Dr. Annette Malapally

Research interests

• Social cognition and communication in contexts of inequality between social groups
• Disadvantage and privilege framing of social inequality and their effect on cognitions and behavioral intentions
• Choice and distribution of different framings of inequality on social media (e.g., on Twitter)

Curriculum Vitae

Education

• 2026                                   Ph.D. (Dr. phil.) in Psychology (summa cum laude) Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen- Nürnberg. Dissertation: “When is inequality framed as disadvantage, when as advantage, and why does that matter? Evidence from a mixed-methods approach”

• 2018 –  2020                    M. Sc. in Psychology Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

• 2017                                    Licenciatura Psicología (Exchange semester) Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico

• 2014 – 2018                     B.Sc. in Psychology Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Research and teaching experience

Grants, awards, and scholarships

• 2025 Grant by Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg (~1900€) for the project “T(rans) E(xclusionary) R(adical) F(eminist) – Consequences of the label „TERF“ for feminist debates on social media“, with Danna Galván Hernández. Universität von Granada

• 2023 – 2024 Menteein the ARIADNE mentoring program for high-potential female researchers at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

• 2022                         Tamar Murachver Top Student Paper Award, International Conference on Language and Social Psychology 17

• 2022                          Grant by Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg (~1200€) for the project “Privilege framing of inequality – effects on memory of inequality information and help towards disadvantaged groups“

• since 10/2021       Ph.D. scholarship Friedrich Ebert Foundation

• 2017                         Travel grants from Promos (DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service) and Ilse & Dr. Alexander Mayer foundation for an exchange semester at Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico

Publications (peer-reviewed)

Malapally, A., Wildgans, K., de Lemus, S., & Bruckmüller, S. (2026). Recalling ingroup privilege as outgroup disadvantage: Evidence for a privilege-reframing bias and tests of a potential mediator. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 123, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104867

Malapally, A., Methner, N., Braun, M., Wittenborn, S., & Bruckmüller, S. (2025). Framing inequality as advantage vs. disadvantage: A systematic review of effects and a Two-Step Model to explain them. Personality and Social Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683251333458

Malapally, A., Methner, N., Braun, M., Wittenborn, S., & Bruckmüller, S. (2025). Framing inequality as advantage vs. disadvantage: A systematic review of effects and a Two-Step Model to explain them. Personality and Social Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683251333458

Malapally, A. & Bruckmüller, S. (2024). Talking about privilege: Framing inequality as advantage is more likely for inequality in positive than in negative outcomes.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241265779

Malapally, A., Blombach, A., Heinrich, P., Schnepf, J., & Bruckmüller, S. (2024). Unequal tweets: Black disadvantage is (re)tweeted more but discussed less than White privilege. Political Communication, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2257624

Preprints

Bruckmüller, S., Malapally, A., & Methner, N. (2025). Strategic, yet inadvertent – and potentially counterproductive: How laypeople frame inequality to signal (il)legitimacy. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/e7t3s_v1

Conference talks

Malapally, A., de Lemus, S., Bruckmüller, S. (2025). Inequality is not about us: Ingroup privilege framing is recalled worse than outgroup disadvantage framing. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Prague, Czechia.

Malapally, A. & Bruckmüller, S. (2024). Talking about privilege: Framing inequality as advantage is more likely for inequality in positive rather than negative outcomes. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology, Tallinn, Estonia.

Malapally, A. & Bruckmüller, S. (2023). Subtle defenses against privilege threat: Do high identifiers strategically use help to repair their group’s image without giving up their privilege? Paper presented at the conference of the Social Psychology Section (FGSP) of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), Graz, Austria.

Malapally, A. & Bruckmüller, S. (2023). When do we understand inequality in terms of disadvantage and when in terms of privilege? And why does that matter? Symposium organized at the General Meeting of the European Association for Social Psychology, Kraków, Poland.

Malapally, A., Blombach, A., Heinrich, P., Schnepf, J., & Bruckmüller, S. (2023). Unequal tweets – tweets about disadvantage are more common and generate more responses than tweets about privilege (with some systematic exceptions). Paper presented at the General Meeting of the European Association for Social Psychology, Kraków, Poland.

Malapally, A. & Bruckmüller, S. (2022). Unequal tweets? Tweets about Black disadvantage are more common, and more likely to be passed on, than tweets about White privilege. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology, Hong Kong (online)