Rate My Professor Steven Heine

Dr. Steven J. Heine is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He earned his B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Japanese from the University of Alberta, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology (Social) from the University of British Columbia. His career includes positions as Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997 to 2000 and subsequent appointments at UBC as Assistant Professor in 2000, Associate Professor in 2002, and full Professor in 2007. Heine’s research centers on cultural psychology, the self, meaning in life, essentialistic thinking, and genetic attributions. He has authored the leading textbook Cultural Psychology and the books DNA Is Not Destiny (2017) and Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology Can Help Us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times (2025). Among his honors are election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2016, the Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award in 2020, the Sauder Distinguished Scholar designation in 2017, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology Career Trajectory Award in 2011, and multiple Killam and UBC research prizes. Heine maintains an active lab focused on cross-cultural investigations of self and motivation and has contributed extensively to the field through publications and scholarly leadership.