Chair, Strategic Development and Planning Committee

Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

E-mail: sunxiaomin@bnu.edu.cn

Webpage: https://psych.bnu.edu.cn/szdw/zrjs/js/sxmeh/index.htm

Education

Ph.D. in Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China

Background

Xiaomin Sun is Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology and a doctoral supervisor in the Faculty of Psychology at Beijing Normal University. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. She later returned to Harvard as a Visiting Scholar from 2015 to 2017.

Professor Sun’s research lies at the intersection of social, organizational, and decision-making psychology. Her research program centers on the social psychology of time, particularly how people perceive, value, and use time, and how time poverty and time wisdom shape cognition, decision-making, interpersonal relationships, family processes, well-being, and meaning in life. She also examines how broader social and economic conditions, particularly economic inequality and the digital economy, as well as organizational environments such as always-on culture, time fragmentation, and multitasking, influence individual and collective behavior.

Professor Sun currently serves as Chair of the Strategic Development and Planning Committee of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. She previously served as Secretary General of AASP for two consecutive terms, from July 2021 to June 2023 and from July 2023 to June 2025. In China, she is a Council Member of the Chinese Association of Social Psychology, Vice Chair of its Social Service and Education Committee and Applied Social Psychology Committee, and Chair of the Time Psychology Committee of the Beijing Psychological Society. She also serves on the Economic Psychology, Management Psychology, and Industrial Psychology Committees of the Chinese Psychological Society.

Professor Sun is an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Psychology and serves on the editorial boards of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology and the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology. She has served as Principal Investigator on four projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and currently leads a key research project for China’s Third National Time Use Survey, commissioned by the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Professor Sun has published more than 100 journal articles as first or corresponding author. Her work has appeared in leading journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Personality, British Journal of Social Psychology, British Journal of Psychology, Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, and Journal of Environmental Psychology. She has been selected for Beijing Normal University’s “Jingshi Talents” Program on three occasions and received the University’s inaugural “Peng Nian Outstanding Young Faculty Award”. Her courses Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making and Managerial Psychology have also been designated as High-Quality Undergraduate Courses by Beijing Normal University.

Research Interests

  • The social psychology of time, including time poverty, time wisdom, time use, and subjective experiences of time
  • The effects of time-related experiences on decision-making, well-being, meaning in life, parenting, and close relationships
  • Economic inequality, relative deprivation, and social and consumer decision-making
  • Temporal dynamics in organizations and teams, including always-on culture, time fragmentation, multitasking, creativity, and innovation
  • Decision-making in digital, financial, moral, and judicial contexts

Selected Recent Publications

Xiong, S., Chen, Y., Wang, Z., Sun, X., Yao, S., Li, Q., & Mu, Y. (2026). Time poverty undermines meaning in life: The mediating role of reduced intrinsic goal aspirations. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 18(4), e70200. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.70200

Liu, Z., & Sun, X. (2026). Wanting more, caring less: Greed promotes objectification by enhancing self-enhancement values and undermining self-transcendence values. European Journal of Personality. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070261471032

Zhao, Q., Yuan, Y., Cao, P., Dong, M., & Sun, X. (2026). The temporal tunnel: Time poverty diminishes pro-environmental behavior by reducing future time orientation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 113, 103130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103130

Jiang, X., & Sun, X. (2026). Time poverty increases self-dehumanization through undermining belief in free will. British Journal of Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70096

Cao, P., Ding, X., & Sun, X. (2026). Less is more when time is scarce: How time poverty enhances minimalistic consumption through increased need for order. British Journal of Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70094

Tang, C., Yuan, Y., Sun, X., & Kong, X. (2026). Time poverty and access-based consumption: Convenience gains and risk blindness. British Journal of Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70093

Chen, Y., Sun, X., & Xiong, S. (2026). Profiles of time and income poverty: A person-centered examination of health and well-being outcomes using large-scale survey data. Journal of Health Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053251407798

Cao, P., Ma, R., Yuan, Y., & Sun, X. (2025). Time poverty predicts an imbalance between help-seeking and help-giving: The mediating effect of zero-sum beliefs about time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251368958

Yang, S., & Sun, X. (2025). Caregivers’ time poverty, parenting styles and children’s growth mindset. British Journal of Psychology, 116(4), 877–906. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12797

Zhang, N., Sun, X., & Qi, Y. (2025). Spreading stress: Time poverty diffusion in close relationships—A dyadic analysis. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 17(2), e70024. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.70024

Jiang, X., Zhang, N., Sun, X., Liu, Z., Wang. Y. (2024). Being Pressed for Time Leads to Treating Others as Things: Exploring the Relationships among Time Scarcity, Agentic and Communal Orientation, and Objectification. British Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12729

Yuan, Y., Sun, X.* (2024). Can’t See the Forest for the Trees: Time Poverty Influences Construal Level and the Moderating Role of Autonomous versus Controlled Motivation. British Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12730

Zhao, Q., Ma, R., Liu, Z., Wang, T., Sun, X., van Prooijen, J.-W., Dong, M., & Yuan, Y. (2024). Why do we never have enough time? Economic inequality fuels the perception of time poverty by aggravating status anxiety. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(2), 614–636. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12695