Steven Heine
Research Area
About
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.
Teaching
Research
Research interests include cultural psychology; the self; meaning; essentialistic thinking; inequality; pursuing a meaningful life.
Dr. Heine’s secondary research area is Health.
Publications
Mask, M. B., Gomez, S., Bhandari, Y., & Heine, S. J. (in press). Nostalgia increases psychological richness. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Guo, Y. Y. L., Zhong, F. Y., & Heine, S. J. (in press). Perceived vs. objective cultural distance: Differential effects on acculturation experiences. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Jettinghoff, W., Folk, D., Radjaee, P., Willard, A., Norenzayan, A., & Heine, S. J. (in press). The varieties of nonreligious experience: Meaning in life among believers, non-believers, and the spiritual but not religious. Religion, Brain, and Behavior.
Mask, M., Folk, D. P., & Heine, S. J. (2025). How sources of purpose predict meaning in life, happiness and psychological richness across cultures. Journal of Positive Psychology, 20, 843-853.
Heine, S. J. (2025). Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology can Help us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times. New York: Basic Books.
Chen, L., Benjamin, R., Guo, Y., Lai, A., & Heine, S. J. (2025). Managing the terror of publication bias: A systematic review of the mortality salience hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 129, 20-41.
Folk, D., Wu, C., & Heine, S. J. (2025). Cultural variation in attitudes towards social chatbots. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 56, 219-239.
Ou, C., Lou, N. M., Maheshka, C., Shi, M., Takemura, K., Cheung, B. Y., & Heine, S. J. (2025). Healthy sleep durations appear to vary across cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122 (19), e2419269122.
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.
Heine, S. J. (2017). DNA is Not Destiny: The Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship between You and Your Genes. New York: Norton.
Awards
- Book of the Year by Mindvalley Book Club for Start Making Sense (2025)
- 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)
Graduate Supervision
Dr. Heine will not be accepting graduate students this term.
