Founded in 1949, the goal of The Institute of Personality and Social Research (IPSR) has always been to harness insights from personality and social research and use them to address some of society’s most pressing concerns. Today, the IPSR intellectual community is united by a focus on understanding and fostering well-being, health, and equality for all.
IPSR’s research addresses questions such as:
What allows people to age healthily and happily? What emotional and social factors lead to human well-being and health? How can people and communities best deal with adversity? How can we characterize and combat inequality and bias in policing, the justice system, and education? What forces impede the free flow of information and access to it? Why do people come to believe things that are not based in reality and that harm them and future of our planet? (How) can we change their minds? How can we defang the forces that conspire against the happiness, health, and prosperity of some social groups? What are the best paths toward combatting systemic racism? How can we help people who disagree with one another have more productive conversations? How can we increase empathy, including and especially across social divisions?
Our approach to these diverse and pressing problems is simple: to understand them as best we can and then develop interventions to mitigate them at every level—from the individual to groups, families, organizations, communities, and societies.
Your gift makes a difference
Supporting the institute will:
- Advance cutting-edge research
- Help faculty and students in their work toward the goal of well-being, health, and equality for all
- Assist our intellectual community in leveraging research to help people within our own borders and across the world thrive