Benjamin Ruisch

I am a social psychologist who studies political attitudes and intergroup prejudice.
Much of my work centers on how low-level social-cognitive and biological factors shape higher-level belief systems such as political ideology and intergroup attitudes. I take a multi-method approach to examining these questions, using experimental, archival, and field methods. Some examples of this multi-method approach include:
  • collecting biological indices of sensory sensitivity to test how individual differences in sensory/perceptual processes shape political attitudes
  • analyzing text from alt-right websites to understand the recent reemergence of White supremacism in the U.S.
  • using spatial analysis to understand how implicit social cognition is shaped by a person’s local environment (e.g., neighborhood income inequality)
  • analyzing Twitter data to examine asymmetries in argumentation between the political right and left
  • conducting field research on nationalism in Indonesia

Check out more at my website: http://benruisch.com/