Jay Van Bavel

Biography

Jay Van Bavel is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University, an affiliate at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations, and a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Jay completed his PhD at the University of Toronto and a postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University. He teaches classes on Social Psychology, Social Neuroscience, Attitudes and Evaluation, Intergroup Relations, and Moral Psychology.

His research examines how collective concerns—group identities, moral values, and political beliefs—shape the mind and brain. This work addresses issues of group identity, social motivation, cooperation, implicit bias, moral judgment and decision-making, and group regulation from a social neuroscience perspective.

Jay has published over fifty academic papers and written about research for the public in The New York Times, Scientific American, Wall Street Journal, Quartz, and the Washington Post. His work has been cited by the US Supreme Court. He has also given talks at dozens of the Psychology Departments and Business Schools, as well as academic conferences, professional events, and non-academic organizations.

This research has received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award for distinguished contributions in social neuroscience from the Society for Social Neuroscience, the Young Scholars Award for outstanding achievements in social and personality psychology from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science.

Our work has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, American Psychological Foundation, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, John Templeton Foundation, and Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.