OmniTRAX/Broe Quest Series
Stephen C. Wright
Canada Research Chair in Social Psychology
Simon Fraser University
Social Sciences and Humanities
Dr. Wright’s research involves:
Investigating the psychological mechanisms that underpin prejudice and intergroup discrimination and that guide the responses of people in societally disadvantaged groups.
Research relevance:
The research will shed light on many key issues challenging our diverse, multicultural society and it has potential applications in education as well as in organizational and community settings.
Us and Them: From Injustice and Prejudice to Social Change and Respect:
Psychological theories about the relationships between different groups focus on how our thoughts about other people and our interactions with them are affected by our knowledge of both our own group membership and their group membership, and by our understanding of the general relationship between us and them.
Dr. Stephen Wright’s research holds as fundamental the concept of collective identity—that the groups we belong to form an essential part of our understanding of who we are. With this as a starting point, Dr. Wright’s work as a Canada Research Chair explores three related themes.
The first involves the reasons why people hold prejudicial attitudes about other groups, and how these attitudes can be changed. Specifically, Dr. Wright investigates the impact of contact between members of different groups. In contrast to most previous research, Dr. Wright’s work addresses not only when cross-group contact will lead to better intergroup attitudes (and when it will not), but also why.
The second major theme focuses on the targets of discrimination, investigating the psychological processes that guide the thoughts and actions of members of societally disadvantaged groups. This part of Dr. Wright’s work attempts to uncover the psychological resources that allow some individuals to “manage” the discriminatory treatment they face and to maintain a strong positive collective identity.
Finally, Dr. Wright’s research explores how psychological processes and educational practices come together to affect the lives of “minority-language” children. The research is taking a close look at the impact of heritage vs. second language education on the linguistic, social, and academic development of children whose mother tongue is a minority language. Much of this work focuses on the experience of the Inuit in Arctic Quebec.
Stephen Wright can be reached at scwright@sfu.edu