Jennifer Richeson recipient of 2020 SAGE-CASBS Award

SAGE Publishing and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University are pleased to announce Jennifer Richeson as winner of the 2020 SAGE-CASBS Award.

Established in 2013, the SAGE-CASBS Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the behavioral and social sciences that advance our understanding of pressing social issues. It underscores the role of the social and behavioral sciences in enriching and enhancing public policy and good governance. Past winners of the award include Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel laureate; Pedro Noguera, sociologist and education rights activist; Kenneth Prewitt, political scientist and former U.S. Census Bureau director; William Julius Wilson, sociologist and celebrated scholar of poverty, inequality, and race; and Carol Dweck, the social psychologist renowned for the study of motivations and self-conceptions that form the basis of “mindset” science.

Jennifer Richeson has established herself as one of the most consequential social scientists of the 21st century with research and scholarship that explore a range of psychological phenomena related to cultural diversity. In 2016 she joined Yale University, where she is the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology and head of the Social Perception and Communication Lab. Previously she held faculty positions at Northwestern University, where she held the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair, and Dartmouth College. She earned her doctorate in social psychology at Harvard University.

Richeson has generated original insights into the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dynamics of intergroup interactions – some of which shape basic mind and brain processes related to memory, attention, and decision-making. Most of her work examines ways in which gender, race, and socio-economic status influence how people think, perceive, and behave, particularly when they interact with members of different sociocultural groups. This includes investigating how people from both culturally devalued groups and traditionally dominant groups experience and respond to societal diversity, inequality, and injustice, as well as exploring both the antecedents and consequences of prejudice and stereotyping.

Richeson is author or co-author of more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. The work has garnered her numerous awards and honors, including a prestigious John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2007, known as the “genius award”), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2015), the Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark Distinguished Lecture Award from Columbia University (2019), the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (2019), and a Carnegie Foundation Senior Fellowship (2020). Richeson also received an honorary doctorate from Brown University, her undergraduate alma mater, in 2019. She is an elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.

“Jennifer Richeson has pushed the frontiers of knowledge and understanding around some of the most persistent problems our society faces – inequality, racism, bigotry, and prejudice in all its forms,” said Sara Miller McCune, founder and executive chair of SAGE Publishing. “Her persistent commitment to forging a path to social justice and social cohesion through social science scholarship is an inspiration that gives me tremendous hope. I’m so gratified that we are honoring Jennifer with the SAGE-CASBS award and through it, endorsing her critical work.”

The reach of Richeson’s work extends beyond academia into the public and policy spheres. She is actively engaged in the translation of basic scientific research into applied knowledge and practice, for example serving as a Faculty Fellow at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies, affiliating with the Stone Center on Socioeconomic Inequality at CUNY, and serving as an Executive Committee Member on the Societal Experts Action Network, part of the National Academies. Notably, her studies on the effects of demographics on political attitudes – showing that politically independent white Americans who gain greater awareness of the relative decline of whites in the population reveal increasingly conservative attitudes – have received high-profile media coverage and stimulated public discussion. In recent years, Richeson herself has written opinion articles and commentaries appearing in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Foreign Affairs. Her recent essay in The Atlantic explores an “enduring narrative” about the “mythology of racial progress” in the United States that distorts our perception of reality. She currently is developing this theme in a book-length manuscript.

“Thanks to Jennifer’s superb past and continuing contributions, we better understand not only the psychology of racism, but also the dynamics of intergroup conflicts and inequality in general, permitting us to better detect and confront these social ills,” said CASBS director Margaret Levi. “CASBS shares her deep and abiding commitment to realizing the promise of culturally diverse environments and building more equitable communities for both individual and societal flourishing. We’re proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her in this pursuit.”

CASBS and SAGE disseminated a public call for award nominations in late 2019. Richeson was selected as the winner among the nominees after a rigorous selection process. The SAGE-CASBS Award selection committee consisted of Sara Miller McCune; Margaret Levi; Fay Lomax Cook, Professor Emerita of Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, former director of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, and 1997-98 CASBS fellow; and Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University, president of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, former director of the Social Science Research Council, 1983-84 CASBS fellow, and 2015 SAGE-CASBS Award winner.

SAGE Publishing is proud funder of the award. In addition to a cash prize, Richeson will deliver an award lecture at CASBS on a date to be named. The event will be free and open to the public. CASBS will release event details when they are available.

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About SAGE Publishing

SAGE is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and a growing suite of library products and services.

Driven by the belief that social and behavioral science has the power to improve society, we focus on publishing impactful research and enabling robust research methodology. We produce high quality educational resources that support instructors to prepare the citizens, policymakers, educators, and researchers of the future. We publish more than 1,000 journals and 900 new books globally each year, as well as library products and services that include archives, data, case studies, and video. SAGE is majority owned by our founder, Sara Miller McCune, and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence.

Founded in 1954, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University is renowned as a place where deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities come together to confront critical issues of our time. At CASBS, boundaries and assumptions are challenged and cross-disciplinary thinking is the norm. The Center has hosted generations of distinguished scholars and scientists who, in the spirit of collaboration, form an enduring community that advances our understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. casbs.stanford.edu