Lara Beth Aknin is a Canadian professor of social psychology at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

, and associate editor of the

World Happiness Report The World Happiness Report is a publication that contains articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives, which the report also correlates with various (quality of) life factors. Since 2024, the r ...

Career

After earning her PhD from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

, Aknin joined the faculty of psychology at

in 2012. That year, she published "''Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children''" with J. Kiley Hamlin and Elizabeth Dunn, which supported the idea that humans may have evolved to find giving rewarding. In 2014, Aknin, Michael Norton and

Elizabeth Dunn Elizabeth Warren Dunn is a Canadian social psychologist and a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 2015, Dunn was elected a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists within the Royal ...

co-published a

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; , CRSH), often colloquially pronounced 'shirk' (), is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humani ...

(SSHRC) and CIHR funded review of whether spending money had a positive effect on people's happiness. The following year, her contributions to the field of social psychology earned her the President’s New Researcher Award from the

Canadian Psychological Association The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) is the primary organization representing psychologists throughout Canada. It was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950. Its objectives are to imp ...

and a fellowship at the

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a Canadian-based global research organization that brings together teams of top researchers from around the world to address important and complex questions. It was founded in 1982 and is su ...

. By 2019, she received a SSHRC grant for her project, “Can Repeated and Reflective Giving Nurture Canada's Next Generation of Philanthropists?” She was also honoured by the university for her research and contributions to social Psychology with the title "Distinguished SFU Professor." During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, she served as chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission.

Publications

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aknin, Lara Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Canadian social psychologists Canadian women psychologists Canadian academic journal editors Canadian women academics Academic staff of Simon Fraser University University of British Columbia alumni