William B. Swann

William B. Swann is now Professor Emeritus of Social and Personality Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and is affiliated with University of Oregon. He is best known for his work on self-verification, which explores the tendency for people to create around themselves social environments that confirm their firmly held beliefs about themselves. This process unfolds even when people have low self-esteem and negative self-concepts. In several studies, for example, people with negative self-concepts were more likely to withdraw from, and even divorce, spouses who thought well of them. Also, employees with low self-esteem felt better understood when their employees treated them unfairly. Swann’s more recent work has focused on identity fusion, wherein people incorporate a group, individual or cause into their core self-concepts.

He has authored more than 200 publications during his career which have appeared in outlets such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Review, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Child Development, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and others.

Swann has received several awards, including the Career Contribution Award, Society of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018, the Distinguished Lifetime Career Award, International Society for Self and Identity, 2016 and Gettysburg College, Distinguished Alumni Award, 2024.

He has been elected Fellow of American Psychological Association, Society of Experimental Social Psychology, American Psychological Society, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the International Society of Self and Identity. He also served as the president of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. He received two successive Research Scientist Development Awards from the National Institute of Mental Health. He was also awarded a McArthur fellowship at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

received his undergraduate degree in Psychology in 1974 from Gettysburg College and his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Minnesota.