Peter Hegarty

Peter Hegarty is a social psychologist and historian of psychology with interests in sexuality and gender, and cognition and language. He joined the Open University in 2020 and co-directs the Open Psychology Research Centre.

Research interests

Peter’s research interests are broad ranging. In social psychology, Peter has researched how markers of social status - such as gender, ‘race’ and sexuality - bias scientific thinking about group differences and the development of research hypotheses. He has also examined the relationship between essentialist thinking and prejudice, considering both the psychology of those who stereotype and those targeted by stereotypes.