Charis Psaltis

Charis Psaltis was born in Cyprus. He is a Professor of Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cyprus. He completed ndergraduate studies in both education and psychology. He followed graduate studies at the University of Cambridge (MPhil, 2001 and PhD, 2005, in Social and Developmental Psychology). He also worked as a Post-doctoral researcher at the Oxford Center for the Study of Intergroup Conflict, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.

He published papers in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Culture & Psychology, Papers on Social Representations and Human Development.

He is currently publishing a book with Brady Wagoner for Cambridge University Press relating to the theoretical framework he is developing of Genetic Social Psychology around a social developmental account of conflict and change in Cyprus in relation to the Cyprus issue.

His book with Zapiti, A. entitled "Interaction, Communication and Development: Psychological Development as a social Process" was published in April 2014 by Routledge. ISBN: 0415643872.

In May 2015 the book entitled "Social Relations in Human and Societal Development" co-edited with Alex Gillespie and Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont will be published by Palgrave Macmillan.

In 2014 he was invited and joined the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology and in 2015 Associate Editor of the European Journal of Psychology of Education. He is a founding member and president of the Cyprus Association of Social Psychology, founder and director of the Univeristy of Cyprus Centre for Field Studies and co-founder and co-director of the Genetic Social Psychology Lab in the Depertment of Psychology of the Univeristy of Cyprus with Dr Irini Kadianaki.

His research interests fall in the areas of Intergroup Relations and History teaching, collective memory and historical conciousness. He has also worked on the role of Social interaction on, learning and cognitive development and co-operative learning,

He is develoiping the theoretical framework of Genetic social psychology, which is the study of the articulation of the processes of microgeneis, ontogenesis and sociogenesis of representations and knowledge. In the last years he is developing this framework in the context of deeply divided Cyprus in relation to contact between the two communities in Cyprus, the development of prejudice in childhood and representations of the Cyprus issue. He has studied extensively the social psychological aspects of intercommunal relations between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus and has acted as an expert for the UN and Unficyp and the Council of Europein in Cyprus, and for OSCE in relation to history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina and IOM in relation to contact hypothesis on inclusivity promotion interventions.

He was awarded the 2024 Nevitt Sanford Award for Outstanding Professional Contributions to Political Psychology by the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP).