Thekla Morgenroth

Postdoc position!

Myself and @jordanaxt.bsky.social are seeking applications for a shared post-doctoral researcher at McGill, beginning Fall 2026.

Topic area broadly centered on intergroup dynamics, prejudice, discrimination

Full description here: hehmanlab.org/ad
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Hi folks! We are conducting a meta-analysis examining the relationship between different facets of gender or gender-related essentialism and prejudice against transgender people. Therefore, we are requesting your unpublished data to include in the meta-analysis! The inclusion criteria are: 🧵

Faculty Lecturer - Department of Psychology Please refer to the How to Apply for a Job (for External Candidates) job aid for instructions on how to apply. If you are an active McGill employee (ie: currently in an active contract or position at ...

McGill is hiring a faculty lecturer in social psychology, in a (non-adjunct) permanent teaching position.

Please consider being my colleague, Montreal is really great: mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/McGill...

Health-focused frames mobilize Americans to action to address LGBTQ inequality | PNAS “More than 1 in 8 LGBTQ people live in states where doctors can refuse to treat them.” This headline describes a flurry of laws passed in 2025 allo...

New paper, led by Pia Dietze (newly on bsky! @piadietze.bsky.social) and Riana Brown (@rrrianabrown.bsky.social): www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why do people oppose plant-based alternatives to meat? We find it has a lot to do with a symbolic association between meat & masculinity. And with sexism. Open access in SPPS with A. Salmen, V. Krings, & @kristofdhontphd.bsky.social
#socialpsyc journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🧵1/4 New paper alert! psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

Can you celebrate diversity while undermining it? Our new paper in American Psychologist discusses how people/organizations can appear committed to diversity while their conceptualizations of diversity actively undercut it.

Evolutionary psychologists have long believed that men prefer physical traits in women which are cues to high potential fertility. A new review concludes: “current evidence base is too weak to support the claim that women’s feminine morphological traits are associated with reproductive potential”

Come be my colleague! careers.purdue.edu/job/Departme...

🚨 LGBTIQ+ Research Across the Globe Pre-conference at #SPSP2026

Come participate in small group discussions and networking opportunities designed to spark collaborations across borders!

Submit your abstract by 23 Oct. Our goal is to have representation across all continents!

ow.ly/xPHL50X68mH

New paper! "Reviewing Research on Transgender and Nonbinary People in Social Psychology: Insights and Future Research Directions" With the magical @kirameans.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

📣 Call for unpublished studies on discrimination of bisexual people!

⬇️ Please see the full call below

We are very grateful for all contributions!

#SocialPsych #PsychSciSky

The Mistake We Always Make When Talking About Women, By A Psychologist Why are debates about women’s rights so hard to resolve? New research shows how morality, not policy, shapes the fight over women’s bodies.

Nice coverage of our recent work on harm-based moral arguments about women's bodily autonomy! @nadirafaber.bsky.social, @shellkryan.bsky.social, @abiclick29.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/traver...

Please consider participating in our research! We're looking for social psychologists (broadly defined) who study gender (broadly defined). Research is (unfortunately) limited to people from/living in US, Canada, Australia, European Economic Area, and UK.

#Psychjobs
My former institution Colby College is hiring a tenure track in intergroup relations, broadly defined & open to many psych areas (not just social). This is my replacement line. I truly enjoyed my time at Colby and it's a great dept! Happy to answer Qs if I can.
apply.interfolio.com/172552

and feel free to chat to my current grad students @kirameans.bsky.social and Heejoo Chung (not on here) to find out what it's like to work with me.

Here is our lab website: tmorgenr.wixsite.com/unicornlab

a cartoon unicorn with a rainbow mane is dancing on a dance floor ALT: a cartoon unicorn with a rainbow mane is dancing on a dance floor

I'll be recruiting a grad student to join the UNICORN lab for Fall 2026! If you know any magical students interested in gender/sex, LGBTQ+ issues, intergroup relations, stereotyping & prejudice, social cognition, feminism, issues of bodily autonomy, or anything else I do, please send them my way!

Check out our new pre-print in which we argue something that might be obvious but doesn't seem to be obvious to everyone: Large Language Models (such as ChatGPT) do not simulate human psychology.

"Moral Policing: How Society Justifies Controlling Women’s Bodies": @theklamorgenroth.bsky.social and I have written a short blog piece for @spspnews.bsky.social on our work on bodily autonomy.
spsp.org/news/charact...
#socialpsyc #philsky #moralPhil

Character & Context piece about our work on the moralization of women's bodies: spsp.org/news/charact...

You can email me at tmorgenr(at)purdue.edu

P.S.: Am I a real social psychologist now that I've published in JPSP? 😆

Materials and data Hosted on the Open Science Framework

18/18 Finally: All our materials and data are openly available: osf.io/xkbgh/. Studies 1 and 2a were not preregistered. For all remaining studies, we preregistered hypotheses, sample size, exclusion criteria, measures, and analytic strategy, and report deviations from the preregistrations.

17/n Our studies emphasize how such sex/gender-dependent granting of rights might be justified and psychologically and societally sustained. We hope that our work does not remain the last to shed psychological light on this topic!

16/ Many questions are of course still open and there's a bunch of limitations - but we hope that this is a useful contribution to the literature. Bodily autonomy – a core value in philosophy and human rights – seems to be granted less to women than to men across several domains.

14/n Everyone thought harm-based arguments were the most convincing, regardless of condition. But, in line with our predictions, the relative convincingness of harm (compared to fairness/purity) was increased when talking to the political outgroup. (figure is for Republican participants)

13/n ... the most convincing arguments for their position (pro or anti decriminalization of sex work). Importantly, we told them to either convince a group of fellow Republicans/Democrats, a group of the political outgroup, or a mixed group.

12/n So in the remaining studies, we examined whether people are more likely to use harm-based arguments when talking to a value-based outgroup member. We recruited Democrats who supported the decriminalization of sex work and Republicans that opposed it. We asked them to select...

11/n But why does harm make such a useful strategic tool? We argue that people know that it is the "common ground" they share with outgroups. E.g. someone opposing sex work bc of religious beliefs likely knows that arguments based on religion will not be convincing to non-religious people.

10/n ... I care more about other stuff anyway." So we gave opponents and supporters information either in line or contradicting their views. As expected, people claimed harm was a less important reason for their views when the information was in opposition to their pre-existing views: