the treatment of racialized physical spaces. Integrating these lines of inquiry, my research uses emerging technologies (virtual, augmented, and extended reality, AR/VR/XR) to improve cross-race encounters in different contexts. Finally, in some of my recent work, I use social psychological research findings to inform and examine the impact of antiracist education in corporate and non-profit settings to reduce longstanding social inequities and impact policy.
I am an experimental social psychologist, and I hold a joint appointment in the Africana Studies Program at Lehigh University. For more information, please see my lab page: https://wordpress.lehigh.edu/ssilab/ and also feel free to email me at vjtaylor@lehigh.edu.
Selected publications
* Indicates equal contribution; authors listed alphabetically.
Taylor, V. J., Yantis, C., Bonam, C. M., & Hart, A. (2021). What do I do? Predicting anticipatory behaviors following ingroup members' stereotypical behaviors in interracial interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(7), 1084-1100.
Taylor, V. J., Valladares, J. V., Siepser, C., & Yantis, C. (2020). Interracial contact in virtual reality: Best-practices. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 7(2), 132-140.
Taylor, V. J., Garcia, R. L., Shelton, J. N., & Yantis, C. (2018). “A Threat on the Ground”: The consequences of witnessing stereotype-confirming ingroup members in interracial interactions. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
Bonam, C. M., Taylor, V. J., & Yantis, C. (2017). Racialized physical space as cultural product. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(9), 1-12.
*Brannon, T., *Taylor, V. J., Higginbotham, G., & Henderson, K. (2017). Selves in contact: How integrating perspectives on sociocultural selves and intergroup contact can inform theory and application on reducing inequality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(7), 1-15.
Brannon, T., Markus, H. R., & Taylor, V. J. (2015). ‘Two Souls, Two Thoughts’, Two self-schemas: Adaptive and positive consequences of double consciousness in African-Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(4), 586-609.
