David Yeager

David Yeager
Name	David Yeager
Occupation	Psychologist, Researcher, Professor
Education	University of Virginia (PhD), University of Notre Dame (BA)
Workplaces	University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, University of Virginia
Known for	Research on adolescent development, mindset interventions, social psychology

David Yeager is an American psychologist and researcher known for experimental work on adolescent development, social cognition, and scalable psychological interventions. He has conducted randomized trials and field experiments addressing academic motivation, resilience, and stereotype threat among adolescents in secondary and higher education settings. His scholarship bridges laboratory-based social psychology with applied developmental science in partnership with school districts, non-profit organizations, and government agencies.

Early life and education

Yeager grew up in the Midwestern United States and completed undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he studied psychology and philosophy and worked with faculty in developmental and social psychology. He pursued graduate training at the University of Virginia, earning a PhD in psychology with a dissertation that integrated theories from Carol Dweck, Claude Steele, and Elliot Aronson on implicit theories, stereotype threat, and self-affirmation. During his graduate and postdoctoral years he held affiliations with research groups led by scholars at Stanford University, Harvard University, and the University of Michigan, collaborating on projects related to adolescent risk-taking and evidence-based behavioral interventions.

Academic and research career

Yeager served on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin and later held positions at the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. His research program centers on randomized controlled trials in educational contexts, partnering with public school districts, charter networks, and nonprofit organizations such as J-PAL-affiliated groups and foundations that fund scalable interventions. He has worked with interdisciplinary teams that include developmental psychologists, economists, and educational practitioners from institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Society for Research in Child Development.

Methodologically, Yeager's labs apply field experimental designs, preregistration practices advocated by researchers at Open Science Collaboration, and meta-analytic techniques popularized by scholars at Cochrane. His applied work often tests brief, online, or classroom-deliverable interventions inspired by the mindset literature of Carol Dweck, the social-belonging interventions of Greg Walton, and values-affirmation approaches of Claude Steele and Geoffrey Cohen. Yeager has investigated mechanisms including cognitive reappraisal, social norms, and identity-based resilience across populations sampled from urban districts, suburban schools, and selective universities such as University of Michigan and University of Texas.

Major publications and theories

Yeager is author or coauthor of empirical articles in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, and Child Development. Key publications report large-scale replications and scalability of brief psychological interventions, trials evaluating growth mindset messaging in secondary schools, and studies on the developmental antecedents of adolescent risk-taking that draw on frameworks from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on judgment and decision-making. He has contributed to systematic reviews and meta-analyses alongside researchers from American Educational Research Journal-affiliated teams and has written methodological pieces about heterogeneity of treatment effects informed by the work of John Ioannidis and Andrew Gelman.

Yeager's theoretical contributions emphasize the interaction between social-contextual constraints and individual cognition, arguing that brief interventions can produce sustained effects when embedded within supportive institutional practices. He has critiqued simplistic applications of mindset theory promoted in some popular outlets and worked to refine theory with rigorous experimental evidence in collaboration with scholars such as Greg Walton, David Yeager (Do not link), and other contemporaries in social and developmental psychology.

Honors and awards

Yeager has received research funding and recognition from agencies and foundations including the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and private philanthropic organizations. He has been awarded early-career honors by professional societies such as the Society for Research on Adolescence and received invited fellowships at institutes like the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and visiting scholar appointments at Stanford University and Harvard University.

Public engagement and media appearances

Yeager has engaged in outreach with education policymakers, presenting findings to local school boards, state departments of education, and national organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He has been interviewed by outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and appeared on panels at conferences hosted by SXSW, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Academy of Education. Yeager has also contributed commentary to practitioner venues linked to Edutopia and teacher professional-development networks, and his work has informed curricular pilot programs supported by district partnerships in cities such as Austin, Texas and Detroit, Michigan.

Personal life and legacy

Yeager maintains collaborations across multiple universities and with practitioners in school systems, emphasizing open science practices and reproducibility initiatives associated with groups like the Center for Open Science. His legacy in psychology is tied to efforts to translate social-psychological insights into scalable, ethically deployed interventions aimed at reducing educational inequities and improving adolescent well-being, influencing researchers in developmental psychology, educational policy, and implementation science. He continues to mentor doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars who have gone on to positions at institutions including University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, and University of Chicago.

Category:American psychologists Category:Developmental psychologists