Peter Salovey

Peter Salovey (born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and academic administrator.

Salovey was born in 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He is the oldest child of Elaine Salovey, who was a registered nurse, and Ronald Salovey, who was a physical chemist and professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Southern California.

Salovey spent his early years in New Providence, New Jersey, and attended high school at Williamsville North High School in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, before moving to suburban Los Angeles in 1975, when his father was appointed a professor at the University of Southern California.

In 1976, he graduated co-valedictorian from Rolling Hills High School in Rolling Hills Estates, California.

He attended Stanford University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in psychology and an Master of Arts in sociology with departmental honors and university distinction.

While at Stanford, he served as a peer counselor with The Bridge Peer Counseling Center, a field about which he later co-authored a textbook.

After graduating from Stanford, Salovey moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to pursue doctoral studies in psychology at Yale University under the guidance of Judith Rodin.

He completed a dissertation entitled "The Effects of Mood and Focus of Attention on Self-Relevant Thoughts and Helping Intention" and an internship at the West Haven Veterans Administration Medical Center.

He graduated from Yale University with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1986.

After graduating with a doctorate, Salovey joined the Yale Department of Psychology as an assistant professor.

Salovey is the first Yale president since 1986 to live in the President's House, the formal residence of the university president.

On August 31, 2023, in the 11th year of his tenure, Salovey announced that he plans to step down as President of Yale University and return to the Yale faculty on June 30, 2024.

In recognition of Salovey's research contributions, Salovey has received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the National Cancer Institute CIS Partner in Research Award, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Excellence Award.

The Division of Health Psychology (Division 38) of the American Psychological Association recognized him with its Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology by a Senior Professional Award.

He has received two awards for excellence in teaching at Yale, the William Clyde DeVane Medal and the Lex Hixon '63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences.

Salovey also received honorary degrees from the University of Pretoria, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Harvard University, McGill University, National Tsing Hua University, University of Haifa, and Vytautas Magnus University, as well as being awarded membership in the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Salovey's grandparents' families originally came from Poland, Jerusalem, and Austria.

The Saloveys are descendants of the Soloveitchik rabbinic family.

He was appointed full professor in 1995 and now has secondary faculty appointments in Yale's School of Management, School of Public Health, the Department of Sociology, and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

He is currently the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology.

Salovey's most significant research contributions are in the field of emotional intelligence.

With John D. Mayer he significantly expanded the scope of the concept and authored several of the field's seminal papers, arguing that people have wide ranging abilities pertaining to emotional control, reasoning, and perceptivity.

Against earlier theories of intelligence that conceived of emotion as rival to reasoning, Salovey and Mayer contended that emotion could motivate productive outcomes when properly directed.

Subsequently, he has worked to develop models and tests of emotional intelligence, such as the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test.

Salovey's second vein of research is in health psychology, where he has applied social psychology principles to investigate the efficacy of health messaging in promoting HIV risk reduction, early cancer detection, and smoking cessation.

In all, Salovey has authored or edited thirteen books translated into eleven languages and published more than 350 journal articles and essays.

Outside Yale, Salovey has served on the National Science Foundation's Social Psychology Advisory Panel, the National Institute of Mental Health Behavioral Science Working Group, and the NIMH National Advisory Mental Health Council.

Salovey served as President of the Society for General Psychology and Treasurer of the International Society for Research on Emotion.

He was the founding editor of the Review of General Psychology and an associate editor of Emotion and Psychological Bulletin.

Having served in various administrative roles within the Department of Psychology for a decade, Salovey was appointed dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in January 2003.

In 2004, he replaced Richard Brodhead as dean of Yale College.

He previously served as provost of Yale University from 2008 to 2013, dean of Yale College from 2004 to 2008, and dean of Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2004.

Salovey is one of the early pioneers in emotional intelligence.

In October 2008, he succeeded Andrew Hamilton as provost of Yale University.

As Provost, Salovey oversaw major budget reductions caused by the 2008 recession, expansion of Yale's West Campus, the formation of Yale–NUS College, reform of tenure policies for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and an overhaul of sexual misconduct grievance procedures.

Speculation that Salovey was being considered for the Yale presidency began nearly four years before President Rick Levin's August 2012 retirement announcement.

After a nationwide search in which Salovey was widely considered to be the frontrunner, the Yale Corporation announced his selection as Yale's 23rd president in November 2012.

He has been serving as the 23rd and current president of Yale University since 2013.

Salovey took office on July 1, 2013.