Faculty Profile

Dr Ivy Lau joined SMU in 2006. She received her PhD from University of Alberta. Her research looks at cultural influences on people’s behavior and decision making. She is particularly interested in how people’s behavior is guided by cultural norms. She has published in Personality and Social Psychology, Social Cognition, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and Asian Journal of Social Psychology. Her main teaching focus is Introduction to Psychology. She finds introducing students to the fascinating discipline of Psychology very gratifying. To showcase the inclusiveness of the discipline, she has published an Asian edition of an Introduction to Psychology textbook in which she covers both classic findings and theories and cultural psychological research.

Qualifications

• PhD, Social Psychology, University of Alberta, 1993
• MA, Social Psychology, University of Alberta, 1988
• BA, Psychology, University of Alberta, 1984

Research Interests

• Aging
• Cultural psychology
• Technology-human Interaction
• Social Identity

Course(s) Taught in SMU

• Introduction to Psychology
• Capstone Seminar
• Cultural Psychology
• Social Cognition
• Cultural Psychology (Graduate Course)
• Aging (Graduate Course)