Z. Ferguson

PhD Candidate, Psychology (expected 2025)

Master of Science, Psychology (2023)

University of Washington

Seattle, WA, USA

To contact me:

I am completing my Ph.D. at the University of Washington (UW) this Summer 2025, under the supervision of Drs. Cheryl Kaiser, Yuichi Shoda, and Thekla Morgenroth. I received my Bachelor's in Cognitive Science and Comparative Ethnic Studies (UC Berkeley) and Master's in Psychology (UW). I study how social identities impact our lives, as well as how biases are created and maintained in larger systems (e.g., education, legal contexts).

Ongoing Research

Gender prototypes: Women & sexual harassment

When women make sexual harassment claims, those who deviate from (vs. conform to) feminine gender prototypes are viewed as less credible, their experiences are minimized, and they receive less support. Here I explore how this prototype bias affects perceptions of and responses to sexual harassment claims. First, I showed that holding intersectional minoritized identities (race, sexuality, age) uniquely affects the impact of gender prototypes on perceptions of sexual harassment. Next, I test whether this bias influences lawyers’ willingness to represent nonprototypical claimants, beliefs about settlement success, and perceptions of case merit. Finally, I created an an educational intervention designed to broaden representations of sexual harassment victims.

Ferguson, Z. E., Glazier, J. J., Bandt-Law, B., & Kaiser, C. R. (in-press). Do gender prototypes influence attorney willingness to represent sexual harassment victims? Stage 2 Registered Report, Law and Human Behavior.

Ferguson, Z. E., Schachtman, R., & Kaiser, C. R. (manuscript under review). An Educational Intervention to Broaden Prototypes of Sexual Harassment Victims Among Laypeople and Lawyers.

Ferguson, Z. E., Glazier, J. J., & Kaiser, C. R. (manuscript in preparation). Cognitive representations of intersectional women sexual harassment victims and credibility likelihood perceptions.

Gender prototypes: Nonbinary people as a gender group

Cisgender and binary transgender people who deviate from gender prototypes are more likely to be misgendered and experience identity denial. This mixed-methods project documented nonbinary prototypes and consequences of non-prototypicality. In Study 1, participants pictured and described a nonbinary person. Qualitative coding revealed a clear prototype: a White, skinny, androgynous person, assigned female at birth, who uses they/them pronouns. Next I examined consequences of non-prototypicality from both outgroup (Study 2) and ingroup (Study 3) perspectives. Results showed that increased nonbinary gender prototypicality predicts both positive (e.g., in-group ties to the LGBTQ+ community) and negative (e.g., increased harassment/discrimination experiences).

Ferguson, Z. E. & Morgenroth, T. (manuscript in preparation). White, skinny, androgynous: Narrow prototypes of nonbinary people.

Do race categories reflect racial identities?

To determine their racial identities, researchers often ask participants to choose from predefined race categories, such as “Black” or “White.” Four mixed-methods studies, showed that when answering closed-ended questions about their race, participants who did not identify with any of the standard categories defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) perceived the racial labels they had to settle for as not accurately capturing their racial identities, and felt negatively about being described by such labels. Furthermore, different question formats resulted in different characterizations of the same participant sample (e.g., the proportion of those selecting “Asian or Asian American” dropping from 56% to 18%). Responses to open-ended questions provided insights into participants’ perceptions of being misrepresented. In a separate set of studies, we find preliminary evidence that the current default language with which research participant demographics are reported in adamic spaces implies that researchers believe that people’s race is an essentialist category that differentiates them from people of other races. The results highlight the inequity inherent in commonly used question formats and reporting strategies, calling for more inclusive approaches that honor the complexity of racial identities in an increasingly diverse society.

Panicacci, A., Ferguson, Z. E., Moriizumi, S., Palais, M. W., & Shoda, Y. Misrepresentation by design: Do race categories reflect racial identities? Examining participants’ perceptions and feelings when answering questions about their race.