Jojanneke Van Der Toorn

Biography

Jojanneke van der Toorn obtained M.A. degrees in Psychology (2003) and Cultural Anthropology (2005) from the Free University Amsterdam. She then completed a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at New York University in 2010. Her dissertation concerned the effect of outcome dependence on the legitimation of authority figures. After working as a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale university from 2010 till 2012, she currently holds the Workplace Pride special chair and is an associate professor at Leiden University.

Research Interest

The research of Jojanneke van der Toorn mainly focuses on the social psychological mechanisms involved in how, why, and when people resist, provide support for, or directly engage in social change. she studied individuals' desires to change (vs. maintain) the satus quo from a variety of angles, such as (1) the influence of structural factors, (2) the underlying motivational forces, and (3) the consequences for the self and society. In this, she is particularly interested in the active contributions of the disadvantaged to the maintenance of societal disparity. She demonstrated, for example, that a sense of dependece leads people to legitimize rather than challenge the strutures of inequality that affect them, making them accomplices in their own subjugation. Other research interests include people's responses to group members' immoral conduct, religious opposition to same-sex marriage, and the influence of homonegativity on evaluations of same-sex couples and partners.