Specialist Research Laboratory
Social/Personality Laboratory
| Coordinators | Professor Nick Haslam |
| Location | Room 824, 8th Floor, Redmond Barry Building |
| Phone | +61 3 8344 6374 |
| nhaslam AT psych.unimelb.edu.au |
Research Activities
Our research explores an assortment of topics involving social perception and individual differences. Our social psychological work currently focuses on the subtle and often nonconscious ways in which people deny humanness to one another. Often using implicit social cognition methodologies, this work explores how some groups – genders, ethnicities, refugees, indigenous people – are perceived as lacking particular human attributes and likened to particular kinds of nonhuman (e.g., animals, robots). We also examine how people’s beliefs about the nature of group differences are associated with their attitudes and their endorsement of stereotypes. Our personality-related research mainly investigates whether individual differences are best conceptualised as matters of degree or as matters of kind (i.e., dimensions or categories), using taxometric research methods.
Current Areas of Research
- Dehumanisation processes
- Implications of essentialist thinking for stereotyping and prejudice
- Perception of people with mental disorders
- Implicit social cognition methodology
- Application of taxometric procedures in personality psychology
Research Staff
Research Associate
Lab Facilities
The Laboratory is equipped for research in the broad field of social and personality psychology, particularly social cognition experiments.
Funding & Grants
| Project: | Dehumanisation: Understanding the Attributing of Lesser Humanness to Others |
| Year: | 2007–2010 |
| Funded by: | Australian Research Council |
Current Research Students
- Amanda Allan, Leah Kaufmann, Peter Koval, Joonha Park, Catherine Reynolds, Emily Toner, Sam Wilson
Recent Past Research Students
- Lauren Ban, Brock Bastian, Stephen Loughnan, Jennifer Whelan
Publications (2007-present)
In press
Arntz, A., Bernstein, D., Gielen, D., van Nieuwenhuijzen, M., Penders, K., Haslam, N., & Ruscio, J. (in press). Taxometric evidence for the dimensional structure of cluster-C, paranoid and borderline personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders.
Bain, P., Park, J., Kwok, C., & Haslam, N. (in press). Attributing human uniqueness and human nature to cultural groups: Distinct forms of subtle dehumanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.
Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (in press). Excluded from humanity: Ostracism and dehumanization. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Cho, Y. B., & Haslam, N. (in press). Suicidal ideation and distress among immigrant adolescents: The role of acculturation, life stress, and social support. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Franklin, T., Lee, A., Hall, N., Hetrick, S., Ong, J., Haslam, N., Karsz, F., & Vance, A. (in press). The association of visuospatial working memory with dysthymic disorder in pre-pubertal children. Psychological Medicine.
Haslam, N. (in press). Bite-size science: Relative impact of short article formats. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Haslam, N. (in press). The latent structure of personality and psychopathology: A review of trends in taxometric research. Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice.
Haslam, N., & Kashima, Y. (in press). The rise and rise of social psychology in Asia: A bibliometric analysis. Asian Journal of Social Psychology.
Haslam, N., & Koval, P. (in press). Possible research area bias in the draft ERA journal rankings. Australian Journal of Psychology.
Haslam, N., & Laham, S. (in press). Early-career scientific achievement and patterns of authorship: The mixed blessings of publication leadership and collaboration. Research Evaluation.
Kashima, Y., Bain, P., Haslam, N., Peters, K., Laham, S., Whelan, J., Bastian, B., Loughnan, S., Kaufmann, L., & Fernando, J. W. (in press). A folk theory of social change. Asian Journal of Social Psychology.
Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., & Kashima, Y. (in press). Understanding the relationship between attribute-based and metaphor-based dehumanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.
Saminaden, A., Loughnan, S., & Haslam, N. (in press). Afterimages of savages: Implicit associations between “primitive” peoples, animals, and children. British Journal of Social Psychology.
Humanness and dehumanization
Haslam, N., Bastian, B., & Loughnan, S. (2009). Dehumanization/ infrahumanization. In J. Levine & M. Hogg (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. London: Sage.
Koval, P., Park, J., & Haslam, N. (2009). Less than human. In-Mind magazine.
Wilson, S., & Haslam, N. (2009). Is the future more or less human? Differing views of humanness in the posthumanism debate. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 39, 247-266.
Haslam, N., Bain, P., Loughnan, S., & Kashima, Y. (2008). Attributing and denying humanness to others. European Review of Social Psychology, 19, 55-85.
Haslam, N., Kashima, Y., Loughnan, S., Shi, J., & Suitner, C. (2008). Subhuman, inhuman, and superhuman: Contrasting humans and nonhumans in three cultures. Social Cognition, 26, 248-258.
Haslam, N., & Loughnan, S. (2008). Attributing aberrant emotionality to others. In L. Charland & P. Zachar (Eds.) Fact and value in emotion. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
O’Connor, M., Loughnan, S., & Haslam, N. (2008). The self is implicitly seen as more human than others. In S. M. Columbus (ed.), Advances in psychology research, Vol 53. New York: Nova Publishers.
