Lixian Cui

Lixian Cui is an Associate Professor of Psychology, and a faculty affiliate in the NYU-ECNU Institute for Social Development at NYU Shanghai. He is also a Global Network Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and in the Center for Research on Culture, Development and Education (CRCDE) at NYU. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He holds a Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University, a M.S. from Sun Yat-sen University, and a B.S. from Southwest China Normal University. 

Professor Cui’s research focuses on child and adolescent social and emotional development in various contexts, with a focus on emotion socialization in family, school, peer, and cultural contexts. Particularly, Cui is interested in physiological measures of stress and emotion (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia, skin conductance, heart rate, cortisol) during social interactions. A second line of Cui’s research concerns mental health and family dynamics among LGBT youth and young adults. His work has appeared in prestigious scientific journals such as Child Development, Emotion, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Journal of Family Psychology, the Journal of Early Adolescence, and Parenting: Science and Practice.

Cui is an ad hoc reviewer for the Child Development, Developmental Science, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Journal of Adolescence, Biological Psychology, Developmental Psychobiology, Infant and Child Development, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, among others. He is a member of Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), and Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). He has also been a reviewer for American Psychological Association (APA) Division 44 student research awards.

Select Publications

• Cui, L., Criss, M. M., Ratliff, E., Wu, Z., Houltberg, B. J., Silk, J. S., & Morris, A. S. (2020). Longitudinal links between maternal and peer emotion socialization and adolescent girls’ socioemotional adjustment. Developmental Psychology, 56, 595-607.
• Cui, L., Zhang, X., Houltberg, B. J., Criss, M. M., & Morris, A. S. (2019). RSA reactivity in response to viewing bullying film and adolescent social adjustment. Developmental Psychobiology, 61, 592-604.
• Zhang, X., Cui, L., Han, Z. R., & Yan, J. (2017). The heart of parenting: Parent HR dynamics and negative parenting while resolving conflict with child. Journal of Family Psychology.
• Cui, L., Colasante, T., Malti, T., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. P. (2016). Dual trajectories of reactive and proactive aggression from mid-childhood to early adolescence: Relations to sensation seeking, risk taking, and moral reasoning. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44, 663-675.
• Cui, L., Morris, A. S., Harrist, A. W., Larzelere, R. E., Criss, M. M., & Houltberg, B. J. (2015). Adolescent RSA responses during an anger discussion task: Relations to emotion regulation and adjustment. Emotion, 15, 360-372.

Education

• PhD, Human Development
  Oklahoma State University
• MS, Applied Psychology
  Sun Yat-sen University