Dr. Adam Stanaland
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Profile
Adam Stanaland holds a joint-Ph.D. in social psychology and public policy from Duke University and completed his postdoctoral training in developmental psychology at New York University. In his research, Stanaland aims to understand the causes and consequences of powerful norms related to social categories like gender, race, and status.
One primary example of this is Stanaland’s research about how masculinity norms affect boys’ and men’s development and behavior, including their aggression, political engagement, environmentalism, and intergroup attitudes. This research has appeared in top psychology journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Review, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Developmental Science. For this work, Stanaland was recently awarded Duke University Global Health Institute’s Promising Gender & Sexual Minority Researcher Award.
Stanaland enjoys researching alongside passionate undergraduates from historically underrepresented backgrounds because he believes that high-quality training and mentorship are key to diversifying and improving science. He teaches courses in social psychology, statistics and research design, and gender studies.
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Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Stanaland, A.**, Vial, A.**, & Cimpian, A. (2025). Falling in line: Children’s gender conformity after feedback signaling gender atypicality. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0002166
Stanaland, A., Gaither, S.E., Gassman-Pines, A., Galvez-Cepeda, D.*, & Cimpian, A. (2024). Adolescent boys’ aggressive responses to perceived threats to their gender typicality. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13544
Stanaland, A., Gaither, S.E., & Gassman-Pines, A. (2023). When is masculinity “fragile”? An expectancy-discrepancy-threat model of masculine identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683221141176
Stanaland, A.& Gaither, S.E. (2021). “Be a man”: The role of social pressure in eliciting men’s aggressive cognition. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220984298
Straka, B.**, Stanaland, A.**, & Gaither, S.E. (2025). Intentionality and congruence cues shape young children’s perceptions of essentialized group membership. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13607
Straka, B., Stanaland, A., Gaither, S.E. & Tomasello, M. (2021). Who can be in a group? 3-year-old children use mutual intentions to identify members of real-world groups. Cognitive Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101097
Bennet, A., Kuchikro, Y., Halim, M.L., Constanzo, P., Martin, C., Stanaland, A., & Ruble, D. (2024). A six-year longitudinal exploration of diversity in ethnic/racially minoritized children’s early peer circles. Social Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12744
Muradoglu, M., Arnold, S. H., Poddar, A., Stanaland, A., Yilmaz, D. & Cimpian, A. (2024). Why a culture of brilliance is bad for physics. Nature Reviews Physics, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00685-x
Halim, M.L., Glazer, J. Martinez, A., Stanaland, A., Gaither, S.E., Dunham, Y., Pauker, K., & Olson, K. (2023). Gender attitudes and gender discrimination among ethnically and geographically diverse young children. Infant and Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2482
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In the News
How Gender Shapes the Way We Take Up Space — and What It Says About All of Us
Tue., Apr. 14, 2026Gender conformity starts young — and boys and girls fall in line in different ways
Thu., Mar. 19, 2026Is Alp Addictive? F*ck Yeah, It’s Addictive!
Tue., Jan. 13, 2026Why Are Men So Afraid of a Little Kiss, an Investigation
Thu., Dec. 4, 2025Who is the “trad husband”?
Tue., Nov. 25, 2025Rethinking masculinity to build healthier outcomes
Tue., Sep. 23, 2025Trump Has Given Back All Gains He Made With Gen Z in Six Months
Thu., Jul. 24, 2025How Mark Zuckerberg’s call for more masculine workplaces could stifle innovation
Fri., Jan. 24, 2025Mark Zuckerberg perpetuates toxic corporate culture on Joe Rogan podcast
Fri., Jan. 24, 2025Why Gen Z Men Voted for Trump
Wed., Dec. 4, 2024Is masculine anxiety spurring support for Trump among Gen Z?
Tue., Dec. 10, 2024What so many high-profile shootings have in common
Wed., Jul. 17, 2024Vox, “Mascuzynity: How a Nicotine Pouch Explains the New Ethos of Young Conservative Men”
Fri., Feb. 23, 2024PBS NewsHour, “Firearms Industry Scrutinized for How it Markets to Consumers”
Thu., Aug. 11, 2022Men’s Health, “These Men Are More Likely to Get Aggressive When Their Manhood is Threatened”
Sat., May. 1, 2021Duke Magazine, “Man’s Inhumanity to Man”
Wed., Mar. 24, 2021Very Well: Mind, “How Social Pressure to ‘Be a Man’ Can Influence Aggressive Behavior”
Wed., Sep. 29, 2021MEL Magazine, “Why Fragile Masculinity Turns Men into Monsters”
Mon., Feb. 22, 2021Duke Today, “‘Be a Man’: Why Some Men Respond Aggressively to Threats to Manhood”
Thu., Jan. 28, 2021Duke University Social Science Research Institute, “PhD candidate researches how powerful norms and stereotypes shape people’s identities and self-concepts”
Mon., May. 17, 2021 - Links