Andrea Dittmann

Andrea G. Dittmann is an Assistant Professor of Organization & Management at the Goizueta Business School. Dr. Dittmann completed her PhD in Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Her primary research focus is on how the social class contexts in which people grow up continue to shape the obstacles and strengths that they face in professional workplaces. She ultimately seeks to harness insights from this research to develop interventions that promote equity and inclusion in workplaces. Her work has been published in top academic outlets, including the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Her work has been covered by media outlets including the Harvard Business Review, Politico, and the Christian Science Monitor. Most recently, she has been investigating how the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected people from lower (vs. higher) social class contexts across a number of important life domains, including work, social relationships and mental health.

Areas of Expertise

• Social Class and Inequality
• Diversity and Inequality
• Intergroup and Interpersonal processes
• Interventions
• Social Psychology

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
• Master of Science - MS Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
• B.A. St. Olaf College

Publications

• Dittmann, A. G., Kteily, N., & Bruneau, E. (2021). When getting more makes group worth less: Negotiating a ‘better’ deal in prisoner swaps can ironically signal low self-regard and engender disrespect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 92, 104056.
• Dittmann, A. G., Stephens, N. M., & Townsend, S. S. M. (2020). Achievement is not class-neutral: Working together benefits people from working-class contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(3), 517–539.
  Wheeler Institute Award Winner at the 2019 Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference at London Business School (for contribution to the field of business for development)
• Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S. M., & Dittmann, A. G. (2019). Social class disparities in higher education and professional workplaces: The role of cultural mismatch. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(1), 67-73.
• Dittmann, A. G. & Stephens, N. M. (2017). Interventions aimed at closing the social class achievement gap: Changing individuals, structures, and construals. Current Opinion in Psychology, 18, 111-116.
• Maner, J. K., Dittmann, A. G., McNulty, J., & Meltzer, A. (2017). Implications of life-history strategies for obesity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(32), 8517–8522.
• Dittmann, A. G. & Maner, J. K. (2017). A life-history theory perspective on obesity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40.
• Stephens, N. M., Dittmann, A. G., & Townsend, S. S. M. (2017). Social class and models of competence: How gateway institutions disadvantage working-class Americans and how to intervene. In C.S. Dweck, A.J. Elliot, & D. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation (2nd Edition): Theory and Application. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
• Nie, A., Griffin, M., Keinath, A., Walsh, M., Dittmann, A. G., & Reder, L. (2014). ERP profiles for face and word recognition are based on their status in semantic memory not their stimulus category. Brain Research, 1557, 66-73.