Rate My Professor Megan Strain

Megan Strain is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where she joined the faculty in 2014 as an Assistant Professor. She earned a B.A. from Nebraska Wesleyan University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Kansas State University. Strain teaches a variety of courses, including Behavioral Statistics, Experimental Social Psychology, Psychology of Humor, General Psychology, Psychology of Gender, Research Methods, and Psychological Inquiry. Designated as Graduate Faculty, her areas of expertise include psychology.

Her research interests center on humor targeting various groups based on membership such as gender, race, and political affiliation, as well as gender attitudes toward and among women and men in various contexts. Strain has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications exploring the social effects of disparagement humor, sexist humor, racial humor, and related topics. Selected works include Strain and Moen (accepted), "Enhancing instructor and student experiences: A guide to successful capstone research courses," Teaching of Psychology; Miller et al. (2023), "The role of individual differences in resistance to persuasion on memory for political advertisements," Frontiers in Psychology; Saucier et al. (2020), "Don’t laugh it off: Gender differences in perceptions of women’s responses to men’s use of sexist humor," HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research; Saucier et al. (2018), "‘What do you call a Black guy who flies a plane?’: The effects and understanding of disparagement and confrontational racial humor," HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research; Strain et al. (2016), "‘Rape is the new black’: Humor’s potential for reinforcing and subverting rape culture," Translational Issues in Psychological Science; and Saucier et al. (2016), "The bad, the good, the misunderstood: The social effects of racial humor," Translational Issues in Psychological Science. In 2021, she received the UNK College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Mentoring of Student Research Award for her contributions to undergraduate research mentorship. Strain also serves in faculty governance roles, including as a Faculty Senate representative.