Michael Kraus MA, PhD

Michael Kraus is a social psychologist who specializes in understanding the psychological processes—the affective states, motivations, and relational strategies—that maintain and perpetuate dimensions of societal inequity. His research has examined this topic through a variety of research methods that involve controlled laboratory and field experiments, attitude surveys, ethological observations, and psychophysiological and nonverbal assessments of group interactions.

Kraus is a leading expert in the social psychology of inequality and a fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and the Society for Social and Personality Psychology (SPSP). He has received awards for outstanding research through the APS Rising Stars program, the SPSP Sage Young Scholars Award, and the Committee for the Study of Socioeconomic Status at the American Psychological Association. He has also received an award for outstanding mentorship in the social sciences from Yale University.

Before arriving at Northwestern, he was an undergraduate psychology and sociology major at the University of California, Berkeley, and later, a doctoral student in social psychology. Kraus has held appointments as a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, an associate professor in organizational behavior at Yale University, and an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.