Dr. Steven J. Heine is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on a few topics that converge on how people come to understand themselves and the world around them. In particular, he studies how people’s cultures shape how they make sense of themselves and their worlds, how people strive to find meaning in their lives, and how people understand genetic causes. He is author of “Cultural Psychology”, the top-selling textbook in its field, and the trade book, “Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology can Help Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times” (Basic Books, forthcoming 2025). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Research interests include cultural psychology; the self; meaning; essentialistic thinking; inequality; pursuing a meaningful life.

Dr. Heine’s secondary research area is Health.

Heine, S. J. (2025). Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology can Help us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times. New York: Basic Books.

Folk, D., Rutjens, B. T., Van Elk, M., & Heine, S. J. (in press). Dare to know! The existential costs of a faith in science. Journal of Positive Psychology.

Heine, S. J., Folk, D. P., Guan, K. W., Benjamin, R., Bahng, J. M., & Proulx, T. (2024). An ecology of meaning: An integrative framework for understanding human motivations. Advances in Motivation Science, 11, 75-122.

Guan, K. W., & Heine, S. J. (2023). When good people break bad: Moral impression violations in everyday life. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14, 26-39.

Benjamin, R. F., & Heine, S. J. (2023). From Freud to Androids: Constructing a scale of uncanny feelings. Journal of Personality Assessment, 105, 121-133.

Mercadente, E., Heine, S. J., & Aquino, K. (2023). Leadership in the eye of the beholder: Follower self-esteem is associated with divergent perceptions of leadership ability for dominant and prestigious leaders. Journal of Personality, 91, 1253-1270.

Schmalor, A., & Heine, S. J. (2022). The construct of subjective inequality. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13, 210-219.

Cheung, B. Y., Takemura, K., Ou, C., Gale, A., & Heine, S. J. (2021). Considering cross-cultural differences in sleep duration between Japanese and Canadian university students. PLoS ONE, 16(4), e0250671

Heine, S. J. (2017). DNA is Not Destiny: The Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship between You and Your Genes. New York: Norton.

Google Scholar profile and citations.

• Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award, 2020
• Sauder Distinguished Scholar, Sauder School of Business, 2017
• Royal Society of Canada Fellow (2016)
• Society of Experimental Social Psychology, Career Trajectory Award (2011)
• Association for Psychological Science Fellow (2009)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology Fellow (2008)
• Killam Faculty Research Fellow (2006)
• Killam Faculty Research Prize (2005)
• UBC Alumni Award for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (2005)
• Distinguished University Scholar (2004)
• Distinguished Scientist Early Career Award for Social Psychology, American PsychologicalAssociation (2003)
• International Society of Self and Identity Early Career Award (2002)

Dr. Heine will be accepting graduate students next year.