Brenda Major

Last updated
Brenda Major
Born (1950-08-21) August 21, 1950 (age 71)
Alma mater Purdue University
Awards Society for Personality and Social Psychology's Donald T. Campbell Award (2015), Society of Experimental Social Psychology's Scientific Impact Prize (2014)
Scientific career
Fields Social psychology
Institutions University of California, Santa Barbara
Thesis Information acquisition and attribution processes  (1978)

Brenda Nelle Major (born August 21, 1950) [1] is an American social psychologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she heads the Self and Social Identity Lab. [2]

Contents

Education and career

Major received her B.A. from the College of Wooster in 1972, [3] her M.A. from Miami University in 1975 and her Ph.D. in social psychology from Purdue University in 1978. Also in 1978, she joined the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she taught in the psychology department from then until 1995. From 1992 to 1995, she headed the State University of New York at Buffalo's social psychology program. In 1995, she joined the University of California, Santa Barbara's faculty, [4] where she became a distinguished professor in 2009. [5] She is a former fellow of Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. [6]

Research

Major is known for her research into social stigma and psychological resilience. [6] Specific subjects she has researched include the relationship between abortion and mental health. [7] For example, she chaired a 2008 American Psychological Association task force on the subject, which found major flaws in many of the relevant studies available at the time. [8] The same panel found that the best available evidence indicated that a single abortion did not increase the risk of mental health problems relative to giving birth. [9] She has also studied differences in self-perception of one's abilities and performance between men and women. [10] [11] In 2016, she published a study showing that white Americans who identify strongly as white become more likely to support Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election if they are reminded that America's demographics are changing. Specifically, the participants in the study were reminded that whites are projected to become a minority in the United States by 2042. [12]

Honors, awards and positions

Major is the past president of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). Her awards include the SESP's Scientific Impact Prize for 2014, the SPSP's Donald T. Campbell Award for 2015, and the Kurt Lewin Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues for 2012. [6] She was American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019. [13]

Related Research Articles

Psychology Study of mental functions and behaviours

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups. Ψ is a Greek letter which is commonly associated with the science of psychology.

Brenda Milner British-Canadian neuroscientist and neuropsychologist

Brenda Milner is a British-Canadian neuropsychologist who has contributed extensively to the research literature on various topics in the field of clinical neuropsychology. Milner is a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University and a professor of Psychology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. As of 2005, she holds more than 20 honorary degrees and continues to work in her nineties. Her current work covers many aspects of neuropsychology including her lifelong interest in the involvement of the temporal lobes in episodic memory. She is sometimes referred to as "the founder of neuropsychology" and has proven to be an essential key in its development. She received the Balzan Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience, in 2009, and the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, together with John O'Keefe, and Marcus E. Raichle, in 2014. She turned 100 in July 2018 and at the time was still overseeing the work of researchers.

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where she focuses on affective science. She is a director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. Along with James Russell, she is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion Review.

<i>Personality and Social Psychology Review</i> Academic journal

Personality and Social Psychology Review is a journal published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). It publishes review and meta analytic articles on subjects like social cognition, attitudes, group processes, social influence, intergroup relations, self and identity, nonverbal communication, and social psychological aspects of affect and emotion, and of language and discourse. The current editors of the journal are Heejung Kim and David Sherman. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Mahlon Brewster Smith was an American psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association. His career included faculty appointments at Vassar College, New York University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago and University of California, Santa Cruz. Smith had been briefly involved with the Young Communist League as a student at Reed College in the 1930s, which resulted in a subpoena by the U.S. Senate in the 1950s. That activity also caused him to be blacklisted by the National Institute of Mental Health without his knowledge.

Nilanjana Dasgupta is a social psychologist whose work focuses on the effects of social contexts on implicit stereotypes - particularly on factors that insulate women in STEM fields from harmful stereotypes which suggest that females perform poorly in such areas. Dasgupta is a Professor of Psychology and is the Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Kay Deaux American social psychologist

Kay Deaux is an American social psychologist known for her pioneering research on immigration and feminist identity. Deaux is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Department of Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). According to Brenda Major, Deaux's work centers on the question of how social categories affect one's psychological makeup, social behavior, and life outcomes, while emphasizing the subjectivity of people's identities and experiences and the larger social context.

