Videos
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The New Race Institute: Moving Mountains with Tómas Jiménez and Brian Lowery
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Multiplicity of Identities with Brian Lowery
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Relative and Absolute Differences in Equity - Brian Lowery
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Faculty Seminar Series | "Gender Backlash & Race" with Brian Lowery (GSB) | February 10, 2022
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Senior Associate Dean Brian Lowery: Business and Society Series
Learn More About Brian Lowery
Brian Lowery is the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
At the business school, Lowery created and directs a program, Leadership for Society, that develops leaders’ ability to engage with diverse audiences on important societal issues. Lowery is also the founding co-director of Stanford’s new Institute on Race. The mission of the institute is to “produce cutting-edge research and solutions to realize racial justice.”
Lowery’s research has two major threads. The first thread examines the way people understand inequality, and how these understandings affect their attitudes and behavior. The second thread examines the way others shape who we are and, at the same time, how we shape them. This work explores issues ranging from the nature of racial, gender and other social identities to an understanding of how others help us generate meaning in life.
His research has been published in major scholarly journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Law and Human Behavior. He has also been featured in popular outlets such as GQ and NPR.
His book on these topics, “Selfless: The Social Creation of ‘You’” (Harper, March 2023), provides an easily accessible exploration of his research and its implications.
Lowery also hosts a podcast, Know What You See, in which he interviews thought leaders like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former senator Jeff Flake, and Mitchell Silver, commissioner of NYC parks. In addition, he teaches a webinar open to the public, The Leadership for Society series, all of which can be found at KnowWhatYouSee.com.
Lowery received his doctorate in social psychology from UCLA in 2001 and has been on faculty at Stanford since 2002.
Brian Lowery is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.
Praise for "Selfless"
“[Lowery] investigates many commonly held assumptions that selfhood is, for the most part, a privately malleable entity originating within us at birth, and that absolute liberty in defining it might be both possible and desirable. We know ourselves better and can improve our chances at self-improvement, the author explains convincingly, if we accept that our identities are fluid, socially determined phenomena…. An informed, thought-provoking consideration of the relational dimensions of our lives.”
“An unusually insightful look at how our social world shapes who we become. This book will challenge you to rethink many of your assumptions about what drives your decisions, your actions, and your identity.”
“This powerful book is guaranteed to change the way you see yourself and the world around you. Lowery masterfully weaves science and stories together to expose that we are all selfless – shaped in each moment and over years by our social situations. 'Selfless' is a gift – an engaging and important book that will help you better understand the influence of the web of relationships you inhabit.”
"Blending psychology, philosophy, and sociology, Lowery relays the exploration of what a self is into questions about how selfhood relates to personal autonomy, the consequences of our actions, and the desire for a meaningful life. Lowery is remarkably skillful at making these potentially heady themes clear and accessible, and engaging with them makes for a rewarding journey."
