Steven Zhou, Ph.D.
Department
Areas of Expertise
Biography
I'm an Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Claremont McKenna College, where I lead the STATS Lab (www.statslabatcmc.com). My research sits at the intersection of leadership, personality, and vocational psychology, with methodological expertise in psychometrics, multivariate statistics, machine learning, computational modeling, and R & Tableau for data analysis and visualization. I also actively seek to bridge the academic-practitioner gap through science communication, collaborative research, open science, and consulting.
🔬 I’ve authored 20+ peer-reviewed publications and secured nearly $40,000 in external research funding, earning awards from AOM, APA, SIOP, and ILA. My current projects include new methods and approaches to leadership research, multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) assessments, LLM-based leadership evaluations, and longitudinal studies of career calling.
👨🏫 I teach courses such as organizational psychology and behavior, statistics, psychometrics and multivariate methods, and careers. My courses focus on hands-on, applied learning using real-world data, reproducible research workflows, and lively classroom discussions (and debates!).
🤝 I am a leadership and operations consultant, primarily for nonprofits. I serve on the Board of Directors for Project SHORT, a 501(c)3 dedicated to expanding graduate school access through mentorship. I previously oversaw a $2 million annual operating budget and successfully led an executive leadership succession plan and hire.
🎸 Outside of CMC, I enjoy music production, hiking, and strategic (aka intense) board games. If you visit with me, you can see my closet full of obscure and overly complicated games!
🌐 I'd love to connect! Email me, visit our lab website, and/or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Teaching Interests
organizational psychology, psychometrics and multivariate methods, machine learning and natural language processing, artificial intelligence and large language models, careers and vocation, human resources management, leadership
Research Interests
leadership, personality, psychometrics, quantitative methods and data science, careers and calling, academic-practitioner gap
Education
PhD Organizational Psychology + Certificate in Computational Social Sciences, George Mason University
BA Organizational Psychology + Certificate in Conflict Resolution, Pepperdine University
Awards and Affiliations
Selected Awards and Grants
2025 Chapman Dissertation Award, Network of Leadership Scholars and Academy of Management
2023 Dissertation Research Award, American Psychological Association
2022 Free Inquiry Grant, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
2022 Graen Grant for Student Research on Leaders and Teams, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
2021 Kenneth E. Clark Student Research Award, International Leadership Association and the Center for Creative Leadership
2021 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, GMU Department of Psychology
Service
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Business and Psychology
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Vocational Behavior
Editorial Fellow, Journal of Applied Psychology (2025-2026)
Emerging Editor Board, Personality and Social Psychology Review (2022-2024)
Chair, SIOP Ambassador Program (2024-present)
Chair, SIOP Membership Analytics (2022-2024)
Additional Certifications
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Certified Professional
Tableau Desktop Certified Specialist
Research and Publications
Selected Publications (see Google Scholar for full list)
Lee, P., Son, M.*, Zhou, S., Joo, S., Jia, Z., & Cheng, V.* (in press). The journey of forced choice measurement over 80 years: Past, present, and future. Organizational Research Methods.
Zhou, S., Weiss, H. A., McCuskey, B., & Tay, L. (2025). College student well-being: Explaining academic and behavioral outcomes from a representative college student sample. Journal of Happiness Studies. doi.org/10.1007/s10902-025-00906-3
Ravi, N.**, & Zhou, S. (2025). Importance of pay on job satisfaction. Journal of Emerging Investigators. doi.org/10.59720/24-026
Zhou, S., & Srivastava, A.** (2024). Investigating gender and racial-ethnic biases in sentiment analysis of language. Cogent Psychology. doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2024.2396695
Zhou, S., Hiller, N. J., Zaccaro, S. J., Campbell, L. N. P.*, McCauley, R.*, Parris, T., & Klimoski, R. J. (2024). The corporate Chief of Staff: Strategic leadership influence from outside the spotlight. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. doi.org/10.1177/15480518241267078
Zhou, S., Campbell, L. N. P.*, & Fyffe, S.* (2024). Quantifying the academic-practitioner gap: How do small business owners react to academic articles? [Focal article]. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. doi.org/10.1017/iop.2024.11
Zhou, S., Cheng, V.*, & Lee, P. (2024). What are you comparing it to? Investigating order effects in presentation of multidimensional forced choice personality items. Personality and Individual Differences. doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112581
Zhou, S., Aitken, J.*, & Kuykendall, L. (2023). Callings can take different shapes: Scope, proximity, and duration as new complexifications of calling. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi.org/10.1111/joop.12459
Zhou, S., & Kodama Muscente, K.* (2022). Meta-analysis of volunteer motives using the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) to explain volunteer satisfaction, commitment, and behavior. Nonprofit and Volunteer Sector Quarterly. doi.org/10.1177/08997640221129540
* graduate student co-authors; ** undergraduate student co-authors
Selected Presentations
Kreamer, L., Pietrofeso, A., Zhou, S., McCauley, R., Baran, B. (Panelist), Fletcher, K. (Panelist), Grabarek , P. (Panelist), Islam, S. (Panelist), Kath, L. (Panelist), Oswald, F. (Panelist), Rogelberg, S. (Panelist), Sawyer, K. (Panelist), Wiese, C. (Panelist), & Yost, P. (Panelist). (2025, April 2-5). Marketing I-O psychology: Master your elevator pitches [Invited Session]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, Denver, CO.
Zhou, S. (2025, April 2-5). Using Tableau for data visualization in the organizational sciences [Master Tutorial]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Denver, CO.
Zhou, S., Zaccaro, S. J., & Lee, P. (2024, July 18-20). The negative effects of shared leadership: An application of agent-based modeling based on lab experiment data. Interdisciplinary Network for Groups Research, Charlotte, NC. Finalist for Best Student Paper Award.
Zhou, S., Gallagher, K. R., Feitosa, J., Courey, K., Chu, C., Olenick, J., & Phetmisy, C. (2024, April 17-20). Award: Best of SIOP [IGNITE]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL. Winner of Graen Grant for Student Research on Leaders & Teams.
Zhou, S. (2024, April 17-20). Who are we helping? The impracticality of work-life initiatives for lower-SES employees. In D. Van Egdom (Chair) & E. Kossek (Discussant), They matter too: Examining underserved populations in work-life policy research [Symposium]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Selected Media and Press
Zhou, S. (2023, August 28). What’s in a calling? Healthy Work Podcast. https://www.audacy.com/podcast/healthy-work-eb0a8/episodes/whats-in-a-calling-55d09
Zhou, S. (2022, August 11). Three roadblocks in academia that limit science communication. Heterodox: The Blog. https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/three-roadblocks-in-academia-that-limit-science-communication
Zhou, S. (2022, February 25). The academic bait-and-switch: Do professors make good administrators? The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/02/the-academic-bait-and-switch-do-professors-make-good-administrators
Zhou, S. (2021, November 16). Failure isn’t really failure: What academia can learn from start-up culture. Heterodox: The Blog. https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/failure-isnt-really-failure-what-academia-can-learn-from-start-up-culture
Zhou, S. (2021, June 7). 3 warning signs to consider before using a personality test. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90643890/3-warnings-signs-to-consider-before-using-a-personality-test