SAGE Young Scholars

Will Gervais is an evolutionary and cultural psychologist who is interested in why people believe what they believe (or not) about the world, with a specific focus on atheists. Will is also an advocate for methodological reform aimed at increasing the credibility of psychological science.

Igor Grossmann aims to translate abstract ideas into concrete research. In particular, his work examines how sociocultural factors impact adaptive emotion regulation, wise reasoning and sound judgment in everyday life. His interdisciplinary work combines various methods, including big data analytics, psychophysiology, diary surveys, and behavioral experiments to target complex social issues.

Paul K. Piff is an assistant professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine. His work examines the origins of human kindness and how inequality impacts individuals and groups. He loves pie and beats, and considers himself extremely lucky to get to do the work that he does.

Aidan G.C. Wright is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is a clinically trained personality psychologist who uses basic research on personality structure and processes to understand the manifestation and maintenance of psychopathology and dysfunctional behavior.

Maike Luhmann is the Professor of Psychological Methods at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. When she is not busy curing her students from statistics phobia, she studies the antecedents and consequences of subjective well-being and loneliness across the life span, with a particular focus on the role of life events.

Lauren Human is an assistant professor at McGill University. She completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia and a postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research examines what factors influence how accurately people perceive and express their personalities and the psychosocial implications of such accuracy.

Michael Varnum is an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2011. His current research focuses on using insights from behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology to understand the causes of cultural change and to attempt to predict the future. 

Rebecca Neel is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Her research examines how motivations and beliefs shape social judgment and intergroup processes. She is currently working to understand why stigmatized groups are sometimes treated with indifference and ignored, and other times subjected to prejudice and active discrimination.

Mark Brandt is an associate professor at Tilburg University. His research examines how ideological and moral beliefs – such as political ideology, religious fundamentalism, and moral conviction – influence attitudes and behaviors and provide people with meaning.

Molly Crockett is an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. She completed her PhD in experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge. Her research investigates the psychological and neural mechanisms of moral judgment, learning, and decision-making.

Michael Kraus is a father, basketball fan, and serious coffee drinker who works at the Yale University, School of Management. His current research explores the behaviors and emotional states that perpetuate economic and social inequality. University life is a privilege and a constant source of joy for Michael.

Nour Kteily is a psychologist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. His research examines the psychological mechanisms that influence the stability of social hierarchy and shape conflict between groups in society.

Kristin Laurin’s research investigates how an individual’s goals and motivations interact with their beliefs and ideologies. Under that general theme, she has investigated beliefs about politics, religion, and morality, both in terms of their motivational underpinnings, and how they influence a person’s ability to self-regulate in pursuit of important goals.

Ryne Sherman received his PhD from the University of California, Riverside in 2011 and is an associate professor of psychology at Texas Tech University. His research concerns person-situation transactions, that is, how people navigate their social worlds on a daily basis. As part of his research, he has pioneered the use of wearable cameras in studying daily life.

Erica Slotter is an associate professor of psychology at Villanova University. She received her PhD from Northwestern University in 2011. Her work focuses on the social factors that influence identity. In particular, she examines how various social role transitions can influence the content and clarity of an individual’s self-concept.

Joshua Tybur is an associate professor in the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His work, which is often inspired by an evolutionary perspective, aims to better understand how people avoid infectious disease, select versus avoid potential mates, and advance personal interests via moral condemnation.

Erika Carlson is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on identifying and understanding the bright spots and blind spots in self- and other-perception as well as if self- and other-knowledge is adaptive.

Mina Cikara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. She adopts an interdisciplinary approach drawing on theory and methods from psychology and cognitive neuroscience to understand how the mind, brain, and behavior change when the social context shifts from “me and you” to “us and them.” 

Jesse Graham is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California. He got his PhD in 2010 at U.Virginia, and before that he futzed around at Harvard Divinity School and U.Chicago. Jesse studies the moral, political, and religious convictions that bind us together and tear us apart.

Kurt Gray is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina who studies the cryptic minds of machines, animals, God, and people.  His work has helped to reveal the basis of morality, social groups, and religious belief. He would love you to buy a copy of “The Mind Club.”

Andrew Todd is an Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa. He received his PhD from Northwestern University and was a postdoc at the University of Cologne. His research focuses on perspective taking and mental-state reasoning, automatic processes in social judgment, and intergroup bias.

Liane Young is an associate professor of psychology at Boston College. She received her BA in philosophy in 2004 and her PhD in psychology in 2008 from Harvard. She studies moral cognition using methods from social psychology and neuroscience. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Dana Foundation.

Jamil Zaki is an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University.  His research examines the neural bases of social cognition and behavior: and especially how people understand and respond to each other’s emotions.  This work spans a number of domains, including empathy, social influence, and prosocial behavior (see ssnl.stanford.edu for details).  

Wiebke Bleidorn is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. She received a PhD in Psychology at Bielefeld University, Germany in 2010 and was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Dr. Bleidorn’s research examines the conditions, mechanisms, and consequences of personality change.

Jon Freeman is Assistant Professor of Psychology at NYU. He received his Ph.D. from Tufts and was previously on the faculty at Dartmouth. He studies split-second social perception using brain- and behavior-based techniques, examining the interplay of visual perception and social cognition in how we categorize others and infer personality traits and emotion.

Ulrich Orth is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Bern. He completed his PhD at the University of Trier, was a postdoc at University of Bern and UC Davis, and was an assistant professor at University of Basel. His research focuses on self-esteem development across the lifespan, the link between low self-esteem and depression, and the consequences of self-esteem for important life domains such as relationships, work, and health. In 2013, he received the William Stern Award for Personality Psychology from the German Psychological Society.

Cheryl Wakslak is an assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California. She earned her PhD in social psychology from NYU in 2008. Her research explores the way people use different styles of thinking to help them connect with those closer to them and those farther away.

Adam Waytz is a psychologist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management who studies how people think about minds. He looks at when we attribute or deny mental states to other entities, and the moral and ethical implications of these processes.

Clayton Critcher is an Assistant Professor of Marketing, Cognitive Science, and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. He received a PhD in social and personality psychology from Cornell University in 2010, and an AB in psychology from Yale University in 2005. He works in various areas—self and identity, judgment and decision making, moral psychology, and social cognition—all toward an understanding of how people reason about and behave in ambiguous and challenging social, economic, political, and moral settings. He was the 2014 winner of the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award.

Emily Impett is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She completed her PhD in Social Psychology at UCLA and completed two postdocs, the most recent at UC Berkeley. Dr. Impett applies and blends social psychological theories of close relationships and sexuality to understand when “giving” to a partner—both inside and outside of the bedroom—help versus harm relationships. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and she has received several research awards, including an award for Early Career Achievement from the International Association for Relationship Research.

Nick Rule is assistant professor of psychology and Canada Research Chair in Social Perception and Cognition at the University of Toronto. He received a PhD in 2010 from Tufts University under the mentorship of Nalini Ambady and an AB from Dartmouth College in 2004 where he worked with Neil Macrae. He was the 2013 recipient of the International Social Cognition Network’s Early Career Award and the Ministry of Research and Innovation of Ontario’s Early Researcher Award in 2012. His research focuses on processes and outcomes related to person perception, ranging from micro-level phenomena (brain responses) to macro-level phenomena (cultural differences).

Jenessa Shapiro is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Management at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She received her PhD in Social Psychology in 2008 from Arizona State University, working with Steven Neuberg. Dr. Shapiro's research attempts to understand when and why people express vs. conceal prejudices. In addition, she explores the experience of being a target of prejudice, examining topics such as multiple forms of stereotype threat and relations between members of different minority groups. Dr. Shapiro's research has been supported by over $2.8 million in grant dollars from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program.

Jay Van Bavel is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University. He completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Toronto and a postdoc at The Ohio State University. Dr. Van Bavel blends theory and methods from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience to study how group identities, moral values, and political beliefs alter our perceptions and evaluations. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the John Templeton Foundation, and received several research awards, including the Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions in Social Neuroscience.

• Paul Eastwick
• Jochen Gebauer
• Edward Lemay
• Kristina Olson
• Tessa West