Sean Bennett

Sean Bennett

2023 cohort
Advised by: Mark Fondacaro

Sean Bennett received his BA in psychology with honors from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in individual differences such as Adverse Childhood Experiences, Social Dominance Orientation, Right Wing Authoritarianism, and Moral Disengagement and how they may be related to how people perceive police behavior. Sean’s honors thesis, Exploring the Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment, Social Dominance Orientation, Moral Disengagement, and the Support for Controversial Police Tactics, will be presented at the American Society of Criminology national conference in November. Sean is currently exploring cluster samples of Adverse Childhood Experiences and how they might explain differences in legal system outcomes in adulthood with data from his thesis research. Additionally, Sean developed some materials for, and authored a section of, his thesis advisor’s research, Examining the Consequences of Dehumanization and Adultification in Justification of Police Use of Force Against Black Girls and Boys. Sean presented a paper on this published study at the AP-LS national conference in Philadelphia last March.