The extraordinary contributions to social psychology and management by Ramadhar Singh, currently a Distinguished University Professor at the Amrut Mody School of Management of Ahmedabad University have been marked on the ‘Heritage Wall of Fame’ of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in the United States. Professor Singh is the only social psychologist from India to be honoured thus. This recognition comes close on the heels of the College of Health and Human Sciences, Purdue University, conferring him with the Distinguished Alumni Award in Psychological Sciences (March 25, 2022).
Established in 1974 in Washington DC, USA, SPSP is the world’s largest organisation of personality and social psychologists. Professor Singh has been a member of the Society (1990) and then fellow (1992). Duane T Wegener, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, US, who had nominated Ramadhar Singh for the induction to the ‘Heritage Wall of Fam, also wrote his biography for the site. The nomination was supported by nine social psychologists across China, India, Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, and the US.
Professor Singh has been a breakthrough researcher in the field of psychology and management. During the 1980s, the predominant American view was that humans were cognitive misers, that is, people resort to shortcuts in thoughts and behaviours. Through his research, however, Professor Singh showed how cognitively affluent and dynamic humans were. The site states, “People go far beyond the information given to them in social judgments. They actively process multiple pieces of information and relate activated processes with each other (often serially) in producing an overt response. Theoretically, therefore, these core cognitive complexities underlie affect and behaviour in many settings, and a cross-cultural view of human experience helps to identify and unpack those complexities.”
Over and beyond his research contributions, Professor Singh is passionate about making formal education accessible. He took up the cause of affordable early education in his ancestral village in Nepal by helping extend the existing primary school to a secondary school at Balara, Sarlahi. In India, Professor Singh contributed to two new institutions trying to improve the delivery of quality education across the country. He routinely mentors scholars, inspiring them to conduct high-quality research and publish it in important international journals, and nominating deserving persons for suitable appointments in Indian academia.
To advance psychology as a science in Asia, Professor Singh played critical roles at the national level in India through the University Grants Commission and in Asia through the Asian Association of Social Psychology. At the international level, he served as a consulting and/or associate editor of several journals and a member of the Mentor Award Committee of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), US.
While accepting the honour, Professor Singh said, “I am entirely satisfied with the international recognition I have received this year for my lifelong efforts toward excellence over five decades as an experimental social psychologist. However, undoubtedly, my biggest delight is that my mentor Donn Byrne was simultaneously honoured at the ‘Heritage Wall of Fame’ and that his name rightfully precedes mine. As his 21st doctoral student, I remain grateful to Donn Byrne for guiding me to the path my research and life took.”
A Lifetime of Achievements
• SPSP: Heritage Wall of Fame, the only one from India (2022)
• Purdue University: Distinguished Alumni Award (2022)
• Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur: Prabha and Ramadhar Singh Distinguished Lecture in Psychology (2022) delivered annually by an eminent psychologist
• Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore: Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Research (2021)
• APS’s website of the most influential psychologists worldwide: Faces and Minds of Psychological Science, the only one from India (2013)
• National University of Singapore (NUS): Inspiring Mentor Award (2009) • S P Trust of Psychology, Patna: Psychology National Award (1990)
Ahmedabad University is a leading private, non-profit research university offering students a liberal education focused on interdisciplinary learning and research thinking. The Ahmedabad University, established in 2009, is rooted in the vision of one of India’s finest educational foundations, the Ahmedabad Education Society, which was founded in 1935 by nationalist leaders. Programmes at the University range from bachelor to doctoral levels in humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and management through its 10 Schools and Centres.
Amrut Mody School of Management | School of Arts and Sciences | School of Engineering and Applied Science | Centre for Heritage Management | International Centre for Space and Cosmology | VentureStudio | Centre for Learning Futures | Global Centre for Environment and Energy | Centre for Inter-Asian Research | Ahmedabad Design Lab.
An urban university, Ahmedabad promotes independent-mindedness and diversity across all dimensions of its activity and helps students mature into critical thinkers who are analytically equipped, practically oriented, and contextually aware global citizens. The University provides a contemporary educational framework that brings liberal arts, sciences, and the professions to engage together in creating new knowledge for addressing complex challenges of society and in offering majors that merge the boundaries of disciplines to prepare students for the new economy.
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