Shigehiro Oishi

Shigehiro Oishi is the Marshall Field IV Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on culture, social ecology, and well-being. His lab is particularly interested in asking questions surrounding the concept of well being (e.g. "what is a good life?"), the predictors of well-being (e.g. "what are the predictors of a good life?"), and the consequences of well-being (e.g. "are there benefits to a happy/meaningful/psychologically rich life?"). Furthermore, he is interested in how the concepts, the predictors, and the consequences of well-being might differ across cultures. Additionally, his research explores socio-ecological conditions that are detrimental or conducive to well-being (e.g., income inequality, residential mobility, walkability).

He won the 2017 Society of Experimental Social Psychology Career Trajectory Award, the 2018 Carol and Ed Diener Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the 2021 Outstanding Achievement Award for Advancing Cultural Psychology.

Oishi's lab, within the Division of Social Sciences, analyzes all kinds of data, ranging from nationally representative surveys, mortality, GIS, and dictionaries to baseball game attendance. In addition to lab experiments, they also run daily diary studies and collect all kinds of data all over the campus, cities, and the world.

Oishi received his B.A. at International Christian University in Tokyo, Ed. M at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. He taught at the University of Minnesota (2000-2004), Columbia University (2018-2020), and the University of Virginia (2004-2018; 2020-2022) before joining UChicago.