Allen McConnell receives Benjamin Harrison Medallion
University Distinguished Professor of Psychology honored with career faculty award
Miami University has honored University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Allen McConnell with its most prestigious career faculty award, the Benjamin Harrison Medallion.
The medallion is awarded annually for extraordinary and sustained contributions related to teaching, research, and service over the course of a career at the university.
McConnell has received the award for “outstanding contribution to the education of the nation.” He was selected for achieving the highest standards of teaching, attaining significant stature within his field, his record of outstanding and enduring service to Miami, and for recognition of influence beyond his primary discipline.
McConnell is an experimental social psychologist. His research examines how relationships with family and pets affect health and well-being, how self-nature representations promote environmental stewardship, and how people form impressions of others.
Since joining Miami in 2000, his work has been supported by more than $3 million in federal grants as a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI from organizations including the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
McConnell’s publications have placed him in the top 2% career impact among social psychologists worldwide (Elsevier Data Repository, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023).
“My move to Miami reflected a deliberate choice to better balance my academic roles at an institution that allows me to pursue my research and professional development at the highest levels while also embracing teaching, mentorship, and service in my discipline and beyond,” McConnell wrote in his statement for the award.
One of his external nominators wrote that McConnell has published “seminal work on the development and application of group stereotypes (supported by the National Science Foundation), how self-concepts form and guide behavior (supported by the National Institute of Mental Health), and most recently on how connections with pets and nature promote human health and sustainability (supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development).”
McConnell followed up this work by “documenting how implicit bias differs from explicit bias in its origins and impacts on discriminatory behavior, resulting in many highly regarded empirical and theoretical papers” a nominator wrote, including the Editor’s Choice Award for a publication in psychology from the editors of Science in 2007.
More recently, he received the Academy of Management’s Best Published Paper Award (2024).
Leadership in his field
McConnell has served as president of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (2018) and of the Midwestern Psychological Association (2016-2017), from which he recently received an Excellence in Service Award (2024-2025).
He has held significant editorial roles in the leading academic journals in social psychology, including as editor in chief of Social Psychological and Personality Science, and as an associate editor for both Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. From 2022-2024, he served as social psychology program director at the NSF.
McConnell was named a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in 2022 and a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2013, “which is a clear and tangible measure of the esteem and respect that his colleagues have for him and his scholarship,” a nominator wrote.
Mentorship
McConnell was twice recognized as instructor of the year by his majors (Psi Chi honor society in psychology).
“Dr. McConnell has mentored over 300 undergraduate students in his research lab and has supervised over 20 senior thesis projects, some of which have been published in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the flagship journal in the field,” said a nominator writing on behalf of five others at Miami.
Of the 70 papers that Dr. McConnell has published during his time at Miami, 36 have had his graduate advisees as first authors. Of the 134 peer-reviewed paper presentations at national and regional conferences, 77 involved graduate student first authors and 10 had undergraduate student first authors.
Regarding his attainment of national and international stature, there is substantial evidence of his preeminence in the field of social psychology, the nominator wrote. “In his career, he has published 80 peer-reviewed articles (70 published while at Miami), which have garnered over 12,000 citations, placing him in the top 2% of career impact among social psychologists globally (Mendeley Data, 2021).
Service to Miami
McConnell’s service to the university and the department has been significant and impactful, with him serving on 14 college and university committees, 16 departmental committees — many in a leadership role. He also served as chair of the psychology department from 2019-2022.
He has been recognized at Miami with many awards. He was named University Distinguished Professor in 2017, served as the inaugural James and Beth Lewis Endowed Professor of Psychology from 2008-2014, and received the Miami University Distinguished Scholar Award in 2002.
He received his doctorate in 1995 from Indiana University and taught at Michigan State University before joining Miami in 2000.
McConnell authors a blog for Psychology Today — “The Social Self” — with his average post receiving more than 10,000 unique views.
He has also been interviewed on television (CBS Sunday Morning, ESPN, and PBS), radio (CBC and BBC), newspapers (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, Toronto Globe and Mail, and India Times), and magazines (Time, The Atlantic, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan).
McConnell said his scholarly interests “on how group prejudices develop and shape behavior, the social mechanisms underlying health and resilience, and the processes by which sustainability can be advanced are not only at the heart of my research but my teaching and service as well. It is so satisfying to be considered for the Benjamin Harrison Medallion because it celebrates the confluence of these roles across the entirety of my career at Miami."
