February 10, 2003
Awards and Honors
Tom Pettigrew shares
prize for work on intergroup relations with former student
For the second time in his career, UCSC social psychologist Thomas Pettigrew
has received the prestigious Gordon Allport Award in recognition of his
work on intergroup relations. He shares the award with his former graduate
student, Linda R. Tropp, now an assistant professor of psychology at Boston
College.
The recipients of the 2002-03 Gordon Allport Award were announced February
4 by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI),
a nonprofit organization of psychologists and social scientists that supports
research on the psychological aspects of social issues. Pettigrew and
Tropp received the prize for their paper, "A Meta-analytic Test and
Reformulation of Intergroup Contact Theory," which shows the role
intergroup contact plays in reducing prejudice. The annual award, which
recognizes the "best paper or article on intergroup relations,"
carries a $1,000 cash prize. Pettigrew also received the Gordon Allport
Award in 1988.
Pettigrew, a research professor of social psychology, is a path-breaking
social psychologist who is widely credited with demonstrating that racism
is largely a matter of conformity to social norms and as such can be changed.
He has studied intergroup relations for four decades.
Tropp earned her Ph.D. in psychology from UCSC in 2000.
