Brian Lowery

Professor Lowery's research seeks to extend knowledge of individuals' experience of inequality and fairness. His work suggests that individuals distinguish between inequalities framed as advantage as opposed to disadvantage. This finding affects how individuals perceive inequality and the steps they take, if any, to reduce it. Thus, his work sheds light on intergroup conflict and the nature of social justice.

Brian Lowery is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and a social psychologist by training. He received his doctorate from UCLA in 2001 with a minor in statistical methods.

Professor Lowery works to change the way people interact with each other in the world. At the GSB, he is currently driving an initiative to shape enlightened and purposeful leaders for a diverse society, and in so doing, to define the meaning and nature of leadership itself. He is a proponent of University collaborations and is actively looking to develop the GSB’s capacity to serve Stanford departments’ needs in facilitation, coaching, experiential learning design, and leadership development.

In the classroom, Professor Lowery translates basic knowledge about human interactions into lessons for aspiring leaders. He oversees the Leadership Fellows Program for second-year MBAs and teaches introductory organizational behavior courses for both master’s and doctorate level students.

Professor Lowery’s research has two major threads. The first thread examines the operation of racial attitudes below the threshold of consciousness. The second thread, which he pursues through the work of the Lowery Lab, focuses on how people perceive inequality. Underlying both lines of work is the assumption that individuals may unintentionally exacerbate existing inequity, despite supporting the ideal of a just and fair society. This research has been published in major scholarly journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Law and Human Behavior.

Academic Degrees

• PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, 2002
• MA, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998
• BS, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1996

Academic Appointments

• At Stanford University since 2002

Awards and Honors

• Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Faculty Fellow, 2017-2018
• Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow, 2014-2015