Biography
Dr. Kimberly Barsamian Kahn is a Professor of Social Psychology at Portland State University, and leads the Gender, Race, and Sexual Prejudice (GRASP) Lab. She received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, with minors in Sport Psychology and Quantitative Psychology. She received her M.A. in Social Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Kahn was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for Social Research and Intervention at Lisbon University Institute in Lisbon, Portugal.
Research
Dr. Kahn’s research addresses contemporary forms of subtle bias and prejudice. Specifically, she examines hidden forms of bias such as stereotype threat, phenotypic racial stereotypicality bias, masculinity threat, and implicit bias. Her work moves beyond studying broad categorical distinctions between groups to provide a more nuanced and fine-grained analysis of modern prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Using experimental social psychological methods with diverse samples, her work addresses the psychological effects of subtle bias from multiple perspectives: the perceivers’ perspectives, the targets’ perspectives, and the social context.
She is currently investigating the following lines of research:
- How racial stereotypes affect behavior within the criminal justice domain. As a member of the Center for Policing Equity (www.policingequity.org), Dr. Kahn conducts research on the role of stereotyping and social identity threat on police behavior with minority suspects, as well as police/community perceptions and responses to racial profiling.
- How social identity threats impact behavior. Dr. Kahn’s research focuses on the ways in which stereotype threat and masculinity threat negatively impact academic performance and outcomes within the criminal justice system.
- Within-group differences in bias. A major focus looks at the ways in which individuals within stigmatized groups differentially experience bias based on subtle factors like phenotypic stereotypicality or intersectional identities.
- Confronting prejudice. A line of research assesses the social costs -- including interpersonal, intergroup, emotional, and cognitive costs-- that targets of discrimination encounter when they confront an individual who expresses prejudice.
- Stereotyping within sporting contexts. Dr. Kahn is interested in the ways in which racial and gender stereotypes impact behavior within athletics, from the perspective of athletes, coaches, fans, and referees.
For more on Dr. Kahn's research, research lab, class offerings, and representative publications, please see the following websites: