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Sam Sommers

Contact Info Department of Psychology Tufts University Psychology Building Room 227 Medford, MA 02155 Lab Website Tel: 617-627-5293 Email Professor

Associate Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2002

Professor Sommers is a social psychologist interested in race, stereotyping, and group diversity. His research focuses on two broad, often overlapping topic areas: 1) the influence of race-related norms and motivations on social cognition, judgment and decision-making, group dynamics, and interpersonal interaction; 2) the intersection of psychology and law. In other words, he is interested in the ways in which race influences people's judgments and behavior in a wide range of social situations. He is currently funded by the Russell Sage Foundation for his work on the effects of diversity on group decision-making processes. He is the creator and organizer of Tufts' Diversity Science series and an inductee to the Tufts Hall of Diversity. For more details regarding publications, ongoing projects, and media coverage of his research, please see his lab web site.

Professor Sommers received his B.A. from Williams College in 1997 and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2002. He joined the faculty at Tufts in the Fall of 2003, and teaches Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Introduction to Psychology, and Psychology & Law. He lives in Medford with his wife and two daughters. As demonstrated by his office decor, he has not succumbed to normative social influence while in Boston, and continues to be an avid Yankees fan. In his free time he hits lead-off for the vaunted Psychology Department softball team, blogs about the science of everyday behavior for Psychology Today magazine, and exerts far more effort than he should digitizing Seinfeld clips for his lectures.

Professor Sommers is always looking for motivated, responsible, and creative students to assist with research projects. Undergraduates in his lab assist with a wide range of duties, including library research, study design, participant recruitment, data collection, data coding/entry, and data analysis. Contact him directly for more information about earning course credit through a research assistant position.

Representative Publications

* = Tufts Graduate Student
# = Tufts Undergraduate Student

• *Apfelbaum, E. P., & Sommers, S. R. (2009).  Liberating effects of losing control: When regulatory strategies turn maladaptive.  Psychological Science, 20, 139-143.
• *Apfelbaum, E. P., *Pauker, K., Ambady, N., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008).  Learning (not) to talk about race: When older children underperform on social categorization.  Developmental Psychology, 44, 1513-1518.
• *Apfelbaum, E. P., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008).  Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating strategic colorblindness in social interaction.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 918-932.
• Sommers, S. R. (2008).  Determinants and consequences of jury racial diversity: Empirical findings, implications, and directions for future research.  Social Issues and Policy Review, 2, 65-102.
• Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008).  Race and jury selection: Psychological perspectives on the peremptory challenge debate.  American Psychologist, 63, 527-539.
• Sommers, S. R., #Warp, L. S., & #Mahoney, C. C. (2008).  Cognitive effects of racial diversity: White individuals' information processing in heterogeneous groups.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1129-1136.
• Norton, M. I., Sommers, S. R., & #Brauner, S. (2007).  Bias in jury selection: Justifying prohibited peremptory challenges.  Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 467-479.
• Sommers, S. R., & Douglass, A. B. (2007).  Context matters: Alibi strength varies according evaluator perspective. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 41-54.
• Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2007).  Race-based judgments, race-neutral justifications: Experimental examination of peremptory use and the Batson challenge procedure. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 261-273
• Norton, M. I., Sommers, S. R., *Apfelbaum, E. P., #Pura, N. & Ariely, D. (2006). Colorblindness and interracial interaction: Playing the political correctness game. Psychological Science, 17, 949-953.
• Sommers, S. R., *Apfelbaum, E. P., *Dukes, K. N., *Toosi, N., & *Wang, E. J. (2006).  Race and media coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, implications, and future research questions.  Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 6, 39-55.
• Sommers, S. R. (2006).  On racial diversity and group decision-making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597-612.
• Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006).  Lay theories about White racists: What constitutes racism (and what doesn't). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.