Terri D. Conley, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor E-mail: ConleyTe@umkc.edu Fax: (816) 235-1062 Address: 4825 Troost, Room 123-A

 

Education                   

University of California, Los Angeles:
Ph.D. in Social Psychology
Minors:  Measurement and Psychometrics; Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine   M.A. in Social Psychology

                                                                                                                 

Selected Publications

Conley, T. D., Ghavami, N., VonOhlen, J. R. & Foulkes, P. J. (in press).   Implicit and explicit self-esteem in special and regular education students.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Conley, T. D., Evett, S. R., & Devine, P. G. (in press). Attitudes, subjective experiences, and behaviors of heterosexuals in imagined and actual intergroup encounters. Journal of Homosexuality.

Conley, T. D., & Collins, B. E.  (2005).  Predictors of condom use in young adults: Comparisons of gender and relationship status.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35, 603-620.

Conley, T. D. & Rabinowitz, J. L. (2004).  Scripts, close relationships and symbolic meanings of contraceptives. Personal Relationships, 11, 539-558.

Conley, T. D., Devine, P. G., Rabow, J., & Evett, S. R. (2002).  Gay men and lesbians' experiences in and expectations for interactions with heterosexuals. Journal of Homosexuality, 43, 83-109.

 Conley, T. D. & Collins, B. E. (2002).  Gender, relationship status, and stereotyping about sexual risk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1483-1494.

 Conley, T. D., Calhoun, C., Evett. S. R. & Devine. P. G.  (2001).  Mistakes that heterosexual people make when trying to appear non-prejudiced: The view from gay people.  Journal of Homosexuality, 42, 21-43.

Hardin, C. D. & Conley, T. D. (2001).  A relational approach to cognition: Shared experience and relationship affirmation in social cognition. In G. B. Moskowitz (Ed.), Cognitive Social Psychology: The Princeton Symposium on the Legacy and Future of Social Cognition (pp. 3-21).  Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Peplau, L. A., Spalding, L. R., Conley, T. D., & Veniegas, R. C. (1999).  The development of sexual orientation in women.  In R. C. Rosen (Ed.), Annual Review of Sex Research, Vol. 10 (pp. 70-99).

Conley, T. D., Taylor, S. E., Kemeny, M. E., Cole, S. W., & Visscher, B. (1999).  Psychological sequelae of avoiding HIV‑serostatus information.  Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 21, 81‑90.

 

Courses Taught

Experimental Psychology
Psychology of Women
Social Psychology

Research Interests

My research interests lie at the intersection of stigma, health and gender issues.  My research addresses social problems and utilizes theories as tools to help resolve these dilemmas.

 

Gender, Stigma and Health in Close Relationships

                Synthesizing research on stigma, romantic relationship issues, and health promotion is the overarching goal of this line of my research.  I seek to understand people’s motivations to engage in risky sexual practices.  Fundamentally, I am pursuing my belief that the romantic/sexual dyad, rather than the individual, is the appropriate level of analysis to understand most sexual health issues.  For example, a recent article (Conley & Rabinowitz, 2005) documented that a normative birth control script (in which couples begin using condoms and then transition to using the pill) is perceived more positively by college students than a counter-normative script (in which couples who are using birth control pills transition to condom use).  In a related project, I have garnered evidence that women, who normally have elevated estimates of risk, depress risk estimates of their boyfriends’ probability of infecting them with an STD (Conley & Peplau, 2005).  This phenomenon is consistent with gender role perspectives on risk perception, which suggest that women’s normally inflated risk perceptions are a result of their socialization to be dependent on men.  Therefore, when women judge the risk levels of their male protectors, they report relatively diminished risk levels.  Finally, I am exploring the classic nature versus nurture debate to understand gender differences in the willingness to accept a casual sex proposal (cf. Clark & Hatfield, 1989).  Although the investigation of this phenomenon has most recently been the domain of sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, my data suggest that sociocultural explanations (e.g., understanding that women are stigmatized for casual sex to a greater extent than men) provide a more parsimonious explanation for the large gender differences in this domain. 

 

Stigmatized Groups’ Reactions to Dominant Groups

                Although most other minority perspective researchers have focused on stigmatized group members’ reactions to their stigmatized status (e.g, Crocker & Major, 1989), I focus specifically on stigmatized group members’ perceptions of and opinions about dominant groups (e.g., gay men and lesbians’ attitudes toward heterosexual people: Conley, Devine, Rabow & Evett, 2002; Conley, Calhoun, Evett & Devine, 2001).  Currently, I am investigating non-Whites’ stereotypes about Whites, and the relationship of those stereotypes to prejudicial attitudes, using four theories of intergroup relationships.  Theoretically, the issue that most interests me is resistance, and in particular how members of marginalized groups use stereotypes about dominant groups to subvert extant power relationships.  I believe that psychologists need to consider the phenomenon of resistance in concert with, or as an alternative to, system justification theories.  For example, my research on stereotypes about Whites demonstrates that groups with lower status (African Americans and Latinas/os) ascribe to much more negative representations of White men than Asian Americans (an ethnic group of higher status).  Thus, examination of the attitudes of members of stigmatized minority groups can shed light on basic theoretical assumptions within the field of stereotyping/intergroup relationships, which are based upon the assumption that the stereotyper is both in a higher power position than the stereotyped individual and part of a statistical majority. 

 

Future Directions               

                Fusing my interests in health issues and intergroup relationships, my next series of projects will investigate the health implications of negative attitudes toward Whites for non-White ethnic groups.  Evidence is mounting to suggest that negative affect in general is associated with poorer health outcomes (Suls, 2004). More specifically, at least one study suggests that prejudicial experiences have been associated with negative physiological outcomes (Guyll, Matthews, & Bromberger, 2001).  My research shows that prejudice toward Whites is often associated with experiences of discrimination by Whites.  I suspect that people who have more prejudicial reactions to Whites would be especially likely to interpret ambiguous behaviors as discriminatory and to experience hostility as the result of this discrimination.  Therefore, prejudice toward Whites could lead ethnic minority group members to more readily interpret behaviors as prejudice, yielding greater hostility and poorer health outcomes.

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Last updated: Sept 8, 2006