Mary Klevjord Rothbart is professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon. She is known for her research in the fields of temperament and social development, emotional development, and development of attention. She has founded Birth to Three, which is a parent support and education program. She has written over 159 articles related to educational psychology, developmental psychology, developmental cognitive neuroscience and biological psychology. Rothbart has also authored and co-authored many books, including Becoming Who We Are, for which she received the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award from the American Psychological Association. Two other popular volumes by Rothbart are Temperament, a Handbook of Child Psychology, and Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations.

Diane M. Mackie is a social psychologist known for her research in the fields of intergroup relations and social influence. She is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Jeanne Lavonne Humphrey Block was an American psychologist and expert on child development. She conducted research into sex-role socialization and, with her husband Jack Block, created a person-centered personality framework. Block was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and conducted her research with the National Institute of Mental Health and the University of California, Berkeley. She was an active researcher when she was diagnosed with cancer in 1981.

Nancy Elinor Adler is an American health psychologist. She is the Lisa and John Pritzker Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and director of UCSF's Center for Health and Community Sciences. Adler is known for her research on health behaviors, health disparities, and social determinants of health.

Batja Mesquita is a Dutch-born social psychologist, a cultural psychologist and an affective scientist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven.

Sandra L. Murray is Professor of Psychology at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is a social psychologist known for her work on close relationships and their trajectories over time. Murray received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology in 2003 for "distinguished and original contributions to an understanding of motivated social cognition in relationships." Other awards include the New Contribution Award from the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships in 1998 and 2000, the Outstanding Early Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity in 2000, the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 2012, the Mid-Career Distinguished Contribution Award from the International Association for Relationship Research in 2016, and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2020.

Stacey Sinclair

Stacey Sinclair is an American psychologist and professor of psychology and public affairs, and associated professor of African American studies at Princeton University. Her research focuses on how interpersonal interactions translate culturally held prejudices into individual thoughts and actions.

Paula R. Pietromonaco is an American psychologist and principal investigator of the Growth in Early Marriage Project at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion, as well as the associate editor of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes section.

Heejung Kim is a South Korean psychologist and a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on how culture influences humans' thought process. She is co-editor of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.


Jennifer Lynn Eberhardt is an American social psychologist who is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. Eberhardt has been responsible for major contributions on investigating the consequences of the psychological association between race and crime through methods such as field studies and laboratory studies. She has also contributed to research on unconscious bias, including demonstrating how racial imagery and judgment affect culture and society within the domain of social justice. The results from her work have contributed to training law enforcement officers and state agencies to better their judgments through implicit bias training. She has also provided directions for future research in this domain and brought attention to mistreatment in communities due to biases.

Abigail Marsh is a psychologist and neuroscientist who works as a professor at Georgetown University's Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program, where she is the director of the Laboratory on Social and Affective Neuroscience.

Tania Israel American psychologist (born 1966)

Tania Israel is an American psychologist and professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her research focuses on the development and implementation of interventions to support the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ individuals and communities. Israel has presented about dialogue across political lines and is the author of Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide, Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work. She is also known for writing song lyrics, memoir, and bisexual haiku.

Katherine L. Milkman is an American economist who is the James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

References

  1. "Brenda Major". Library of Congress Name Authority File. Library of Congress . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  2. "Self & Social Identity Lab". Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Website. University of California, Santa Barbara . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  3. "2012 HHS Award Recipients". Purdue University . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  4. "Brenda Major". Social Psychology Network . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  5. "Brenda Major C.V." (PDF). Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 "Brenda Major". Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Website. University of California, Santa Barbara . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  7. Bazelon, Emily (21 January 2007). "Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?". The New York Times Magazine . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  8. Healy, Melissa (15 December 2016). "Abortions don't lead to long-term mental health problems for women, but being denied causes anxiety, study suggests". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  9. Carey, Benedict (13 August 2008). "Abortion Does Not Cause Mental Illness, Panel Says". The New York Times . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  10. Kay, Katty; Shipman, Claire (May 2014). "The Confidence Gap". The Atlantic . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  11. Keith, Tamara (5 May 2014). "Best Way To Get Women To Run For Office? Ask Repeatedly". NPR . Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  12. Major, B.; Blodorn, A.; Major Blascovich, G. (20 October 2016). "The threat of increasing diversity: Why many White Americans support Trump in the 2016 presidential election". Group Processes & Intergroup Relations . 21 (6): 931–940. doi:10.1177/1368430216677304.
  13. "2019 Fellows and International Honorary Members with their affiliations at the time of election". members.amacad.org. Archived from the original on 2020-03-02.