Professor Ying-yi Hong Seizes the 2020 Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award

Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Management of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, recently received the 2020 Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award for her significant contributions to the understanding of culture and psychological processes as well as her leadership in the cultural psychology community.

Established by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the award aims to recognise a scholar (or group of scholars) whose work has added substantially to the body of knowledge in cultural psychology—and related fields examining the intersection of cultural and psychological processes—and whose sustained contributions in research, teaching, and/or service have significantly advanced the field.

“I am really grateful and honoured to receive this award. It is very meaningful to me as I am passionate about advancing cultural psychology in my whole career,” said Prof. Hong.


Prof. Hong delivered a speech at the 2021 Advances in Cultural Psychology SPSP Preconference on 9 February.

In the laudation co-written by the 2021 Advances in Cultural Psychology SPSP Preconference organisers Prof. Jozefien De Leersnyder, Prof. Ayse Üskül, Prof. Igor Grossmann and Prof. Krishna Savani, it stated the reasons Prof. Hong was nominated by multiple scholars for the award:

“Her [Prof. Hong’s] groundbreaking theoretical and empirical work on the psychology of biculturals has inspired the field of cultural psychology to shift from focusing on static differences between cultural groups to study dynamic processes of cultural affordances and changes in both individuals and societies.

Throughout her work, she has always tried to take an interdisciplinary approach, thereby bridging classic cultural psychology approaches with novel insights from personality science, behavioral economics, intergroup relations and, more lately, also neuroscience and genetics.

During her career, Ying-yi Hong not only contributed to numerous high-quality scientific publications, but also served her field on multiple fronts. For instance, she has served as an editor for multiple top journals and book series, including the Advances in Culture and Psychology series and the Oxford Handbook of Multicultural Identity.

In addition, she co-founded the Summer Institute of Personality and Social Psychology in China that has trained over 150 advanced graduate students, postdocs and assistant professors from over 50 universities or research units in China, thereby contributing to the internationalization of social and personality psychology science and becoming a role model and mentor to so many. ”

Founded in 1974, SPSP is the world’s largest organisation of social and personality psychologists. With over 7,500 members, the organisation strives to advance the science, teaching, and application of social and personality psychology.