March 1998
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Distinguished Scientific Award-Winning
Alumnus Gives TalkResponding to a warm welcome before speaking to a group of faculty, students and staff on February 6, Lee Jussim, UMass Boston alumnus and associate professor at Rutgers University, joked that he felt like a returning conquering hero. Someone in the audience quickly called out, "You are!"
There was no doubt about the pride that Jussim elicited on his first formal visit to the University since he graduated with a B.A. in psychology with honors, summa cum laude, in 1981. Jussim's accomplishments since then include a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan, his appointment to the faculty at Rutgers University, and a 1996 Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Society by the American Psychological Association (APA).
He received the award for ground-breaking research into how stereotypes and social perceptions influence the development of expectations, including self-fulfilling prophesies. In honoring Jussim with the Early Career Contribution award, the APA credited the way that Jussim's "theoretical and methodological work both renewed interest in this important area and provided a way for the field to move forward."
Broadly speaking, Jussim's area of interest is the relationship between social belief and social reality -- what people think and what really is.
"I've always been puzzled and intrigued by two things -- charismatic leaders who get the most out of the people they lead, and those who did weird things I couldn't understand," said Jussim. As a example of the latter, Jussim spoke of a cousin who had become a cult leader.
"When my uncle suffered a heart attack, my cousin dangled crystals over him in his hospital bed to cure him. I asked myself, 'how could someone believe that?' Yet no matter what the outcome, if someone has a profound belief, they will find a way to justify that belief system," he says. "If my uncle got well, the crystals cured him; if he survived but didn't fully recover, the crystals weren't used soon enough. If he died, the crystals didn't work for some other reason."
When Jussim began his studies at UMass Boston in 1979, he had no idea that an academic career was in his future. Jussim says that he had truly hated high school, and didn't expect to like UMass Boston any better. He intended to get a degree as quickly as possible, and pursue a career in "something lucrative." He signed up first semester for math, economics, and two psychology courses, fully expecting to drop one of them. But the psychology courses, taught by Professors Michael Milburn and Dennis Byrne, remained on Jussim's class schedule.
"When the semester was over, he came to my office," says Milburn. "And I''ll never forget what he said: 'Ok,' he announced. 'You've convinced me. I'll be a social psychologist. What do I have to do?'" Jussim had found a new career direction.
"Lee's story is one of my favorite stories to tell," says Milburn, who was Jussim's advisor and worked with him on his honors thesis. "He is my most successful student to date, and to have him achieve as he has is enormously satisfying to me, more than the books I have published or the grants I have received. Lee hated high school, and to be a part of opening his eyes to this realm of ideas, and see him succeed so well has been very exciting."
"I'm here today because of the Early Career award, and there have been a couple of things I've gotten out of that. One is a pay raise, and the other is the chance to share with people the excellence of UMass Boston, which takes people who haven't had many of life's advantages and allows them to lift themselves up, in the shadows of prestigious institutions like Harvard," said Jussim to his audience, in tribute to the people and place that set him on his path.