Dr Stefan Leach

Dr Leach is a Lecturer in Social Psychology at Lancaster University and member of the Society for the Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations (PHAIR). His expertise lies in social and moral psychology, as well as computational methods and natural language processing. Much of his work focuses on understanding the psychological boundaries which dictate who we consider deserving of moral consideration–our moral circles. A selection of relevant works is provided below.

 

Selected publications
  • Leach, S., Sutton, R. M., Dhont, K., Douglas, K. M., & Bergström, Z. M. (2023). Are we smart enough to remember how smart animals are? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(8), 2138–2159. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001401
  • Leach, S., Sutton, R. M., Dhont, K., Douglas, K. M., & Bergström, Z. M. (2023). Changing minds about minds: Evidence that people are too sceptical about animal sentience. Cognition, 230, 105263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105263
  • Leach, S. & Dhont, K. (2023). Non-speciesist language conveys moral commitments to animals and evokes do-gooder derogation. Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations, 2, e9869
  • Leach, S., Kitchin, A. P., Sutton, R. M., & Dhont, K. (2023). Speciesism in everyday language. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(1), 486–502. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12561
  • Leach, S., Piazza, J., Loughnan, S., Sutton, R. M., Kapantai, I., Dhont, K., & Douglas, K. M. (2022). Unpalatable truths: Commitment to eating meat is associated with strategic ignorance of food-animal minds. Appetite, 171, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.105935
  • Leach, S., Sutton, R., Douglas, K., & Dhont, K. (2021). The ‘me’ in meat: Does affirming the self make eating animals seem more morally wrong? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 95. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104135
  • Leach, S., Sutton, R. M., Dhont, K., & Douglas, K. M. (2021). When is it wrong to eat animals? The relevance of different animal traits and behaviours. European Journal of Social Psychology, 51, 113-123. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2718
  • Leach, S., & Weick, M. (2018). From grumpy to cheerful (and back): How power impacts mood in and across different contexts. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 107-114. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2018.05.004
  • Leach, S., & Weick, M. (2017). Can people judge the veracity of their intuitions?. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9, 40-49. doi: 10.1177/1948550617706732