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Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Associate Professor of Psychology Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD (Psychology), Harvard University; MSc (Social Psychology), London School of Economics, BSc (Hons, Psychology & Philosophy), Trinity College Dublin.

Research Areas: Social Psychology; Poverty; Social Class; Inequality; Ideology; Prejudice; Political Behaviour

Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington is an Associate Professor in Psychology. She obtained her PhD in Psychology from Harvard University in 2014 and also holds an MSc in Social Psychology (London School of Economics), a BSc in Psychology & Philosophy (Trinity College Dublin), and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (London School of Economics).

Sheehy-Skeffington’s research investigates the consequences of adversity and economic inequality on cognitive functioning, self-regulation, and perceived control, with downstream consequences for decisions in domains of health, education, and finance. She also studies the psychological foundations of political attitudes including egalitarianism and populist sentiment, and is more recently looking at how ideologies such as neoliberalism shape self-construals and social relations. Her work has been funded by the British Academy and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, among others, and published in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.


Sheehy-Skeffington is also a Senior Visiting Fellow affiliated with the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science and the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she was on the faculty from 2016 to 2025. Her PhD thesis won the Harvard University Herrnstein Prize in 2015 and was followed by the award of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Sheehy-Skeffington is Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology.