BIGSSS nominee receives € 250,000 Anneliese Maier Research Award of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

This year for the first time the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is awarding Anneliese Maier Research Awards to humanities scholars and social scientists. The new collaboration award is designed to promote the internationalization of these disciplines. It is being awarded to outstanding researchers from abroad who are active in the social sciences and humanities. The award amount of € 250,000 can be used to finance research collaboration with specialist colleagues in Germany for a period of five years. Researchers are nominated by collaborative partners at German universities and research institutions.
From among 90 nominees from 20 countries Alexander von Humboldt Foundation accepted the nomination of BIGSSS’ Jacobs Vice Dean Klaus Boehnke for Michele J. Gelfand from the University of Maryland at College Park.
The 43-year-old American social psychologist Michele Gelfand is one of the most productive and innovative researchers in the area of comparative cultural and conflict research. She has been invited to become part of the BIGSSS faculty as a visiting professor for the five years covered by the endowment of the award. A publication list of Dr. Gelfand can be accessed here. Michele Gelfand will work closely with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues from BIGSSS’ Field C, “Changing Lives in Changing Socio-Cultural Contexts,” at Jacobs University Bremen.Michele Gelfand has worked in the fields of cross-cultural psychology, intercultural management, and peace psychology (forgiveness). She is the co-editor of Oxford University Press’ Advances in Culture and Psychology, and of Stanford University Press’ Handbook of Negotiation and Culture. She has published in essentially all major journals of her field, including Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Psychological Bulletin, or the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

Based on a joint recent publication in Science, research collaboration with Klaus Boehnke and other colleagues from BIGSSS’ Field C will predominantly be concerned with the tightness vs. looseness of cultures and societies, and its impact on human behavior. Tightness vs. looseness refers to the density and behavioral relevance of norms in a culture: Are there many or few rules in a culture and do people generally adhere to them, and what happens if they do not.