Overview

Morgana Lizzio-Wilson (she/her) is a Lecturer in Social, Political, and Feminist Psychology. She joined the Department of Psychology in January 2023 after completing her PhD and postdoctoral training in Australia. Morgana's work is driven by a desire to understand how we can we achieve and maintain progressive social change. As such, she strives to use her role as an academic to create inclusive, equitable, and transformational educational environments for students/future change agents; identify evidence-based strategies to increase support for and overcome resistance to social change efforts; and work with organisations, community groups, and members of the general public to campaign for change.

Qualifications

PhD in Social and Feminist Psychology, The University of Queensland
Bachelor of Psychological Science (Hons), The University of Queensland

Career

Academic Positions

2023-present: Lecturer in Social, Political, and Feminist Psychology, University of Exeter, UK
2020-2022: Research Fellow in Social and Political Psychology, Flinders University, Australia
2019-2021: Postdoctorial Research Fellow in Social Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia
2018-2019: Research Associate in Management, University of Queensland, Australia

Links

• Google Scholar Profile
• Twitter Profile

Research group links

• Social, Environmental and Organisational

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Research

Research interests

Morgana's research interests fall under three, broad questions:

1) When and why do members of advantaged groups resist social change? In particular, when will higher status groups (e.g., men, White people, cis-heterosexual people) act as allies and campaign for social change vs campaign to reinforce the status quo. Some specific topics/areas of interest include:

• How and why people come to support conservative social movements and causes (e.g., men's rights, pro-life, anti-feminism)
• When and how allies can reinforce inequalitiy (intentionally or unintentionally)
• When and how people who belong to both advantaged and disadvantaged groups reinforce inequality (e.g., the exclusion and erasure of women of colour from feminist social movements)

2) How do members of disadvantaged groups react to and cope with discrimination? Specifically, how do the unique difficulties and pressures that disadvantaged groups face impact their attitudes and behaviours toward other groups members. I'm particularly interested in exploring:

• How women's experiences with misogyny and gender discrimination impact their intra-group solidarity and co-operation
• The impact of women's same-gender friendships and solidarity aid the formation of feminist identity and collective action

3) When is political activism (in)effective in persuading people to join a cause? Advocacy and collective action are often used to influence authorities and the broader public to support important social issues. However, to understand when and why these actions are 'successful' in achieving social change, we need to understand how different types of actions or messages are evaluated by observers. For example:

• How do members of advantaged groups respond to advocacy designed to highlight intergroup inequalities and mistreatment (e.g., messages about the prevalence and impact of violence against women)
• When are conservative social movements successful in persuading people to join their cause

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Teaching

Modules

2023/24

• PSY3458 - The Psychology of Inequality, Conflict and Social Change
• PSYM223 - Social Psychology

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Office Hours:

Wednesdays 2.30-3.30pm
Thursdays 3-4pm

Please email ahead of time to arrange an in-person or online meeting with me

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