Jennifer S. Hunt | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Jennifer S. Hunt

Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies

Joint Appointment, Psychology

Interdisciplinary Fellow, College of Law

Jenn Hunt is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Psychology and an Interdisciplinary Fellow of the College of Law. Her research addresses two overarching issues: lay people’s judgments and behaviors in legal contexts, and the ways in which people’s judgments and behaviors are influenced by gender, race, and ethnicity. In particular, her work focuses on understanding when and how jurors are influenced by racial bias, as well as how they use complex evidence, such as character evidence, when making trial judgments. In addition, she examines people’s beliefs, ideologies, and stereotypes related to gender and race. Recently, she has been investigating the effects of “gender-blind” versus “gender-aware” ideologies, as well as tolerance of racism, which is a passive form of bias in which people accept or excuse racist behavior in others. Dr. Hunt’s work has been published in number of journals, including Annual Review of Law and Social Science, European Journal of Social Psychology, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, Group Processes and Intergroup Behavior, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, as well as books such as the APA Handbook of Forensic Psychology.

Dr. Hunt is currently an Associate Editor for Law and Human Behavior, and she recently finished a term as Member-at-Large for the American Psychology-Law Society.

Prior to coming to the University of Kentucky, Dr. Hunt was a faculty member in Psychology at SUNY Buffalo State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. At Buffalo State, she served as Coordinator for the Women and Gender Studies program from 2009-2015.

Dr. Hunt currently teaches undergraduate courses on Sex and Power, Inequalities Under the Law, and the Psychology of Gender and a graduate course on Prejudice and Inequality. In 2012, she received the Action Teaching Award from the Social Psychology Network.

Contact Information

jenn.hunt@uky.edu

Breckinridge 206A

Education

Ph.D. in Social Psychology (minor Law), University of Minnesota, 2001
B.A., Creighton University, 1995

Research Interests

Racial bias
Juror decision making
Gender and race ideologies
Prejudice and Stereotypes
Lay participation in the legal system

Affiliations

Gender and Women's Studies
Psychology
College of Law

Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Law and Human Behavior

Media Coverage

Listen to Jenn Hunt discuss her research on jurors' use of character evidence on Excited Utterance, a podcast about new scholarship on legal evidence and proof.

https://www.excitedutterancepodcast.com/listen/2018/9/17/57-jennifer-hunt

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Hunt, J.S., Folberg, A.M, & Ryan, C.S. (2021). Tolerance of racism: A new construct that predicts failure to recognize and confront racism. European Journal of Social Psychology.

Hunt, J.S. (in press). Injustice in the courtroom: How race and ethnicity affect legal outcomes. Chapter to appear in Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Law (D. DeMatteo & K.Scherr, Eds.).

Hunt, J.S. (2017). The costs of character. University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy, 28, 241-290.

Hunt, J.S. (2015). Race, ethnicity, and culture in jury decision making. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 11, 269-288.

Maeder, E.M., & Hunt, J.S. (2011). Talking about a Black man: The influence of defendant and character witness race on juror’s use of character evidence. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 29, 608-620.

Schwartz, S.L., & Hunt, J.S. (2011). Sexual harassment trials involving Latina plaintiffs: Effects of a cultural relativist argument and juror background. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 29, 418-439.

Hunt, J.S., Armenta, B.E., Seifert, A.L., & Snowden, J.L. (2009). The other side of the diaspora: Race, threat, and the social psychology of evacuee reception in predominantly White communities. Organization and Environment, 22, 437-447.

Zhang, S., & Hunt, J.S. (2008). The stereotype rebound effect: Universal or culturally bounded process? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 489-500.

Ryan, C.S., Hunt, J.S., Weible, J.A., Peterson, C.R., & Casas, J.F. (2007). Multicultural versus color-blind ideology and its relation to out-group homogeneity and ethnocentrism among Black and White Americans. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 10, 617-637.

Hunt, J.S. (2007). Implicit bias and hate crimes: A psychological framework and critical race theory analysis. In R.L. Wiener, B.H. Bornstein, B. Schopp, & S. Wilborn (Eds.), (Eds.), Legal Decision Making in Everyday Life: Controversies in Social Consciousness (pp. 247-265). New York: Springer.

Hunt, J.S., & Budesheim, T.L. (2004). How jurors use and misuse character evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 347-361.