About

Amy R. Krosch is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University, affiliated with the American Studies Program and the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research examines the social and economic factors that amplify discrimination, focusing on the basic social cognitive and perceptual processes through which goals and motivations influence behavior toward others. She takes a multilevel approach to her research, integrating ideas and methods from experimental social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral decision-making, and psychophysics. Her ultimate aim is to understand the persistent and widespread inequalities that exist between groups in America and to inform interventions aimed at reducing group-based disparities in socio-economic and health outcomes.

Research topics

• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Environmental resource management
• Gender studies
• Demography
• Psychotherapist
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Applied psychology
• Economics

Selected publications

• PSYCH 6800- Spring 2025

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2025-01-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Are There Ideological Asymmetries in Intergroup Bias? A Minimal Groups Approach

  2025-11-05

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The divide between political liberals and conservatives is rapidly growing. Several influential theories contend that this divide hinges on orientations towards social groups, such that conservatives (versus liberals) show a greater tendency to favor their “ingroups” and discriminate against “outgroups”. However, other theories contend that liberals and conservatives do not differ in their degree of intergroup bias. Both perspectives have received empirical support, and the debate has reached a standstill. We argue that this theoretical and empirical stalemate stems from inherent limitations of examining attitudes towards real-world social groups—a strategy used by both sides of the debate. Drawing on social identity theory, we conducted a series of four studies (Total N = 4389) using “minimal groups” (i.e., experimentally constructed groups) to determine whether and why ideological differences in intergroup bias may exist. We found robust evidence of ideological differences in intergroup bias, with conservatives favoring their own social groups over others. These ideological differences were relatively small but statistically robust across most contexts we examined. Importantly, however, when groups were based on shared moral and political values, liberals showed as much intergroup bias as conservatives. These results help resolve this long-standing debate and deepen our understanding of the psychological underpinnings of political ideology.

  PublisherDOI

• HD 3820- Fall 2024

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2024-08-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

  Science Advances · 2024 · 248 citations

  • Psychology
  • Applied psychology
  • Environmental resource management

  Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Proseminar in Social/Personality Psychology: What?s New and (Possibly) True in the Field

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2023-02-14

  other
  Publisher

• Psych of Prejudice & Stereotyping

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2023-02-14

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Social Neuroscience

  eCommons (Cornell University) · 2023-12-07

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Oppressed Groups Engender Implicit Positivity: Seven Demonstrations Using Novel and Familiar Targets

  Psychological Science · 2023-09-21 · 6 citations

  article

  = 5,323), we measured implicit evaluations of social groups following exposure to historical narratives about their oppression. Although the valence of such information is highly negative and its interpretation was left up to participants, implicit evaluations of oppressed groups shifted toward positivity, including in designs involving fictitious, well-known, and even self-relevant targets. The sole deviation from this pattern was observed in an experiment using a vignette about slavery in the United States, in response to which neither White nor Black Americans exhibited any change in implicit race attitudes. In line with propositional perspectives, these findings suggest that implicit evaluations (including, notably, implicit evaluations of well-known and self-relevant social groups) tend to change toward positivity in response to extremely negative information involving past oppression. However, macro-level phenomena, such as public awareness of histories of oppression, can modulate such updating processes.

  PublisherDOI

• Economic scarcity increases racial stereotyping in beliefs and face representation

  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2022-06-18 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access

  Racial discrimination typically expands under resource scarcity, but the psychological mechanisms driving this effect remain poorly understood. We examined the role of stereotypes in this effect, given their theorized function in asserting and maintaining existing group hierarchies, and hypothesized that stereotype expression would be heightened in response to scarcity, a signal of social instability. In Study 1, the manipulated perception of scarcity strengthened reported knowledge of stereotypes of Black Americans as low in socioeconomic status and as threatening, relative to control participants. In Study 2, perceived scarcity increased the stereotypicality of participants' visualizations of a Black male face, as assessed using a reverse correlation procedure and judged by independent raters. Study 3 replicated the effect of scarcity on stereotypic face visualizations and further demonstrated that scarcity increased anti-Black stereotypes even among individuals with relatively weak implicit stereotype associations. Together, these studies reveal that the mere perception of scarcity can increase stereotyping of Black Americans, as expressed in self-reports and implicit visualizations of Black faces. We discuss the potential role of stereotyping under scarcity as a means to justify racial discrimination and maintain power structures in response to systemic threat.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Threat alters race perception to facilitate discrimination

  Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2022-09-21 · 6 citations

  review1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bernd Figner

  19 shared

• Elke U. Weber

  Princeton University

  14 shared

• Hugo Mercier

  11 shared

• David M. Amodio

  University of Amsterdam

  9 shared

• Salvatore Maria Aglioti

  Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico

  7 shared

• Aleksandra M. Herman

  University of Sussex

  7 shared

• Eric J. Johnson

  Columbia University

  7 shared

• Paul Bertin

  Université Libre de Bruxelles

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• 2018 APS Rising Star