Phillip R. Shaver, a social and personality psychologist, received his Ph. D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1970 and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He has served on the faculties of Columbia University, New York University, University of Denver, and SUNY at Buffalo. He is associate editor of Attachment and Human Development, a member of the editorial boards of Personal Relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and New Review of Social Psychology, and a former member of study sections for NIH and NSF. He has received numerous research grants and published several books, including Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes, Measures of Political Attitudes, and Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications, and more than 150 scholarly journal articles and book chapters.
His current research focuses on emotions, close relationships, and personal development, especially from the perspective of attachment theory. In recent years he has been collaborating with Professor Mario Mikulincer, of Bar-Ilan University (Israel), on questionnaire, observational, and experimental studies of attachment security, compassion, and altruism, focusing especially on the ways in which attachment security (increased experimentally) fosters compassion and virtuous behavior, such as helping others in need and forgiving people who have been hurtful.
He has made notable contributions to the scientific literatures on human emotions, close relationships, and the psychology of religion. In 2002, he received a Distinguished Career Award from the International Association for Relationship Research.
