Dr. Josué Rafael Tinoco Amador is a professor and researcher in social psychology. He is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNII), Level I (2023–2027), and is part of the core faculty of the graduate program in social psychology at the UAM.

Since 1993, he has been a full-time Tenured Research Professor “C” in the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Iztapalapa Campus of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM).

He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Social Psychology at UAM, his Master’s degree in Social Psychology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and his Ph.D. in Psychological Research from the Ibero-American University, with honors, based on research into the development of an instrument to assess attitudes toward religiosity among college students in Mexico City.

Since 1993, she has built an extensive teaching and research career at UAM, where she has taught courses on research methodology, the history of social psychology, social communication, and the constitution of the social subject, in addition to actively participating in undergraduate and graduate education. He has held various academic positions, including Coordinator of the Bachelor’s Program in Social Psychology, Coordinator of Teaching and Student Services, Coordinator of Research and Graduate Studies, as well as Head of the Research Division and the Faculty.

His areas of research include the social psychology of religion, the study of attitudes and beliefs, intergroup relations, research methodology, the history of social psychology, and the development of measurement instruments. His research has contributed to the analysis of interreligious coexistence, tolerance, and the relationship between religion and politics, as well as to the study of social thought processes and collective identities.

He has published scholarly articles and book chapters in national and international journals and publications, in addition to coordinating academic works on religion and social thought. Among his most recognized contributions are studies on religiosity, tolerance, intergroup conflicts, collective memory, and the training of psychologists in Mexico.
He was the Mexico Editor for the magnificent work *The Palgrave Biographical Encyclopedia of Psychology in Latin America* (Springer) from 2019 to 2023.

In addition to his academic work, he has engaged in science outreach and social analysis in the media—including newspapers, television, and radio—addressing topics related to identity, religion, social coexistence, and culture. His contributions have established him as one of Mexico’s leading specialists in the social psychology of religion and research methodology, with a career focused on linking scientific rigor to the study of contemporary social problems.

Dr. Josué Rafael Tinoco Amador is interested in the processes of social thought; he believes that in a culture like ours, religious and political beliefs are fundamental to understanding everyday behaviors: Religion is not limited to the practice of religious worship but is expressed in acts of kindness, respect for others, adherence to norms, risk perception, and forms of communication and interaction.

The study of religion allows us to identify patterns of sexual, political, and family behavior that influence people’s collective behavior. Thus, the work carried out over the past 10 years has focused on examining social phenomena from an external perspective. The advantages offered by psychosocial analysis allow us to observe, from a different angle, that religion is more present in people’s lives.

At a recent seminar on religion, it was noted that religion is still often conceived as a dualistic framework—as if good and evil were the only categories in the religious world. However, it is essential to give due importance to what people have to say about how they “experience religion” in their daily lives. There is no need to assume that religion remains an unending struggle between a dichotomy that no longer corresponds to social reality. One of the advantages of viewing religion differently is that it allows us to see that there is a relationship between political phenomena—to cite one example—and religious ones.

This phenomenon must be understood and analyzed from the subjects’ own perspective and through the insights that social psychology and the study of religious phenomena can provide.

Thus, one of the aims of this research is to explore how religion is experienced today in various contexts. For example, the new SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has swept across the entire world and particularly in Mexico, has brought to light processes of conspiracy thinking, which exhibit sectarian behaviors and are generating new ways of experiencing religiosity that go beyond religious structures. It is precisely these forms that social psychology needs to uncover.