Professor Winnifred Louis 

IAS Fellow at St Cuthbert's Society, October-December 2026

Contact Details

• Home Institution email: TBC
• Durham email: TBC
• Durham Tel: TBC 

Professor Winnifred Louis is a social psychologist and scholar of system change working at the University of Queensland (PhD McGill University, 2001).  She studies identity and decision-making in conflict, and has written over 200 publications examining this topic in areas from environmental sustainability to political attitudes and actions. She is known for her pioneering work on the psychology of system change, and the psychological mechanisms linking protest legitimacy and radicalisation – work which she will progress at Durham collaborating with Dr Maja Kutlaca (Pychology), Dr Elizabeth Kahn (Government and International Affairs), and Dr Jana Bacevic (Sociology) on the Major Project, 'Reconceptualising Resistance.'  

Specifically, Professor Louis and the team will build on research examining the effectiveness of protesters’ actions in shaping perceptions of legitimacy and support for diverse audiences, and over different time frames. Professor Louis has published groundbreaking work on when the use of violence by protesters can be viewed as a justified tactic by the public and by activists themselves, with empirical research and theory-building on violent extremism and terrorism. She also studies the criminalisation of protest, torture, and atrocities by the state, as well as factors associated more broadly with support for democracy, authoritarianism, and war. These lines of work align with the proposed work at Durham.

Professor Louis also is known for her research on the impact for activists of perceptions of movement success and failure. Her influential DIME model, which identifies activist strategies in response to failure (Disidentify, Innovate, Moralise, and Energise), offers a vital framework for analysing how movements evolve, adapt, radicalise, or deradicalise after setbacks. Her recent 2025 book with colleagues, The Psychology of System Change and Resistance to Change, elaborates on the interconnections between groups’ collective action and psychological, social, and environmental systems.  The book connects social change at individual, group and societal levels, and provides a theoretical framework inviting scholars from across the social sciences to engage and critically assess the psychological and strategic trajectories of social movements, countries, and human societies. 

Professor Louis has a strong record of interdisciplinary research: her papers share co-authorships with over 150 collaborators in over 50 countries, including neuroscientists, political scientists, historians, sociologists, lawyers, and scholars in peace and genocide studies.  She has been recognised as a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, the international Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the international Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She has accumulated over $1.5M of lead-investigator research funding, and in 2021-5 alone, she has published over 60 articles and attracted over ten thousand citations.  Professor Louis’ research impact is also evident outside academia, engaging policy-makers, practitioners, and the public.  She has testified at national Senate inquiries, and given invited presentations to police, defence, constitutional lawyers, and state and national Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights commissions, among others. A ten-part radio series attracted over 100,000 listeners, and her pieces in the research translation website The Conversation have been read over 250,000 times. With colleagues in the Social Change Lab, she leads annual interdisciplinary events, attracting diverse international scholars, students, and the public to topics such as peace, democracy, and environmental sustainability. This record positions Professor Louis well to work with the IAS and Durham colleagues in advancing new research on the intersection of democracy, group processes, and the psychology of social change and resistance to change.

Events

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