S. Alexander Haslam (b. 1962) is a Professor of Social Psychology

Social psychology

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...

 in the School of Psychology at the University of Exeter

University of Exeter

The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....

. He was born in Horsforth (Yorkshire), and educated at Felsted School

Felsted School

Felsted School, an English co-educational day and boarding independent school, situated in Felsted, Essex. It is in the British Public School tradition, and was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich who, as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, acquired...

.

His research is in the area of social and organisational psychology, exploring issues of stereotyping and prejudice, tyranny and resistance, leadership and power, stress and well-being. This work is informed by, and has contributed to the development of, theory and ideas in the social identity

Social identity

A social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group. As originally formulated by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and 80s, social identity theory introduced the concept of a social identity as a way in which to...

 tradition.

In 2001 Haslam collaborated with Professor Steve Reicher

Steve Reicher

Stephen D Reicher is Professor of Social Psychology and former Head of the School of Psychology at the University of St Andrews....

 of the University of St Andrews on the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television programme The Experiment

The Experiment

The Experiment was a documentary series broadcast on BBC television in 2002. It presented the findings of what subsequently became known as The BBC Prison Study -Background:...

, which examined conflict, order, rebellion and tyranny in the behaviour of a group of individuals within a simulated prison environment. The Experiment (which became known as the BBC Prison Study) re-examined issues raised by the Stanford Prison Experiment

Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14th-20th, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...

 (SPE) and attempted to combine compelling broadcasting with cutting-edge social science research. The results of the study were subsequently published in leading psychology journals. Amongst other things, these challenged the role account of tyranny associated with the SPE as well as broader ideas surrounding the 'banality of evil

Banality of Evil

Banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or...

'.

Haslam is also known for his research into leadership, including work with Michelle Ryan into the glass cliff

Glass cliff

A glass cliff is a term coined by Prof Michelle Ryan and Prof Alex Haslam of University of Exeter, United Kingdom, in 2004.Their research demonstrates that once women break through the glass ceiling and take on positions of leadership they often have experiences that are different from those of...

 that examines the leadership experiences of women in organizations. This was short-listed for the Times Higher Education 'Research Project of the Year' in 2005. His work on the Social Identity Approach to health and well-being (including the Integrated Social Identity model of Stress; ISIS) is also highly cited.

Haslam holds a Master of Arts (MA) degree from the University of St Andrews

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

 and a PhD from Macquarie University

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is an Australian public teaching and research university located in Sydney, with its main campus situated in Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney...

, Sydney, Australia. His doctoral work at Macquarie was supervised by John Turner and funded by a Commonwealth Scholarship

Commonwealth Scholarship

The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan is an international programme under which Commonwealth governments offer scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other Commonwealth countries.-History:...

. This was preceded by a year as a Robert T. Jones scholar at Emory University

Emory University

Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

 (Atlanta). Prior to his appointment at Exeter, Haslam worked for ten years at the Australian National University

Australian National University

The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

 in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

.

Haslam is a recipient of the European Association of Social Psychology's Kurt Lewin medal, and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research enables Canadian researchers to work on international research teams that are custom built to transform their fields of study...

 working on its Social Interaction, Identity and Well-Being program. In 2009 he won the British Psychology Society's Award for excellence in teaching psychology, and the following year received a National Teaching Fellowship

National Teaching Fellowship

The Higher Education Academy's National Teaching Fellowship scheme recognises and rewards individual excellence in teaching in higher education in England and Northern Ireland. Fifty awards are made annually. The scheme began in 2000, with total funding per year of £2.5 million.-External links:***...

 from the Higher Education Academy. He was an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology from 1999-2001, Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology from 2001-2005, and President of the Psychology Section of the British Science Association from 2009-2010. He is currently a consultant editor for a range of journals including Scientific American Mind

Scientific American Mind

Scientific American Mind is a bimonthly American popular science magazine concentrated on psychology, neuroscience, and related fields. By analyzing and revealing new thinking in the cognitive sciences, the magazine tries to focus on the biggest breakthroughs in these fields...

