Alia Crum

About

Alia Crum is an Associate Professor of Psychology and, by courtesy, of Medicine (Primary Care & Population Health) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on how changes in subjective mindsets—such as thoughts, beliefs, and expectations—can alter objective reality through behavioral, psychological, and physiological mechanisms. Inspired in part by research on the placebo effect, her work aims to understand how mindsets influence outcomes across various domains, including health, behavior, and organizational performance. Crum's interdisciplinary approach integrates psychology of schemas and appraisals with fields like behavioral economics and sociology, employing experimental studies, surveys, and field interventions to explore how mindsets shape health, performance, and wellbeing.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Public relations
• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Psychiatry
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

  Nature Human Behaviour · 2020 · 5046 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

  2020 · 661 citations

  The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on…

  PublisherDOI

• Optimizing stress: An integrated intervention for regulating stress responses.

  Emotion · 2020 · 177 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  The dominant cultural valuation of stress is that it is "bad for me." This valuation leads to regulatory goals of reducing or avoiding stress. In this article, we propose an alternative approach-stress optimization-which integrates theory and research on stress mindset (e.g., Crum, Salovey, & Achor, 2013) and stress reappraisal (e.g., Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010) interventions. We further integrate these theories with the extended process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 20…

  DOI

• The Future of Women in Psychological Science

  Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2020 · 137 citations

  There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field's investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women's career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19

  Nature · 2023 · 107 citations

  proposed 19 policy recommendations ('claims') detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supp…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Harnessing Mindset in 21st Century Healthcare

  NIH · $2.4M · 2016–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Lauren C. Howe

  Swiss Finance Institute

  46 shared

• Hazel Rose Markus

  Stanford University

  43 shared

• Emerson J. Hardebeck

  Antioch University Seattle

  38 shared

• Jennifer L. Eberhardt

  37 shared

• Sean R. Zion

  30 shared

• Kari Leibowitz

  Stanford University

  27 shared

• Rina I. Horii

  21 shared

• Lauren C. Heathcote

  King's College London

  21 shared

Labs

• Vice Provost for Student AffairsPI

  1-2 sentence research focus

Education

• B.A., Psychology

  Harvard University

  2005

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology

  Yale University

  2012

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Jordan Gerard Starckh-230
• Leanne Williamsh-140
• Carol Dweckh-122