K.E. (Katherine) Stroebe, Prof

Katherine Stroebe is interested in the social psychology of justice, and more specifically on the behavioral and psychological outcomes of individual and collective justice violations. Collective justice violations, such as being the target of prejudice and discrimination or of a man-made chronic disaster.  Katherine’s research focuses on responses to such violations and the extent to which these responses enhance resilience rather than vulnerability. She studies two central questions:

1. Oftentimes such violations are thought to induce conflict oriented collective responses (e.g., protests, even war). Katherine studies the reasons why and the processes by which people abstain from conflict-oriented behavior and what such abstinence ‘means’. For example, are people who abstain from conflict-oriented responses to injustice inactive or are they engaging in other forms of (collective) behavior? See also Stroebe, 2013; Otjes, Stroebe & Postmes, 2020; Stroebe, Postmes & Roos, 2019).
2. What is the long-term impact of experiences of (chronic) collective injustice, such as chronic man-made disaster, on health and wellbeing. Why are some people more resilient to chronic disaster than others, even under very similar ‘objective’ circumstances, such as levels of exposure. Within this line of research Katherine has been leading a research project on the psychosocial impact of the man-made earthquakes due to gas extraction in Groningen, commissioned by the National Coordinator Groningen (2016-2020, in collaboration with Tom Postmes, UG) and by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (2021-2022, in collaboration with Michel Dückers, Nivel, ArqImpac, UG). See also Stroebe et al., 2021 and www.groningsperspectief.nl