Professor Linda Skitka’ Lecture: The Social and Political Implications of Moral Conviction
LAS Distinguished Professor Lecture and Award Ceremony
November 10, 2021
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Address
Chicago, IL 60612
Calendar
Download iCal FileDr. Linda J. Skitka is a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of
Michigan and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests bridge several areas of inquiry, including social, political, and moral psychology. Through her research, she has discovered, among other things, that there is considerable variation in the degree to which individuals feel that their position on specific
issues reflects their core moral convictions. Moreover, stronger moral convictions about particular issues are associated with increased political engagement (e.g., voting and willingness to engage in activism), inoculation against the usual pressures to obey authorities and the law, and greater acceptance of violent solutions to conflict about these same issues. The normative implications of these and other findings are both reassuring and terrifying. On the one hand, moral convictions can protect against obedience to potentially malevolent authorities; but on the other hand, moral convictions are associated with rejection of the rule of law and can provide a motivational foundation for violence and terrorism.
Dr. Skitka has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Templeton Foundation. In recognition of her service to the profession and her academic excellence, she recently received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Harold Lasswell Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Political Psychology, awarded by the International Society for Political Psychology. She has served as president of several organizations, including the International Society for Justice Research, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and Midwestern Psychological Association. Dr. Skitka and her work were recently featured on an episode of the podcast Hidden Brain on National Public Radio.
Date posted
Oct 15, 2021
Date updated
Oct 15, 2021