Pratto grew up in Boulder, CO. She received her BA at Carnegie Mellon University in 1983, where she conducted research with Susan Fiske on people's conceptions about nuclear war.
Pratto has studied the processes and consequences of inequality, encompassing race and sex discrimination in hiring and workplace environments, prejudice against the LGBTQ community and immigrants, violations of International Humanitarian Law in war-time, terrorism and counter-terrorism, and the Arab uprisings.
Pratto and her colleagues received the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award in 2008 for their co-authored paper "Power Dynamics in an Experimental Game" published in Social Justice Research.
[5][6] Their study examined relational and structural aspects of power dynamics and the emergence of inequalities as pairs of students played an interactive game.
In collaboration with Oliver John, Pratto examined cognitive processes that direct attention towards negative stimuli that have the potential to adversely impact one's well-being.