Linda J. Skitka is an Emerita Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she was a member of the faculty from 1994 until her retirement in 2022. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 and began her academic career at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville before joining UIC, where she spent the majority of her career as a researcher, teacher, and mentor.

Skitka is best known for her foundational work on the psychology of moral conviction — the phenomenon by which people come to experience certain attitudes not merely as preferences or opinions, but as non-negotiable moral truths. Her research has shown that morally convicted attitudes are distinct in kind, not just degree, from otherwise strong attitudes: they are more resistant to compromise, more closely tied to personal identity, and more powerfully linked to political action, intolerance, and conflict. Her most recent work examines the conditions under which attitudes become moralized — and the far more difficult question of whether and how they can be demoralized.

Her scholarship spans moral, political, and social psychology, with major contributions to the study of political polarization and sectarianism, science denial, justice reasoning, procedural fairness, reactions to terrorism, and the psychological underpinnings of the left-right political divide. She has also made significant contributions to meta-scientific questions, including research replicability, open science practices, and factors contributing to the gender gap in scholarly eminence in psychology.

Skitka's research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the John Templeton Foundation. Her work has appeared in the field's most selective journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Annual Review of Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and Science. It has also reached broad public audiences through coverage in the New York Times, NPR, Mother Jones, Science Magazine, the Daily Beast, and the Huffington Post.

She has been an active leader in her field. She served as President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2019), President of the Midwestern Psychological Association (2018), and President of the International Society for Justice Research (2006–2008), as well as on the executive board of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and chaired the Consortium for Social Psychological and Personality Science, the founding body of Social Psychological and Personality Science. She has received multiple awards for excellence in research, teaching, and mentorship across her career.

She retired from teaching, administrative, and service duties in May 2022, but continues to selectively write and collaborate. She is widely regarded as a generous mentor and community builder in social psychology, with many tributes highlighting her intellectual rigor, support for students and junior scholars, and contributions to the discipline beyond her own research. She remains committed to rigorous, consequential science — and to the broader question of what it means to live and reason morally in a politically divided world.

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