Maggie Thomas, Ph.D.

About me

I teach at Earlham because my students are passionate, intellectually curious and engaged. In addition, my colleagues are as excited about teaching and learning as I am. Finally, I love that Earlham has a campus-wide focus on social justice. Although many schools talk about issues of social justice, Earlham’s faculty, staff and students are actively engaged in working on issues of social justice. We talk the talk and do our best to walk the walk.

Outside of Earlham, I love to cook vegan food! I have a vegan food blog (http://lesvegankitchen.blogspot.com) where I post recipes that are delicious and aimed specifically at people who want to reduce their meat consumption. I’m also passionate about being involved in the local Richmond community.

Education

• Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
• M.S., Pennsylvania State University
• B.A., Lawrence University

Professional memberships

Association for Psychological Science
Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2)
Society for Personality and Social Psychology (APA Division 8)
Society for the Psychology of Women (APA Division 35)

Scholarly interest

My training is focused broadly within the social psychological subfield of stereotyping and prejudice. Most of my scholarly research is about issues related to gender and most of it involves person perception (i.e., what changes how a given individual is perceived by others). However, I conduct research in a variety of other domains.

Research projects

Currently, I am working on a variety of research projects, some of which include:

1. Does an individual’s bodily engagement in gender (through posture) affect how others perceive that individual’s gender, how the individual perceives their own gender and how that individual sees the world?
2. How does the declaration of gendered pronouns impact how individuals are perceived by others?

Collaborative student research experiences

Every semester I have 2-4 undergraduate research assistants who work on various research projects with me. My research assistants are involved in all aspects of data collection, including reading background literature, designing studies, creating/gathering materials, collecting data and analyzing data. With Earlham students, I have worked on projects related to gender performance, stereotypicality, attitudes toward animals and many other topics.

Published works

Published papers

Reavis, R.D., & Thomas, M.A. (2019). Building a scaffolded research experience for undergraduates. Frontiers in Psychology.

Thomas, M.A. (2016). Are vegans the same as vegetarians? The effect of meatless diets on perceptions of masculinity. Appetite. 97, 79-86. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2015.11.021 — This article was covered by the Pacific Standard.

Vartanian, L., Thomas, M. A., & Vanman, E. (2013). Disgust, contempt, and anger and the stereotypes of obese people. Eating and Weight Disorders, 18, 377-382.

Goff, P.A., Thomas, M. A., & Jackson, M.C. (2008). “Ain’t I a woman?”: Towards an intersectional approach to person perception and group-based harms. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 392-403.  This issue of Sex Roles won the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology.

Thomas, M.A. & Vescio, T.K. (2007). Publish or perish? Writing frequently to flourish. Dialogue, 22(1).

Swim, J.K. & Thomas, M.A. (2006). Responding to everyday discrimination: A synthesis of research on goal-directed, self-regulatory coping behaviors. In S. Lavin & C. van Laar (Eds.), Stigma and Group Inequality: Social Psychological Perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.   

Thomas, M.A. (2005). Review of the book Midlife lesbian relationships: Friends, lovers, children, parents. Sex Roles, 52(7/8), 555-556.

Conference presentations since 2010 (Undergraduate co-authors are marked by an asterisk.)

Thomas, M.A. (2019, February). “My pronouns are…”: Gendered pronouns and physical androgyny. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Portland, OR.

Thomas, M.A., *Hardt, S., *Nesbitt-Daly, K., *Salustri, O., & *Wilson, A. (2018, March). “My pronouns are…”: Pronoun preference and person perception. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Atlanta, GA.

Thomas, M.A. & *Barrett, J.J.L. (2017, January). Attitudes toward Native Americans. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Antonio, TX.

Lewis, G.E.* & Thomas, M.A. (2016, January). Beesearch: The Effects of Empathy and Sense of Self-Preservation on Human Perceptions of Bees. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Diego, CA.

Thomas, M.A.,  Pennock, J.L.*, & Sturm, A.* (2016, January). Development of the Attitudes Toward Native Americans Scale. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Diego, CA.

Thomas, M.A. (2015, March). Perceptions of animal competence and warmth. Invited talk presented as part of the Social Area Research Series for the Psychology Department at Loyola University.

Thomas, M.A. (2015, March). Engaged teaching. Invited workshop presented to the Psychology Department at Loyola University.

Thomas, M.A. (2015, February). The “Pine Screamer”: Using a fictional animal to investigate outcomes of competence and warmth. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Long Beach, CA.

Thomas, M.A. (2014, May). So you want to teach. Invited talk presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Chicago, IL.

Thomas, M.A. (2014, February). Vegan is the new vegetarian. Poster to be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Austin, TX.

Thomas, M.A. & Noll, N.E. (2013, January). Performing gender. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. New Orleans, LA.

Thomas, M.A. & Noll, N.E. (2012, January). Gender performance through body position. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Diego, CA.

Vartanian, L., Thomas, M.A, & Vanman, E.J. (2012, January). Disgust and contempt differentially predict stereotyping of obese people and homosexual men. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Diego, CA.

Thomas, M.A. (2011, January). Cross-species competence and warmth: Some consequences for human attitudes toward non-human animals. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. San Antonio, TX.

Thomas, M.A. & Goff, P.A. (2010, January). A new tradition: Intersectionality in person perception and intergroup conflict. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Las Vegas, NV.