Dr. Adam Stanaland

Dr. Adam Stanaland holds a joint-Ph.D. in psychology and public policy from Duke University and completed his postdoctoral training at New York University. In his research, Dr. Stanaland aims to understand the causes and consequences of powerful social forces—called “norms”—specifically related to social categories like gender, race, and status. One primary example of this is Dr. Stanaland’s research and theorizing about how rigid masculinity norms affect boys’ and men’s development and behavior, including their aggression, political engagement, environmentalism, and intergroup attitudes. This research has appeared in top social and developmental psychology journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Review, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Developmental Science. For this work, Dr. Stanaland was recently awarded Duke University Global Health Institute’s Promising Gender & Sexual Minority Researcher Award. He works primarily alongside passionate undergraduates from historically underrepresented backgrounds because he believes that high-quality training and mentorship are key to diversifying and improving science. Dr. Stanaland is fortunate to teach courses on topics about which he is most passionate, including social psychology, statistics and research design, and gender studies.