Dr. Becky Choma

Biography

Dr. Becky Choma is a Professor specializing in social and political psychology in the Psychology Department at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and the Director of the Social and Political Psychology (SPP) Lab. She completed a SSHRC-funded PhD in Social/Personality Psychology from Brock University before completing a SSHRC-funded Postdoc. She joined the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom as an Assistant Professor in 2010, and TMU in 2013.

Her research investigates psychological and social factors underlying intergroup attitudes, prejudice and discrimination, mechanisms for reducing prejudice, and promoting harmonious and equitable intergroup relations, including collective action and intergroup contact. With support from several funding agencies including SSHRC, CIHR, Canadian Heritage, and others, she has studied how sociopolitical ideologies and beliefs, intergroup emotions, and contextual factors facilitate or obstruct intergroup tolerance. She has studied social inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, diet, and weight.  She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles or chapters on these topics in collaboration with spectacular mentors, peers, and students. All of whom have shared their invaluable insight and shaped her as a researcher and thinker.

Selected Publications

Choma, B. L., Hanoch, Y., & Currie, S. (2016). Attitudes toward hydraulic fracking: The influence of knowledge and political ideology. Global Environmental Change, 38,108-117.

Choma, B L., Haji, R., Hodson, G., & Hoffarth, M.* (2016). Avoiding cultural contamination: Intergroup disgust sensitivity and religious identification as predictors of interfaith threat, interfaith attitudes and Islamophobia. Personality and Individual Differences, 95, 50-55.

Choma, B. L., Charlesford, J. J., Dalling, L., & Smith, K. (2015). Effects of viewing 9/11 footage on distress and Islamophobia: A temporally-expanded approach. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45, 345-354.

Hodson, G., Dube, B., & Choma, B. L. (2015). Can (elaborated) imagined contact interventions reduce prejudice among those higher in intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS)? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45, 123-131.

Choma, B. L., Charlesford, J. J., & Hodson, G. (2014). Reducing prejudice with (elaborated) imagined and physical intergroup contact interventions. CRISP, 20-26.

Choma, B. L., Hodson, G., Hoffarth, M., Charlesford, J. J., & Hafer, C. L. (2014). Reasoning ability and ideological beliefs: Inaccuracies in hierarchical relations (but not numerical ability) are associated with right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Individual Differences, 35, 177-183.

Choma, B. L., Hanoch, Y., Hodson, G., & Gummerum, M. (2014). Risk propensity among liberals and conservatives: The effect of risk perception, expected benefits, and risk domain. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 713-721. (*One of the articles selected to be available for free by SPPSeditors in 2014).

Choma, B. L., Hodson, G., & Costello, K. (2012). Intergroup Disgust Sensitivity as a predictor of Islamophobia: The modulating effect of fear. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 499-506.