Academic Staff

Professor LEUNG Ka Yee, Angela

Professor

BSocSc (HKU), MA, PhD (Illinois)

Professor Angela Leung graduated with first class honors in the Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Hong Kong and was one of the three recipients in Hong Kong for being awarded the HSBC scholarship for a one-year exchange at the University of Chicago. Her overseas experience motivated her to specialize in the study of culture when pursuing her doctoral degree. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2007. Her publications have appeared on top-tier journals including American Psychologist, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Journal of Environmental Psychology.  She has an H-index of 33, with total citation counts of 6,650 (as in Google Scholar).  Professor Leung has edited two books on the psychological science of culture: Cultural processes: A social psychological perspective published by the Cambridge University Press in 2010 and Handbook of culture and creativity: Basic processes and applied innovations published by the Oxford University Press in 2018.

Professor Leung has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology and Associate Editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. She is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Management and Organization Review, and British Journal of Social Psychology. She has received numerous awards, including the Best Paper Award (International Conference on Behavioural and Social Computing, 2020), the Seisoh Sukemune/Bruce Bain Encouragement of Early Career Research Award (International Council of Psychologists, 2013), Lee Kong Chian Fellowship (SMU, 2018-2020), Lee Foundation Fellowship (SMU, 2009), the Award for Research Excellence (SMU, 2009), and the first honorable mention for the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Prize (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2009).

Teaching Areas

2024-2025
  • PSYC3610- Culture and Psychology
  • GLSD3201- Cultural Psychology and Globalization

Research interests

Her research examines how complex, contradictory, and challenging issues can be transformed into opportunities so that people and society can thrive. Her research topics include multiculturalism and creativity, cosmopolitanism and globalization, paradox management, working motherhood, environmental psychology, and sustainable living. Together, this program of research offers novel understanding of how our mindset makes sense of personal and societal challenges, and the downstream differential consequences of being impaired versus enriched by the accompanying conflicts and tensions.

Publication

1.

Representative
  • Leung, A. K.-y., Maddux, W., Galinsky, A., & Chiu, C-y. (2008). Multicultural experience enhances creativity: The when and how. American Psychologist, 63, 169-181.
  • Leung, A. K.-y. & Cohen, D. (2011). Within and between culture variation: Individual differences and the cultural logics of honor, face, and dignity cultures.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology100, 507-526.
  • Leung, A. K.-y., Koh, K., & K-P. Tam. (2015). Being environmentally responsible: Cosmopolitan orientation predicts environmental consciousness. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 43, 79-94. 
  • Leung, A. K.-y., Liou, S., Miron-Spektor, E., Koh, B., Chan, D., Eisenberg, R., & Schneider, I.  (2018). Middle ground approach to paradox: Within- and between-culture examination of the creative benefits of paradoxical frames.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 114, 443-464.
  • Koh, B. & Leung, A. K.-y. (2019). A time for creativity: How future-oriented schemas facilitate creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 84, 1-10.