Dr Daniel Toribio-Flórez

Daniel completed a BSc in Psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and a MSc in Social Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands). In 2017, Daniel began his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Anna Baumert at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods (Germany).

During his PhD, Daniel investigated the psychological and situational factors that potentially hinder bystander interventions against the violation of social and moral norms. Specifically, his work focused on addressing how the situational ambiguity that arguably characterizes situations of norm violations influences third-party punishment. He also examined the effect that institutional signals have on people's perception of social norms and their willingness to intervene against norm transgressions.

At Kent, Daniel works together with Professor Karen Douglas, investigating the consequences of conspiracy theories regarding different societal domains (e.g., politics, health, environment). 

Daniel is also interested in the constructs of attitudinal ambivalence and cognitive conflict, as well as in how these affect people's individual attitudes and behaviour. For instance, he has investigated whether people make strategic use of ambivalent attitudes for generating specific impressions on others and the underlying motivational factors for doing so. More broadly, Daniel's research interests relate to the areas of political psychology, moral judgment and decision making.

Beyond his research, Daniel shares a genuine interest in the big challenges that, in recent years, have affected science and, perhaps more pronouncedly, the social sciences (e.g., reproducibility crisis, fraud cases). Thus, he is always keen on getting involved in projects related to increasing the transparency, reproducibility and open accessibility of science (e.g., meta-research, multilab replication projects).