PhD (McGill)

I graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.Sc. in psych & a minor in socio-cultural anthropology, having done my honours thesis on stereotyping and subtyping (with Ken Dion and Kerry Kawakami). I went to McGill and did an MSc with Don Taylor on responses to discrimination and a PhD with him on decision-making in conflict. This was very fun. :) Then I came to UQ in 2001 to work with Debbie Terry on a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  Accordingly I discovered Australia, & ended up applying for and getting a continuing job here in 2005. Whoohoo!  I received tenure and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008.

There are a series of bios appropriate for talks (i.e., with more bragging!) online here.

Member of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP); the Society for Australasian Social Psychology (SASP); and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).

At UQ, member of the Centre for Research on Group Processes and associate member of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.  I am also the psychology delegate to the National Tertiary Education Union.

Intergroup relations and conflict; political decision-making; collective action; power; social psychology of language; and norms, attitudes and behaviour.

Summaries of some of my recent studies on decision-making, conflict and collective action are on-line here, along with some cool teaching resources.

Barlow, F. B., Louis, W. R., & Terry, D. J. (in press). Minority report: Social identity, cognitions of rejection and intergroup anxiety predicting prejudice from one racially marginalized group towards another. European Journal of Social Psychology.

Chan, M. K.-H., Louis, W. R., & Hornsey, M. J. (in press). The effects of exclusion and reintegration on the evaluation of deviant opinion holders. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Greenaway, K. H. & Louis, W. R. (in press).  Only human: Hostile human norms can reduce legitimisation of intergroup discrimination by perpetrators of historical atrocities. British Journal of Social Psychology. 

Mavor, K. I, Louis, W. R. , & Sibley, C. G. (2010). A bias corrected exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of right-wing authoritarianism: Support for a three-factor structure.  Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 28-33.

Barlow, F.K., Louis, W.R., & Hewstone, M. (2009). Rejected! Cognitions of rejection and intergroup anxiety as mediators of the impact of crossgroup friendships on prejudice. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48(3), 389-405.

Heinke, M. S., & Louis, W. R. (2009).  Cultural background and individualist/collectivist values in relation to similarity, perspective-taking and empathy.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(11), 2570-2590.

Mavor, K. I, Macleod, C. J., Boal, M.J., & Louis, W.R. (2009). Right-wing authoritarianism, fundamentalism and prejudice revisited: Removing suppression and statistical artefact?  Personality & Individual Differences, 46 (5-6), 592-597.

Louis, W. R. (2009).  Collective action – and then what? Journal of Social Issues, 65(4), 727-748. 

Louis, W. R. (2009).  If they’re not crazy, then what?  The implications of social psychological approaches to terrorism for conflict management.  In W. Stritzke, S. Lewandowsky, D. Denemark, F. Morgan, & J. Clare (Eds.), Terrorism and Torture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 125-153.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Louis, W. R. (2009).  Terrorism, identity, and conflict management.  Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3/4,433-446.

Louis, W. R., Chan, M. K. H., & Greenbaum, S. (2009).  Stress and the theory of planned behaviour: Understanding healthy and unhealthy eating intentions.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39(2), 472-493. 

Penhaligon, N. P., Louis, W. R., & Restubog, S. L. (2009).  Emotional anguish at work: Perceived rejection mediates between workgroup mistreatment and affective outcomes.  Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14, 34-45.

Smith, J. R., & Louis, W. R. (2009).  Group norms and the attitude-behaviour relationship.  Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3(1), 19-35.

Fielding, K. S., McDonald, R., & Louis, W. (2008).  Theory of planned behaviour, identity and intentions to engage in environmental activism.  Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(4), 318-326. 

Louis, W. R. (2008).  Intergroup positioning and power.  In F. M. Moghaddam, R. Harré, & N. Lee (Eds.), Global Conflict Resolution Through Positioning Analysis (pp. 21-39).  New York: Springer.

Nickerson, A. M., & Louis, W. R. (2008).  Nationality versus humanity ?  Personality, identity and norms in relation to attitudes towards asylum seekers.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 796-817.

Smith, J. R., & Louis, W. R. (2008).  Do as we say and as we do: The interplay of descriptive and injunctive group norms in the attitude-behaviour relationship.  British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 647-666.

Smith, J. R., Terry, D. J., Manstead, A. S. R., Louis, W. R., Kotterman, D., & Wolfs, J. (2008). The attitude-behaviour relationship in consumer conduct: The role of norms, past behaviour, and self-identity.   Journal of Social Psychology, 148, 311-333.

Louis, W. R., Davies, S., Terry, D. J., & Smith, J. R. (2007).  Pizza and pop and the student identity: The role of referent group norms in healthy and unhealthy eating.  Journal of Social Psychology, 147, 57-74.

Louis, W. R., Duck, J., Terry, D. J., Schuller, R., & Lalonde, R. (2007).  Why do citizens want to keep refugees out?  Threats, fairness, and hostile norms in the treatment of asylum seekers.  European Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 53-73.

Smith, J. R., Terry, D. J., Manstead, A. S. R., Louis, W. R., Kotterman, D., & Wolfs, J. (2007).  Interaction effects in the theory of planned behavior: The interplay of self-identity and past behavior.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37, 2726-2750.

Hornsey, M., Blackwood, L., Fielding, K. S., Louis, W. R., Mavor, K., Morton, T., O’Brien, A., Paasonen, K.-E., & Smith, J. (2006).  Identity and motivated collective action: Goal orientations and effectiveness ratings at a political demonstration.   Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 1701-1722.

Johnson, D., Terry, D. J., & Louis, W. R. (2005).  Perceptions of the intergroup structure and Anti-Asian prejudice among White Australians.  Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 8, 53-71.

Louis, W. R., & Taylor, D. M. (2005).  Rights and duties as group norms: Implications of intergroup research for the study of rights and responsibilities.  In N. J. Finkel & F. M. Moghaddam (eds.), The Psychology of Rights and Duties: Empirical Contributions and Normative Commentaries (pp. 105-134).  Washington, DC: APA Press.

Louis, W. R., Taylor, D. M., & Douglas, R.L. (2005).  Normative influence and rational conflict decisions:  Group norms and cost-benefit analyses for intergroup behaviour.  Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 8(4), 355-374.

Louis, W. R., Taylor, D. M., & Neil, T. (2004).  Cost-benefit analyses for your group and your self: The rationality of decision-making in conflict.  International Journal of Conflict Management, 15(2), 110-143.

Taylor, D. M., & Louis, W. R. (2004).  Terrorism and the quest for identity.  In F. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences, and interventions (pp. 169-185).  Washington, DC: APA Press.

Louis, W. R., Mavor, K. I., & Terry, D. J. (2003).  Reflections on the statistical analysis of personality and norms in war, peace, and prejudice: Are deviant minorities the problem?  Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 3(1), 189-198.

Louis, W. R., & Taylor, D. M. (2002).  Understanding the September 11th terrorist attack on America:  The role of intergroup theories of normative influence.  Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 2, 87-100.

Louis, W. R., & Taylor, D. M. (2001).  When the survival of a language is at stake: The future of Inuttitut in Arctic Québec.  Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 20, 111-143.