Jim Sidanius is a Professor in the departments of Psychology and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Stockholm, Sweden and has taught at several universities in the United States and Europe, including Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, Princeton University, the University of Stockholm, Sweden, and the University of California, Los Angeles. His primary research interests include the interface between political ideology and cognitive functioning, the political psychology of gender, group conflict, institutional discrimination and the evolutionary psychology of intergroup prejudice.

Prof. Sidanius has authored and published more than 150 scientific papers, and his most important theoretical contribution to date is the development of social dominance theory, a general model of the development and maintenance of group-based social hierarchy and social oppression. Prof. Sidanius’ latest books are entitled: The Diversity Challenge: Social Identity and Intergroup Relations on the College Campus (2010, Russell Sage), Key Readings in Political Psychology (2004, Psychology Press), Racialized Politics: Values, Ideology, and Prejudice in American Public Opinion (2000, University of Chicago Press), and Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression (1999, Cambridge University Press).  Prof. Sidanius was also the recipient of the 2006 Harold Lasswell Award for “Distinguished Scientific Contribution in the Field of Political Psychology” awarded by the International Society of Political Psychology, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007. Most recently, Jim Sidanius was named as the recipient of the 2013 Career Contribution Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.