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Professor Ayşe K. Üskül

Ayşe K. Üskül, Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology, received the 2023 Mid-Career Award from the European Association of Social Psychology for her outstanding contributions to social psychology.

Awarded to three recipients every three years, the Mid-Career Awards recognise significant mid-career contributions to social psychology and are given to candidates who have made a substantial contribution through excellence in individual scholarship and through support for the scholarship of others.

Professor Üskül’s research focuses on the role of cultural and socioecological factors in shaping how individuals think of themselves, how they relate to others, and how they think of their world. Her work so far has made profound theoretical contribution to understanding cultural conceptions of honor and honor-related cognitive, affective and behavioral outcomes, and to the socio-economic basis of social interdependence and its implications for cognitive and interpersonal processes.

Currently, Üskül leads an international team of researchers in her European Research Council funded project HONORLOGIC to examine the role of honour in interactional processes. In this project she focuses on the Mediterranean as an understudied region in psychology with a goal to contribute to the globalization efforts of her discipline.

In addition to her scientific achievements, the EASP Mid-Career Award recognizes Prof. Üskül’s leadership in using multimethod, comparative research in a wide range of cultural groups, her efforts in promoting fairer representation of topics and researchers through taking on key positions including editorial roles in flagship journals, acting as mentor to early career researchers of non-western backgrounds, and promoting internalization through her work in committees of her field’s learned societies.

On hearing the news about the award, Head of School of Psychology, Robin Banerjee said:

We are delighted that Ayşe Üskül has received this award for her outstanding contributions to social psychology.  Beyond her own groundbreaking and highly innovative programmes of research, a very large number of students and staff at Sussex – and far beyond – have already benefitted from her highly supportive approach to leadership and mentorship.  The EASP Mid-Career Award will help to amplify the impact of her work to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly through her role in leading our School’s new strategic focus on ‘Changing Societies’.

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