2026 SWPA Convention

Dr. Shinobu Kitayama
University of Michigan

Keynote Address

Bio

Shinobu Kitayama, the Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Research Professor at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan, is a pioneering figure in cultural psychology. His groundbreaking research on the cultural diversity of mental processes has placed him at the forefront of this dynamic field. Kitayama’s work spans diverse domains—from cultural neuroscience to the study of interdependence in non-Western societies—offering key insights into the psychological foundations of culture. His contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award, the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the American Psychological Association, and the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS). In addition to his scholarly achievements, Kitayama has held several major leadership roles. He served as President of APS from 2020 to 2021 and currently serves as President-Elect of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Talk

The Cultural Psychology of Group Identity: Insights from Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is becoming increasingly central to global business, politics, and culture. Despite its extraordinary linguistic and ethnic diversity, two core themes appear to underlie much of this variation. The first is a strong form of interdependence, marked by deep commitments to ingroup identities. The second is a cultural emphasis on self-promotion, characterized by the active and often competitive pursuit of personal success. Uniquely, these two forces are not merely coexisting—they are dynamically integrated: the pursuit of self-interest is widely seen as a vital way to contribute to collective flourishing. In this talk, I introduce and explore this hitherto overlooked system of self-promotive interdependence. Drawing on recent empirical findings from across SSA, I compare this model with cultural patterns observed in other major world regions—including the Middle East and North Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and the West. I argue that this distinctive integration of self-promotion and interdependence helps illuminate the unique structure and function of group identity in SSA.

Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji
Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics

Keynote Address

Bio

Mahzarin Banaji is Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Previously, Mahzarin was Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, Herbert Simon Fellow of the Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Philosophical Society. She has received recognition for teaching excellence from both Yale and Harvard. Mahzarin is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, APA’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution, APS’s William James Fellow Award for “a lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology” the Cattell Fellow Award for “a lifetime of applied psychological research” and the Morton Deutsch Award for Social Justice. She is the recipient of seven honorary degrees, the Golden Goose Award from the United States Congress, and the Atkinson Prize from the National Academy of Sciences. She is a co-author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.

Talk

Implicit Social Cognition

All humans genuinely intend to obey the virtues of accuracy and fairness, but research from experimental psychology has consistently challenged the possibility that we, in fact, do so. We have learned that our actions can be inconsistent with our values – obstructing the very goals to which we are consciously and even passionately committed. A striking example of this state of affairs is that even if conscious prejudice/animus is genuinely absent, behavior can be disjointed from values of accuracy and fairness because of implicit bias (a term to emerge from our lab in the early 1990s, and that has now entered the vernacular).

This lecture will focus on the surprising and even perplexing manner by which implicit bias operates. By walking the 40-year research path of my lab, I will elucidate how I came to understand what implicit bias is, its role in shaping life’s opportunities and outcomes and reactionary challenges to it; as well, an optimistic result I did not expect to encounter in my lifetime – that even implicit (hidden) biases are reliably and at times rapidly moving toward neutrality. I will touch on the signature behavioral result of dissocation and association between explicit and implicit cogntion, the neural underpinnings of implicit bias, its development from childhood into adulthood, its malleability, its power to predict socially significant outcomes in the domains of health, education, employment and legal treatment at the regional level. I will point to new research on the manifestation of bias in large language corpora and in LLMs today. The overarching call of this work is a simple one: to deeply understand implicit cognition so that we can do what we have done, as a species, so many times before in our history: to outsmart the limits of our own minds to ensure that our consciously held values are transduced into a more praiseworthy world.

Dr. Paul Paulus
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Psychology

Keynote Address

Bio

Paul Paulus has had a long career in the Department of Psychology at UT Arlington as a social and environmental psychologist, with a focus on the psychology of groups. He also served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and Associate Dean and Dean of the College of Science.  He retired from full-time service at the university in 2020 as Dean Emeritus but has continued research on the collaborative creativity process with his multidisciplinary research team that has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense for 18 years.  Early in his career he conducted research with his colleagues on the effects of crowding in prisons, supported by the Department of Justice, and on the impact of off-base housing quality on the well-being of military families, supported by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He has been a visiting professor at eight universities, published 10 scholarly books, a popular press book on his family’s experience in hiding Jews during WW II, a related children’s book, and numerous articles and chapters with his colleagues and students. His research did not interfere with his love of teaching 18 different courses to undergraduate, graduate and MBA students. One of his great joys has been the opportunity to mentor undergraduate and graduate students who have gone on to great careers in academia and the business world. 

Talk

Group Creativity in the Digital and Artificial Intelligence Age

Collaborative innovation is more important than ever with all the challenges we face in our lives, the country, and the world. Many problems require multiple areas of expertise, motivated participants and the ability to work together effectively to come up with potential creative and effective solutions. However, many collaborative innovation efforts involve temporary groups with limited prior history trying to solve nontechnical open-ended problems and who have little understanding of optimal process for their efforts.  I will discuss research on in person and electronic group creativity that has provided much guidance for this process, brainstorming sessions and effective meetings in general. The talk will highlight the best practices and their theoretical grounding, which can result in groups tapping the best ideas from the “group brain” and developing them into a useful plan.  I will also discuss the potential positive and negative impact of AI on the collaborative innovation process and on individual and societal functioning. 

Dr. Verlin Hinsz
North Dakota State University
Emeritus Professor

Keynote Address

Bio

Verlin B. Hinsz, PhD, is Emeritus Professor at North Dakota State University in Fargo. He served 41 years in various professor and administrative roles at NDSU. His research and teaching efforts broadly cover social, work, and organizational psychology. He has published 125+ articles and chapters, and has contributed to over 220 national and international research presentations. His research focuses on the thought processes and social influences that impact the judgments and decisions of groups and individuals which ultimately affect their task performance. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other agencies. Dr. Hinsz is a Fellow of ten professional organizations and has consulted with a number of federal research agencies. Dr. Hinsz has received numerous awards, primarily for his research efforts and mentoring activities.

Talk

Groups are social facts of life. From the cradle to the grave, we are born into and borne by groups. In between, we live, work, and strive to thrive in these groups. The fundamental questions to be addressed in this presentation are “How are characteristics of group members (their thoughts, feelings, preferences) combined and transformed to result in a shared group response?” A theory of combinations of contributions aids consideration by helping to identify which characteristics are combined and transformed as well as specify in what manner the characteristics are combined and transformed. This leads to the adage that groups are context sensitive, and context situated. Moreover, dominant processing strategies are important for understanding how groups think, feel and decide -- particularly that the dominant processing strategies are exaggerated in these groups. The ways that groups think, feel, and decide will thus be revealed as these questions are considered.

Woodcock Institute Keynote Address To Be Announced