Juan Valladares was born and raised in La Lima, Honduras. Soon after coming to the US, Dr. Valladares moved to the Onedia Nation Native American reservation in Oneida, Wisconsin. This is where he learned to love the Midwest and started to enjoy psychological science. He went to Hawai'i for one year of college but then received a mission call to Piura, Peru. After his great mission, Dr. Valladares attended Brigham Young University in Provo to complete his degree in Psychology and double major with a degree in Spanish. He completed his graduate work at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Shortly after that, Dr. Valladares came back to BYU as a visiting professor, and he is now an assistant professor of psychology. He loves cooking and eating all sorts of food, running, and playing with his two children: Emanuel and Lucia.
Research Interests
Dr. Valladares is an experimental social psychologist. His research explores how marginalized social identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, economic class) impact intrapsychic, interpersonal, and systemic outcomes. He investigates how interracial contact (between dominant and minoritized groups, as well as among minoritized groups) influences prejudice and efforts to remedy societal disparities (i.e., intentions to participate in collective action). Dr. Valladares is also interested in race-related conversations; he studies how parents talk (or don't talk) to their kids about race-related topics and how this may impact children's own bias. Lastly, he explores how White racial identity may defensively emerge in reaction to discussions of privilege.