Miles Hewstone

Miles Hewstone is an award-winning professor of social psychology at Oxford University and adviser to the Department of Communities and Local Government. Miles uses data from his fieldwork in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and South Africa to highlight the value of cross-group friendship and interaction, and to explore how, when and why cross-group contact works.

He has published widely in the general field of experimental social psychology. His major topics of research on intergroup relations have included: prejudice and stereotyping, stereotype change, crossed categorization, intergroup contact, the reduction of intergroup conflict, sectarianism in Northern Ireland, and segregation and integration (he has also published widely on attribution theory, social cognition, and social influence). He is the author of over 200 scholarly articles and contributions to edited volumes, and has written or edited over 20 books.

He is a former editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology, and co-founding editor of the European Review of Social Psychology (now in its 22nd year). Professor Hewstone has twice been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford (1987-88, 1999-00). His awards include the British Psychological Society’s Spearman Medal (1987), and its Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge (2001); the Kurt Lewin Award for Distinguished Research Achievement (2005), from the European Association for Social Psychology; the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize (2005), from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI); and the Robert B. Cialdini Award (2008), from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences, in 2002, and served as its Vice-President (Social Sciences) 2007-9. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2003.

Beyond his scientific contribution to the understanding of intergroup conflict, and especially how this might be reduced via intergroup contact, Professor Hewstone has also been actively involved in public policy input relating to improving intergroup relations in the United Kingdom.

Professor Hewstone’s work has reached a wide, non-academic audience (e.g. appearing on BBC Newsnight and ‘Mind Changers’ and ‘All in the Mind’ on BBC Radio 4, and being the subject of a full-page interview in The Guardian). He has presented his work to, for example, the Equality and Diversity Forum (Equal Opportunities Commission Review),  the Institute for Public Policy Research,  Haringey Council, the Commission on Equality and Human Rights, the Housing and Community Cohesion Conference, and The Equalities Review, Cabinet Office; and he has presented expert testimony to the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. He currently serves as an adviser to the Department of Communities and Local Government, Community Attitudes Survey (2007-), and is a Fellow of the Young Foundation.