.

Key publications

Books

• Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & Turner, J. C. (1994). Stereotyping and social reality. Oxford: Blackwell.

• Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (2003). Research methods and statistics in psychology. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Haslam, S. A. (2004). Psychology in organizations: The social identity approach (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

• Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D. & Platow, M. J. (2010). The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence and power. London: Psychology Press.

Edited Books

• Spears, R., Oakes, P. J., Ellemers, N., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.) (1997). The social psychology of stereotyping and group life. Oxford: Blackwell.

• McGarty, C., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.) (1997). The message of social psychology: Perspectives on mind in society. Oxford: Blackwell.

• Haslam, S. A., van Knippenberg, D., Platow, M., & Ellemers, N. (Eds.) (2003). Social identity at work: Developing theory for organizational practice. New York and Hove: Psychology Press.

• Jetten, J., Haslam, C., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.) (2011). The social cure: Identity, health and well-being. New York and Hove: Psychology Press.

• Smith, J. R., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.) (in press). Social psychology: Revisiting the classic studies. London: Sage.

Journal articles

• Oakes, P. J., Turner, J. C., & Haslam, S. A. (1991). Perceiving people as group members: The role of fit in the salience of social categorizations. British Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 125-144.

• Haslam, S. A., Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., McGarty, C., & Hayes, B. K. (1992). Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 1: The effects of intergroup relations as mediated by social change and frame of reference. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 3-20.

• Haslam, S. A. & Turner, J. C., (1992). Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 2: The relationship between frame of reference, self-categorization and accentuation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 251-277.

• Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1994). Self and collective: Cognition and social context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 454-463.

• Haslam, S. A., McGarty, C., & Brown, P. (1996). The search for differentiated meaning is a precursor to illusory correlation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 611-619.

• Haslam, S. A., Oakes, P. J., McGarty, C., Turner, J. C., Reynolds, K. J., & Eggins, R. A. (1996). Stereotyping and social influence: The mediation of stereotype applicability and sharedness by the views of ingroup and outgroup members. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 369-397.

• Haslam, S. A., Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., McGarty, C., & Reynolds, K. J. (1998). The group as a basis for emergent stereotype consensus. European Review of Social Psychology, 8, 203-239.

• Haslam, S. A., & Platow, M. J. (2001). The link between leadership and followership: How affirming social identity translates vision into action. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1469-1479.

• Haslam, S. A. Eggins, R. A., & Reynolds, K. J. (2003). The ASPIRe model: Actualizing Social and Personal Identity Resources to enhance organizational outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 76, 83-113.

• Haslam, S. A., Postmes, T., & Ellemers, N. (2003). More than a metaphor: Organizational identity makes organizational life possible. British Journal of Management
  British Journal of Management
  The British Journal of Management is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, which was established by David T. Otley in 1990, and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Academy of Management. The journal covers all main fields of management studies: from business ethics and...
  
  , 14, 357-369.

• Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC Prison Study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1-40.

• Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2006). Stressing the group: Social identity and the unfolding dynamics of responses to stress. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1037-1052.

• Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2007). The Glass Cliff: Exploring the dynamics surrounding the appointment of women precarious leadership positions. Academy of Management Review, 32, 549-572.

• Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2007). Beyond the banality of evil: Three dynamics of an interactionist social psychology of tyranny. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 615-622.

• Haslam, S. A., & Ryan, M. K. (2008). The road to the glass cliff: Differences in the perceived suitability of men and women for leadership positions in succeeding and failing organizations. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 530-546.

• Haslam, S. A., Jetten, J., Postmes, T., & Haslam, C. (2009). Social identity, health and well-being: An emerging agenda for applied psychology. Applied Psychology: An International Review, "58", 1-23.

• Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (in press). When prisoners take over the prison: A social psychology of resistance. Personality and Social Psychology Review.

External links

• The official website of the BBC Prison Study