KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Elizabeth Page-Gould
Elizabeth Page-Gould is a Professor and the Graduate Chair in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, where she also serves as the SSHRC Leader. She researches how social interactions with friends and strangers shape individual thriving and intergroup solidarity in diverse societies. Dr. Page-Gould’s research incorporates physiological, behavioural, and subjective (self-reported) data collected from multiple people at once and across time to develop a rich picture of social interactions in the context of intergroup relations. Dr. Page-Gould’s research has been recognized with the Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (SESP; 2025), the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (2016), the Ontario Early Researcher Award(2015), being named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science (APS; 2013), and as the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Social Psychophysiology (2014 – 2025). Dr. Page-Gould is also a Fellow of APS, SESP, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. She was recently elected Treasurer of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (2026 – 2029). Dr. Page-Gould has also helped establish access and transition programs based in equity, diversity, and inclusivity and reconciliation, like the Pathways to Research Excellence Program for undergraduate students, the Summer Psychology Research Initiative for high-school students, and Quant-TIDE and Psych Jobs Group for graduate students. Altogether, Dr. Page-Gould’s research and professional service centre around building and supporting diverse and inclusive communities.
Psychological Systems of Cooperation: From Relationships to Social Groups
Abstract: Who will show up for you when you need it? This talk seeks to raise fun questions and encourage you to think more deeply about the intersection of interpersonal relationships and intergroup relations. We will start at the intersection of relationships and social groups by examining the role of cliques (e.g., the different groups or communities in a person’s social network) as a source of social support that is distinct from the dependability of the individual people in those cliques. We will next turn this idea to social identity groups, diving into the question of whom we classify as ingroup members versus outgroup members. We examine this question in the context of people's existing social networks and the social interactions they have in their daily lives. We further explore the boundaries of ingroup and outgroup perception when social group categorization is based on “continuous” dimensions of difference (e.g., political beliefs, age). I will close by discussing these findings as demonstrating the psychological functionality of relationships and social groups in large-scale, diverse societies.