Psychology Prof. Hazel R. Markus also will hold the Helen Peak Professorship of Psychology.

Her new appointment, effective Sept. 1, was approved by the Regents at their September meeting.

“Prof. Markus’ many achievements have brought honor and distinction to the Department of Psychology, LS&A, the Institute for Social Research and the University,” said LS&A Dean Edie N. Goldenberg.

Markus, who joined the faculty in 1977, is “perhaps the most distinguished social psychologist in her cohort. Her first major contribution was a series of careful, systematic, and highly original studies of the self-concept. By the end of 1980s, this work had made Hazel Markus the single best known and most widely cited authority on the subject of the self, one of the central problems of psychology,” Goldenberg said.

“The new direction of research she has undertaken in the past few years may be even more important. This research is nothing less than the empirical study of cultural differences in self-concept.”

The Peak professorship is named for Helen Peak who was the Catharine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Psychology for 20 years before her retirement in 1970.