Robbie Sutton
Professor, University of Kent.
Robbie is interested in the social psychology of justice and (in)equality, including:
Just-world beliefs
These refer to the extent to which people believe they, and others, receive the treatment and life outcomes they deserve. These are related to psychological health, functioning, and a raft of social attitudes (for more information, see Hafer & Sutton, 2014; Sutton & Douglas, 2005; Sutton & Winnard, 2007; Sutton et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2013 in the publication list).
Conspiracy beliefs
Robbie collaborates with Professor Karen Douglas on conspiracy belief (see Douglas & Sutton, 2008, 2011, Sutton & Douglas, 2014. Their work examines the psychological mechanisms that cause people to entertain such beliefs.
Immanent justice reasoning
Robbie collaborates with Mitch Callan (University of Essex) on why people tend to perceive that a person's misfortune must be attributable to some prior misdeed of theirs, even when the two cannot be related (Callan et al., 2010, 2013, 2014).
Gender, sexism and inequality
Robbie has studied several aspects of gender inequality, including gendered fear of crime (Sutton & Farrall, 2005, 2008; Sutton, Robinson & Farrall, 2011), sexist intrusions on the autonomy of women during pregnancy (Murphy et al., 2011; Sutton, Douglas, & McClellan, 2011), and gender inequality in educational attainment (Hartley & Sutton, 2013). He is interested in social communicative approaches to these and other questions, such as intergroup relations (e.g., Douglas & Sutton, 2003, 2010; Sutton, Elder & Douglas, 2006). A related interest is in environmental psychology.