Social Justice
This page contains work on group behavior, bias, equal standards, and how people are treated within communities and institutions. I do not view social justice as assigning inherited guilt or creating a new wrong to answer an old one. The better goal is to examine whether people are being judged by consistent standards, whether bias is shaping decisions, and whether the response reduces harm without simply moving that harm onto someone else. The artifacts here use social psychology to explain group assumptions, conformity, prejudice, and decision-making so people can do better now.
Perspective, Empathy, and Moral Reasoning: Supporting Jasmine Through Workplace Pay Inequity
PSY 211 | Course project
This artifact shows earlier work with perspective-taking, empathy, and moral reasoning. The paper required me to think through how to support Jasmine, who is paid less than her predecessor despite stronger qualifications and performance, without reducing the situation to simple advice or personal opinion. I treated her concern as a credible pay equity issue. Justice-based morality framed the core question: equal work should be met with equal pay, and unequal treatment should be addressed rather than ignored. The goal was to help her make a clear, professional case supported by facts, asking that her pay be measured by the same standard as her predecessor's. Instead of reacting from my own assumptions, I had to weigh her perspective, the emotional weight of the situation, and the ethical issue together.
Project One: Conformity and Group Pressure
PSY 355 | Course project
This project moves through conformity in a setting grounded in lived experience rather than a classroom abstraction, using military police culture to explain acceptance, compliance, obedience, normative influence, informational influence, cognitive dissonance, cohesion, status, and groupthink. The same outward behavior can come from different pressures: believing the standard, going along with the group, following authority, or trying not to be pushed outside the unit.
Age Bias, Growth Mindset, and Institutional Equity
PSY 355 | Course project
This project treats DEI as a subject of social psychology rather than a slogan, covering implicit bias, stereotype threat, growth mindset, intergroup contact, attribution theory, and social identity theory. Age serves as the main example, giving the discussion more balance because age-based assumptions can move in more than one direction. Younger people may be dismissed as impulsive, inexperienced, or not yet ready to understand complex systems. Older people may be dismissed as slow, resistant to change, or unable to keep pace with new technology. In both cases, the problem is the same: a group assumption replaces evidence about the individual.
This artifact shows how bias can affect language, judgment, opportunity, confidence, participation, and belonging. The assignment separates real differences from fixed stereotypes and argues that DEI should not mean lowering standards. It should mean removing artificial barriers, judging demonstrated competence, providing appropriate support, and building a university culture where people are actually included rather than only counted.
Colorado River Water Conflict: Final Project
IDS 150 | Course project
This artifact examines a real sustainability issue through social justice, equity, cultural systems, and conflict resolution. The project focuses on the Colorado River water conflict and explains how water scarcity affects communities, tribal sovereignty, agriculture, public health, economic stability, and environmental systems.
This artifact examines who benefits from limited resources and who carries the burden when systems fail. It also raises why sustainability cannot be separated from equity, and it shows growth in my ability to analyze a complex problem from multiple perspectives rather than treating it as a simple environmental issue.