About the author

Gail Sahar is the Jane Oxford Keiter Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and has been teaching social and political psychology while researching attitudes toward controversial social issues for over 25 years. She has won awards for her teaching and was recently honored with an endowed chair for teaching and research. Her research focuses on how a person’s worldview or political ideology is linked to their perceptions of the causes of social problems and how those perceptions influence blame, emotions, and opinions. She has investigated public attitudes toward numerous issues, such as poverty, abortion, and terrorism. Her work offers hope to those working for political change as it suggests ways to influence the attitudes of others by focusing less on political ideology and more on perceptions of the causes of social problems. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading, music, movies, cooking and tasting good wine. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and beloved mutt.