Sylvia Xiaohua CHEN 陳曉華 (Fellow)
Fields of study:
The social psychology of bilingualism and biculturalism, globalization and multiculturalism, personality and social behavior in cultural contexts, and cultural diversity and mental health.
Profile:
Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is Chair Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences and an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is also the Director of the Yan Oi Tong Au Suet Ming Child Development Centre and an Associate Director of the Mental Health Research Centre.
Her research focuses on personality and social psychology, cross-cultural psychology, as well as the psychosocial and cultural aspects of mental health. She investigates the social impact of bilingualism and biculturalism, as well as the effects of cultural contexts on the psychological functioning of bilingual and bicultural individuals. She has been developing a research program that explores the influence of globalization on the changes experienced by bicultural individuals in mindsets, values, beliefs, and identifications as a result of acculturation.
Professor Chen is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Hong Kong Psychological Society, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), UK. She received the Outstanding International Psychologist Award conferred by the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 52 (International Psychology) in 2022 and was awarded the RGC Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme in 2018. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and has served as President of the Asian Association of Social Psychology.