Professor Roger Giner-Sorolla completed his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and was awarded his PhD in Social Psychology from New York University in 1996. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia and two year-long contracts, he joined the University of Kent in 2001. He was promoted to Professor in 2013, and has also been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology since 2016.
Roger is an advocate of transparency in scientific reporting and has written several articles and editorials in support of improved reporting guidelines and pre-registration. He has taught Master's statistics and methodology since 2001 at Kent. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a member of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.
Research interests
After an early career focused on attitudes components and information processing, Professor Roger Giner-Sorolla's core research interests are currently in moral emotions, specifically the self-condemning emotions of guilt and shame, and the other-condemning ones of anger, contempt and disgust. He studies the related topics of intergroup apologies, dehumanisation, and emotionally driven prejudice. As a side interest, he is pursuing research on the ironic enjoyment of music and other aesthetic experiences.
Key publications
Russell, P.S., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2013). Bodily-moral disgust: What it is, how it is different from anger and why it is an unreasoned emotion. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 328-351.
Zaiser, E., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2013). Saying sorry: Shifting obligation after conciliatory acts satisfies perpetrator group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 585-604.
Russell, P.S., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2011). Moral anger, but not moral disgust, responds to intentionality. Emotion, 11, 233-240.
Giner-Sorolla, R., & Espinosa, P. (2011). Social cueing of guilt by anger and shame by disgust. Psychological Science, 22, 49-53.
Grants and Awards
2013-14
R. Giner-Sorolla ESRC Evaluation of Emotion Regulation of Others and Self (EROS)
£15,000
October 2009
R Giner-Sorolla, M Van Vugt and S Derbyshire ESRC/MRC Guilt and self-control in indivual and social dilemmas
£62,000
June 2009
R Giner-Sorolla and M Weick ESRC UK Social Cognition Network
£32,240
May 2009
R Giner-Sorolla and M Van Vugt ESRC The Social Guilt Hypothesis
£167,855
June 2006
R Giner-Sorolla University of Kent Promising Scholars Award
June 2005
R Giner-Sorolla Wellcome Trust Vacation Research Scholarship
2005-2006
R Giner-Sorolla ESRC The recipient’s view of compunction between groups
£45,000
2005-2007
R Giner-Sorolla British Academy Small Grant Are affectively based attitudes stronger, faster, and more automatic?
£7,500
2005-2006
R Giner-Sorolla ESRC Anticipated and actual affect in prejudice control
£95,000
2003-2004
R Giner-Sorolla and R J Brown ESRC When and how does feeling guilty reduce prejudice?
£40,000
2003-2004
R Giner-Sorolla and R J Brown ESRC When and how does feeling guilty reduce prejudice?
£40,000
2003-2004
R Giner-Sorolla and R J Brown European Science Foundation Workshop Award New directions in intergroup emotions (workshop conducted in September 2004)
Professor Giner-Sorolla is available to supervise PhD candidates with a clear vision of what they want to study that has some fit with his research interests - broadly speaking, morally relevant emotions, collective apologies, or the other topics listed above.
Current research students
Brad Johnson: Putting a face to death to find hope in life (2nd supervisor)
Dr Tom Kupfer (University of Kent 50th Anniversary Research Scholarship): A reputation management and signalling account of moral disgust and moral contagion (2018)
Dr Darren McGee: Antecedents of shame and guilt in self-control, and harm (2017)
Dr Sarah Frisby-Osman (University of Kent 50th Anniversary Research Scholarship): Violent thugs or vulnerable youth? Reshaping how we think of gang members: An examination into their emotional and mental health needs (2020) (2nd supervisor)
Dr John Sabo (School of Psychology Departmental Studentship): The Fictive Pass Asymmetry: Condemnation of harm, but not purity, is mitigated by fictional contexts (2017)
Dr Stine Lokkeberg (2017)
Dr Valeschka Guerra: Individual and cultural differences in bases for moral judgment (Degree awarded July 2009)
Dr Roberto Gutierrez: Anger and disgust in moral judgment (Degree awarded July 2007)
Dr Neil McClatchie: Guilt, self-control, and the brain
Dr Pascale Russell: Disgust, anger, and emotional justification
Dr Erica Zaiser: Reception of intergroup apologies by apologizing group members
Dr Arielle Sagrillo Scarpati (CAPES Foundation): The role of culture and morality on men's acceptance of sexual aggression myths and perpetration of rape in Brazil and the United Kingdom (2018) (2nd supervisor)
Dr Pelin Gul (School of Psychology Departmental Studentship): Masculine honour leads to greater reputational concerns about gender conformity (2017) (2nd supervisor)
Dr Tom Page (School of Psychology Departmental Studentship): Sexual harassment: Investigating the role of social-cognitive mechanisms and group-based emotions (2015) (2nd supervisor)
Professional
Membership of professional organisations
American Psychological Society
Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Society for Experimental Social Psychology
European Association for Social Psychology
International Society for Research on Emotions
Editing
Associate editor: Personality and Social Psychology Compass (2009-)
Associate editor: Group Processes and Intergroup Relations (2010-)
Co-editor (with Eliot Smith & Diane Mackie) of special issue on intergroup emotions, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, January 2007.
Editorial board member: Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Invited articles
“Hostile media bias,” “Guilty pleasures,” and “Grim Necessities,” Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, R. J. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs, eds. (in press)
“Attitudes Towards Prostitution,” Historical Encyclopedia of Prostitution, M. H. Ditmore, ed. (2006).
Invited teaching
Co-teacher of workshops at the International Graduate College summer schools, Menaggio, Italy, April 2006, and Schloss Hasenwinkel, Germany, April 2009.
Workshops on experimental design and affective attitude measurement, ESRC Research Methods Festival, Oxford University, July 2008.
Workshop on experimental design, British Psychology Society Social Section Conference, Canterbury, Kent, September 2007.
Seminar on intergroup emotions, University of Sussex, Spring 2007.
Selected symposia and meetings organised
September, 2010: Co-organiser (with Mario Weick) of ESRC consulting seminar (SCONET), "Social Cognition and Neuroscience," University of Kent.
October, 2009: Co-organiser (with Mario Weick) of IGC/ESRC consulting seminar (SCONET), "Groups and Social Cognition," University of Kent.
June, 2006: Organiser of symposium, “Beyond Guilty Feelings: Consequences of Group-Based Guilt and its Alternatives” at the Society for the Psychological Study of Social issues meeting, Long Beach, California.
October, 2005: Co-organiser of symposium, “New Directions in Intergroup Emotions” (with Diane Mackie and Eliot Smith) at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology meeting, San Diego, California
July, 2005: Chair of symposium, Affect in attitudes: Its role in social value judgment and information processing at the general meeting of the European Association for Experimental Social Psychology, Würzburg, Germany.
September, 2004: Scientific organiser (with Rupert Brown) of ESF exploratory workshop, "New directions in the social psychology of intergroup emotions," Canterbury, UK.
February, 2003: Chair of symposium, Quick to judge, slower to change? Affect in judgments of stigmatized people and acts, at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology meeting, Universal City, CA.
Other academic activities
Reviewer pool member: European Science Foundation; ESRC Peer review College; US National Science Foundation.
External examiner, MSc in Research Methods, University of Liverpool, 2007-2009.
Director of Graduate Studies, School of Psychology, University of Kent, 2008-2016.
Publications
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