Linda J. Skitka

Linda J. Skitka is an Emerita Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. For more than three decades, her research has explored when and why people treat their attitudes as moral convictions — and what follows when they do. Moral convictions are not simply strong opinions: they feel objective and universal, resist compromise, and drive political behavior in ways that ordinary attitudes do not.

Her scholarship spans moral, political, and social psychology, with major contributions to the study of political polarization, science denial, justice reasoning, and the psychological roots of the left-right divide. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Templeton Foundation, and has appeared in leading journals including Science, the Annual Review of Psychology, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as well as in the New York Times, NPR, and other public venues.

A past president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Midwestern Psychological Association, and the International Society for Justice Research, she has been recognized with multiple awards for research, teaching, and mentorship. She continues to write and collaborate in retirement, or what she refers to as her "permanent sabbatical."

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