Michael W. Kraus
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mwkraus.bsky.social
Michael W. Kraus
@mwkraus.bsky.social
7.8K followers 2.1K following 640 posts
Not the German handball player or the historian. The other one. Berkeley Psych alum and social psychologist. | he/him

www.csinequality.org
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mwkraus.bsky.social
Listen to @ryanlinnbrown.bsky.social and I chat about inequality. We talked about:

-the ways social class impacts our psychology

-the importance of scientists speaking clear and true to the public about what is happening in the world

Listen here: www.stressmeasurement.org/podcast/epis...
picture of the stress puzzle podcast for episode 16 about inequality and how class shapes our lives. It's a picture of the podcast guest (me) Michael Kraus
October 30, 2025 at 3:04 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
🫠🙃
Ongoing outage for CANVAS due to AWS incident, shows image of robots fixing a ship
October 20, 2025 at 9:28 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
We argue for four practical shifts: (1) surface and question implicitly favored deficit models; (2) study, theorize about, and model domination/resistance (v. intent, motives); (3) embrace more complex designs with less control and more circumspect conclusions; and (4) apply cross-level analysis.
Historically, psychology has used measures and methods focused on within-person psychological processes. As such, these methods are not particularly well suited to the complexity of how psychology relates to, causes or results from structures of inequality. For instance, analytic techniques that focus on the underlying psychology of a pattern of behaviour (such as mediation) do not easily lend themselves to understanding how that behaviour influences structures. Moreover, experimental methods that prioritize experimenter control between conditions tend to shy away from the complexity of context by, for instance, using vignettes about imagined societies87. Indeed, psychologists often conduct research with a ‘view from nowhere’ where one tiny subsection of human experience is meant to represent the full complexity and diversity of all of psychology13. However, a functional account of the psychology of inequality that seriously contends with the structures of inequality must embrace complexity; that is, how psychology is related to domination and resistance, shaped by the multiple identities of actors within that context88,89, related to macro-trends in societal organization, and influenced by current political and social movements90. Importantly, scales and experimental conditions designed and developed outside this rich complexity will be less able to elucidate structures of inequality than those developed within a context that accounts for how relationships to structures of inequality shape people’s experiences.
August 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
We propose a functional focus as an alternative approach. This means our psych either results in consequences that (re)produce inequality or dismantles it. The key focus of analysis is result (v. intention, motive). This perspective is informed by social functional accounts of emotion and culture.
An example of a functional model of inequality as domination and resistance. Psychological processes that arise from the structural context promote actions that either support and reproduce structures of inequality or dismantle those structures.
August 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
The paper de-centers two things within our discipline: (1) Deficit models that assume meritocracy and theorize inequality as a result of people and groups having more/less valued behavior (v. structures); and (2) Psych's tendency to focus on isolating specific internal explanatory mental processes.
Throughout its history, psychology has tended to examine the minds of individuals to better understand the mental states, cognitive processes and motivations that produce behaviour16. Such within-person approaches to psychology are important and useful. They help establish how people think and reason about information in the social world, learn, contend with and regulate affective states and differ on various behavioural dimensions. Perhaps owing to the utility of this approach, psychology research on inequality has also attempted to understand the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities from a within-person perspective.
August 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Found a signed copy of the Latinos of Asia at the local used books shop! 🥳 @anthonyocampo.bsky.social
Cover of the book 'the Latinos of Asia' Picture of the signed page of the book
August 20, 2025 at 4:01 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
A few years back we ran a summer internship at Yale, and one of the saddest things was ending that program.

We're back! Special thanks to our lab community who worked together to make this opportunity special.
Student interns presenting their summer poster project Student interns presenting their summer poster project Student interns presenting their summer poster project
August 8, 2025 at 9:35 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Man alone at party meme where he says they don't know the progressive left has no opinion on men getting laid
August 1, 2025 at 11:34 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
One thing we did as a class that I think you should do if you come to CHI is a tour of the street art. Some of the incredible scenes from our tour (and shouts to Brian who fit right in with our nerdy group): www.offbeatstreetarttour.com
July 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
My inbox continues to receive these glowing updates about NSF funding as NSF is kicked out of its own building.
NSF email advertising $25.5 mil in US manufacturing research Sci American news report on trump admitting kicking NSF out of its building in DC
June 27, 2025 at 2:46 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
My undergrad class did a week on AI and false beliefs. One of my own takeaways from the class is that students need more about how much and why people might prefer validation before truth/accuracy.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/t...
At the time, Mr. Torres thought of ChatGPT as a powerful search engine that knew more than any human possibly could because of its access to a vast digital library. He did not know that it tended to be sycophantic, agreeing with and flattering its users, or that it could hallucinate, generating ideas that weren’t true but sounded plausible.
June 14, 2025 at 7:02 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
#NoKings
Trump baby balloon on lamp post.
June 14, 2025 at 4:02 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
meme of man approaching with knife. man being approached is celebrating his last lecture of the school year. man approaching with the knife is ungraded assignments.
May 29, 2025 at 2:31 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
April 24, 2025 at 1:46 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Fixed it:
Screenshot of edited email reading that Maintaning academic freedom is non negotiatble
April 19, 2025 at 2:24 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
a sicko outside the window saying "YES HA HA HA YES!" it's a popular meme
March 11, 2025 at 1:38 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
I am teaching a writing workshop for PhD students this Spring quarter. The syllabus is here if you think it might be useful for creating your own writing workshop: www.michaelwkraus.com/teaching
a picture showing the schedule of writing sessions. We will read mostly from Barbara Sarnecka's book on writing workshops, and then the weekly themes will be routines/revision, reviewing, writing, reviewer responses, co-writing, answer Q&A, grant proposals, public writing, and making writing habits
March 6, 2025 at 8:56 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Workers feel more aligned with unions v hr when they get info about union procedures and org conflict is salient. Check out the preprint by @megan-elaine-burns.bsky.social
Graph showing that in two experiments workers perceive more goal alignment with union v. Hr grievance procedures if they get info about unions and org conflict is salient.
February 25, 2025 at 3:03 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Worth reading!
Text reads "Fascism always fails. It is destructive and it is awful and not everyone lives to see the other side, but it always, always fails. It takes work. It takes fighting back. It takes throwing punches. It takes doing whatever it takes to beat it back, to protect those that are most vulnerable from its many attacks. And through it all, it feels impossible that we will win."
February 24, 2025 at 2:25 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Related to this point, our American Psych paper from last year found that workers overestimated US Black manager representation vs census parity and expected it to continue to increase into future without policy change (all inconsistent with reality).

drive.google.com/file/d/1boIo...
Graphs showing that workers overestimated Black v white representation in executive and managerial positions vs actual and vs census parity.
February 16, 2025 at 3:26 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
I don't plan to read it, but this is what they mean by anxious generation, yes? 🫠

From here: www.apa.org/pubs/reports...
Graph showing age groups who find environment as a source of stress. Younger folks are more stressed by enivronment.
January 14, 2025 at 2:47 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
I just finished teaching my 1st undergrad class in a decade (? 😳) and it was so much fun, but I'm a lil overstimulated. Luckily my office plant and kodama friends are here to bring me back down!
Picture of plant with kodama figurines
January 7, 2025 at 9:55 PM
mwkraus.bsky.social
Giant Poptart with face consumed after the 2023 poptart bowl
December 28, 2024 at 3:29 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
We wrote a bit about the solipsism of upper class contexts in 2012 --things are different now, but also similar.

Paper is here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CT...
Text reads: These life circumstances create what we call solipsistic social cognitive tendencies among upper-class individuals. Solipsism is a philosophical idea that centers on the notion that one’s own mind is a fundamental source of knowledge about the social world and is the primary influence on people’s everyday thoughts and actions (Russell, 1914). Guided by this conceptual definition, we contend that continuous life experiences of economic and social freedom create a system of knowledge—among upper-class individuals— characterized by the sense that one’s own internal states (e.g., traits, goals, emotions) are, and should be, a fundamental influence on thought and action. Disposed to this solipsistic social cognitive mindset, upper-class individuals are likely to explain behavior as being caused by individual influence (vs. contextual influence), are more likely to attend to their own (vs. others’) mental states, and are more likely to ignore and resist situational influences on action (see Figure 1)
December 28, 2024 at 1:55 AM
mwkraus.bsky.social
🎅🍸☕️
December 25, 2024 at 8:25 PM