Richard J. Crisp

Richard J. Crisp (born 1973) is an author, blogger, scientist and Professor of Psychology at the Aston Business School. He is co-originator of the imagined contact hypothesis and a major contributor to the field of social psychology.

Richard Crisp was born in London (UK), and educated at The Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School in Rochester, Kent. He went on to read Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and completed his PhD in Social Psychology at University of Wales. After his doctoral work was appointed to a Lectureship in Psychology at the University of Birmingham (1999). In 2007 he was appointed Full Professor of Psychology in the Centre for the Study of Group Processes at the University of Kent. He was Head of the School of Psychology from 2008-2011. From 2012 to 2014 he was Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield. In 2014 he was appointed Professor of Psychology at the Aston Business School.

Richard Crisp has published widely on diversity, multiculturalism, prejudice, stereotyping, social cognition and intergroup contact. His scholarly contributions are particularly known for their application of cutting-edge advances in psychological science to pervasive and problematic social issues. In 2007 he developed a new cognitive intervention for reducing prejudice and promoting tolerance based on the application of theory and research into mental imagery (the imagined contact hypothesis). More recently, he has uncovered evidence that living in diverse, multicultural societies can produce a wide range of benefits associated with 'flexible thinking' - including enhanced creativity, problem solving and negotiation skills ("cognitive adaptation to diversity]"). For these advances, in 2006 he was awarded the British Psychological Society Spearman Medal "in recognition of outstanding published work in psychology". In 2012 with Rhiannon Turner, he was awarded the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations prize (for the best paper of the year on intergroup relations). Most recently he was the 2013 winner of the British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section Mid-Career Prize (for outstanding research in social psychology). He has also been elected to Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and Fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. In 2011 he was elected a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, in recognition of his 'outstanding contribution to the advancement or dissemination of psychological knowledge'. He is a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2008-2011) and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology (2012-).