Tong Suo is a cultural psychologist whose research focuses on socio-psychological determinants of wellbeing and economic mobility, especially among underrepresented populations outside of the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies. Her ongoing projects are particularly interested in psychological and behavioral tendencies shaped by sub-Saharan African cultural contexts and their impacts on motivations and decision-makings that enable successful and sustainable escape from poverty.
In addition to theory-driven experiments and fieldwork, Tong Suo leverages predictive modeling (e.g., LASSO regularization and its derivates) on large-scale data sets to identify socio-ecological and psychological determinants and boundary conditions for economic mobility and well-being. These data-driven findings can in turn advance the development of new theoretical frameworks for basic psychological science and “culturally wise” behavioral interventions for target — and especially underrepresented — populations.