My past scholarly interests have focused on such topics as gendered perceptions of occupational worth, perceptions of subtle prejudice within interpersonal interactions, and the integration of diversity into higher education curricula. Underlying all of these topics has been attention to the consequences of cognitive prejudice and overt discrimination.

For the past several years, I have been interested in factors that affect the perception of criminal defendants. My recent work has examined the impact of personality and mortality salience on perceptions of defendants, particularly racist perceptions. In addition, my students and I have developed a 10-item scale to measure perceptions of a criminal defendant in terms of inherent character, and we are continuing our validation studies.

I also have an interest in the psychology of religious and non-religious cults with respect to the social psychological principles at play within the methods used to attract and maintain membership. I have taught an advanced seminar on this topic for many years.