Psychological science is at an inflection point: The COVID-19 pandemic has already begun to exacerbate inequalities that stem from our historically closed and exclusive culture. Meanwhile, reform efforts to change the future of our science are too narrow in focus to fully succeed. In this paper, we call on psychological scientists—focusing specifically on those who use quantitative methods in the United States as one context in which such a conversation can begin—to reimagine our discipline as fundamentally open and inclusive. First, we discuss who our discipline was designed to serve and how this history produced the inequitable reward and support systems we see today. Second, we highlight how current institutional responses to address worsening inequalities are inadequate, as well as how our disciplinary perspective may both help and hinder our ability to craft effective solutions. Third, we take a hard look in the mirror at the disconnect between what we ostensibly value as a field and what we actually practice. Fourth and finally, we lead readers through a roadmap for reimagining psychological science in whatever roles and spaces they occupy, from an informal discussion group in a department to a formal strategic planning retreat at a scientific society.

Social dominance orientation (SDO)—the tendency to accept and endorse group-based dominance—has been linked with reduced empathy and increased schadenfreude (i.e., pleasure at the misfortunes of others) towards competitive others. Are these outcomes driven by a strategic motivation to feel emotions that facilitate hierarchy-reinforcing behaviors (and avoid those that interfere)? Across three pre-registered studies using Amazon Mechanical Turk participants (N = 1724), we find that SDO determines which emotions people want and choose to feel. People with higher (relative to lower) levels of SDO make similar predictions of others’ emotions when asked, but desire to feel less empathy and schadenfreude toward low-status targets, and when given a choice, choose to feel less empathy and more schadenfreude. This work adds to a growing literature on the impact of ideology—in this case, SDO—on emotion tendencies and further expands work on the motivated nature of empathy.

There is substantial research on the nature and impact of gender prescriptive stereotypes. However, there has been relatively little work on whether these stereotypes are equally applicable to men and women of different identities. Across two studies (total N = 1074), we assessed gender prescriptive stereotypes intersectionality in an American context, for men and women of different sexual orientations (Study 1) and races (Study 2). Results show strong evidence of a straight-centric bias, as prescriptive stereotypes of men and women most closely aligned with those of straight men and women, but limited evidence for a White-centric bias. Furthermore, observed gender differences in prescriptive stereotypes were smaller or non-existent for sexual and ethnic minority targets compared to straight and White targets, suggesting that theories around the dyadic nature of gender stereotypes between men and women might be restricted to straight and White men and women.