Michele J. Gelfand

Gelfand has been influential in cultural, social, and organizational psychology. Most importantly, through surveys, behavioral and neuroscience experimentation, and archival analyses, she has established that the level of threat both natural (e.g., infectious disease) and human-made threat (e.g., war) is associated with tighter social norms and harsher punishment of transgressors. The tight norms, in turn, predict vigilance, conformity, and dogmatic thinking at the individual level. Her work is grounded in broad scholarship ranging across psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. It has had transformative influences on the field. The breadth and depth of her scholarship will be extremely valuable to the Academy.