Haslam, N., Loughnan, S., Reynolds, C., & Wilson, S. (2007). Dehumanization: A new perspective. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1, 409-422.
Haslam, N. (2007). Humanising medical practice: The role of empathy. Medical Journal of Australia, 187, 381-382.
Haslam, N., & Bain, P. (2007). Humanizing the self: Moderators of the attribution of lesser humanness to others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 57-68.
Loughnan, S., & Haslam, N. (2007). Animals and androids: Implicit associations between social categories and nonhumans. Psychological Science, 18, 116-121.
Psychological essentialism
Haslam, N. (2009). Essentialism. In J. Levine & M. Hogg (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. London: Sage.
Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2008). Immigration from the perspective of hosts and immigrants: The roles of psychological essentialism and social identity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology 11, 127-140.
Haslam, N., & Whelan, J. (2008). Human natures: Psychological essentialism in thinking about differences between people. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1297-1312.
Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2007). Psychological essentialism and attention allocation: Preferences for stereotype consistent versus inconsistent information. Journal of Social Psychology, 147, 531-541.
Taxometrics
Haslam, N. (2009). The taxon concept is not taxonic: Response to Grove (2008). Psychological Reports, 104, 784-786.
Olatunji, B., Williams, B., Haslam, N., & Abramowitz, J. S., & Tolin, D. F. (2008). The latent structure of obsessive-compulsive symptoms: A taxometric study. Depression & Anxiety, 25, 956-968.
Rawlings, D., Williams, B., Haslam, N., & Claridge, G. (2008). Taxometric analysis supports a latent dimensional structure for schizotypy. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1640-1651.
Rawlings, D., Williams, B., Haslam, N., & Claridge, G. (2008). Is schizotypy taxonic? Response to Beauchaine et al.. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1663-1672.
Haslam, N. (2007). Do categories or dimensions underlie mental disorders? An update on the taxometric evidence. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 3, 172-177.
Perceptions of mental disorder & stigma
Read, J., Haslam, N., & Davies, E. (2009). The need to rely on evidence not ideology in stigma research. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 119, 412-413.
Haslam, N. (2007). Folk taxonomies vs. official taxonomies. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 14, 281-284.
Haslam, N. (2007). Lay conceptions of mental disorder: Introduction to the special issue. Australian Psychologist, 42, 79-80.
Haslam, N., Ban, L., & Kaufmann, L. (2007). Lay conceptions of mental disorder: The folk psychiatry model. Australian Psychologist, 42, 129-137.
Studies of science
Haslam, N., & Laham, S. M. (2009). Ten years on: Does graduate school promise predict later scientific achievement? Current Research in Social Psychology, 14, 143-149.
Haslam, N., Ban, L., Kaufmann, L., Loughnan, S., Peters, K., Whelan, J., & Wilson, S. (2008). What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology. Scientometrics, 76, 169-185.
Refugee issues
Haslam, N. (2008). Refugee realities: The view from Australia. The Forward: SPSSI Newsletter, vol. 235
Haslam, N., & Pedersen, A. (2007). Public opinion about asylum seekers: the psychology of exclusion. In D. Lusher & N. Haslam (eds.), Yearning to breathe free: Seeking asylum in Australia (pp. 208-218). Sydney: Federation Press.
Lusher, D., & Haslam, N. (2007). Editors’ introduction. In D. Lusher & N. Haslam (Eds)., Yearning to breathe free: Seeking asylum in Australia (pp. 1-3). Sydney: Federation Press.
Lusher, D., & Haslam, N. (Eds.) (2007). Yearning to breathe free: Seeking asylum in Australia. Sydney: Federation Press.
Miscellaneous
Haslam, N. (2009). Relationship types and taxonomies. In H. Reis & S. K. Sprecher (Eds.), Encyclopedia of human relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Haslam, N., Whelan, J., & Bastian, B. (2009). Big Five traits mediate associations between values and subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 40-42.
van de Berg, R., Dirani, M., Haslam, N., & Baird, P. (2008). Myopia and personality: The Genes in Myopia (GEM) personality study. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 49, 882-886.
Haslam, N. (2007). Introduction to personality and intelligence. London: Sage.
Boldero, J., Rawlings, D. R., & Haslam, N. (2007). Convergence between GNAT-assessed implicit and explicit personality. European Journal of Personality, 21, 341-358.
Haslam, N., Bastian, B., Fox, C., & Whelan, J. (2007). Beliefs about personality change and continuity. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1621-1631.
Kashima, Y., & Haslam, N. (2007). Explanation and interpretation: An invitation to experimental semiotics. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 27, 601-623.
McNab, C., Haslam, N., & Burnett, P. (2007). Expressed emotion, attributions, utility beliefs, and distress in parents of young people with first episode psychosis. Psychiatry Research, 151, 97-106.