Matthew Nielson

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The construct of gender is complex and protean: it changes across cultures and even within individuals over time. Matthew Nielson dedicates his research program to understanding the role of gender and its ramifications on wellbeing. He bridges theoretical approaches from social psychology, human development, and women and gender studies by grounding his exploration of gender identity in an intersectional, bioecological framework. Nielson studies the ways in which gendered cultural factors of power and oppression at the individual, microsystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem levels contribute to individual wellbeing. As such, he studies gender identity, attitudes, and development within individuals (e.g., the relation between sex hormones and gender cognition), within the microsystem (e.g., masculinity socialization narratives from marginalized positionalities), within the macrosystem (e.g., cultural shifts in the gendered nature of personality characteristics), and within the chronosystem (e.g., longitudinal trajectories of gender identity development). He is a mixed-methods researcher; he uses quantitative analyses for projects like mapping intra-individual gender development over time and qualitative methods with a community psychology lens to orient his research in the lived experiences of individuals.