Behavioral Scientist.
Associate Professor.
Researcher, Writer, Speaker.
A social psychologist by training, Cydney Hurston Dupree studies social inequality and the stereotypes that maintain it. Her primary research reveals how stereotypes “leak” into everyday language—and how this phenomenon can maintain inequality in organizations and broader society.
Dupree earned her B.A. in Psychology from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Policy from Princeton University. She spent five years on the faculty at Yale University before joining University College London, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior.
Dupree has received numerous awards in recognition of her work. She was recently named a “Rising Star” by the American Psychological Society and awarded the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award.
Research
Dupree’s primary research uses advances in natural language processing to show how stereotypes are transmitted via language, revealing how communication can play an essential role as source of and solution to group-based divides.
Publications
Her work has appeared in leading multi-disciplinary and psychology journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Human Behavior, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Administrative Science Quarterly.
Media Coverage
Dupree’s research and writing has appeared in several media outlets, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Time Magazine and NPR.
Los Angeles Times
“Harris has less than four months to win Americans’ trust and get them used to a wholly unfamiliar idea: a Black woman occupying the country’s highest political position. And the strongest tool in her arsenal is her words.
Coverage of Harris throughout her vice presidency has repeatedly ridiculed her speech. Rival presidential candidate Donald Trump often mocks her speaking style. Right-wing pundits refer to her remarks as ‘word salad.’ In the instance of the viral “coconut tree” line, her detractors called her language ‘bizarre’ and ‘mystifying,’ even as the quote inspired a flurry of memes.
In the face of all this, some may say that Harris needs to work on her words — to use them to show herself as a powerful and capable leader, not just a punch line.
They would be wrong.”
The Washington Post
“This racial and political disparity is among the discoveries made by a pair of social psychologists in a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Psychological Association. Cydney Dupree, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, and Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton, documented what they call a ‘competence downshift’ exhibited by white liberals in interactions with racial minorities, and with black people in particular.”
Time Magazine
“From the first instant our eyes alight on a television or phone screen, we are inundated with a curated set of images that supposedly depict the world around us. These images often show people of color through a stereotypical lens, and these stereotypes bleed into our everyday lives—our workplaces, our social lives, our politics. As a social psychologist at Yale University, I am figuring out exactly how stereotypes hold us back, and what we can do about it.”
Discover Magazine
“As Black Lives Matter protests surged this past summer, organizations scrambled to release statements of solidarity. Conversations about reforming criminal justice, education, housing and the economy came to the forefront. The substance of such reforms will hinge on science—the tool the world turns to for addressing the most pressing problems. To be effective and inclusive, science, too, needs sweeping reforms: increasing the number of scientists of color, improving their sense of belonging within their chosen fields, and rebuilding eroded trust between academia and communities of color. As the world grapples with racism, one can only hope that, this time, science rises to the challenge. ”
Freakonomics Radio
“My research shows that White liberals are actually more likely to talk down to black people in this way. This is a phenomenon that I call the competence downshift, in which White liberals—presumably trying to get along with racial minorities—actually end up being patronizing towards them, by presenting themselves as less competent to black people relative to other white people.”