Li Liu was a Professor of Social Psychology at Beijing Normal University, China. He passed away due to illness on October 29, 2025, while serving as AASP President.
Professor Liu was born in November 1962 in Hailar, Inner Mongolia. He graduated from Beijing Normal University in 1987 and stayed on to teach. From 1996 to 2003, he was dispatched to study abroad, earning a doctorate in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE). He went on to serve as Professor of Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology at Beijing Normal University, serving in major organizational roles at the university and beyond. Throughout his life, Professor Liu was committed to education, held himself to high standards, and approached his scholarly work with rigor and precision. He dedicated his efforts to the advancement of psychology and education in China and Asia.
Inspired by Kurt Lewin’s insight of social psychology as a science of bridging the gap between theory and social reality, he conducted research in the areas of intergroup relations (human-robot relations, international relations, and discrimination against minority groups) and corruption. He published a series of articles in internationally renowned journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Cognition, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Political Psychology, and Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, etc.
As of 2025, among other roles, he was serving as a Fellow, Psychology Division of the Senate Committee on Academic Degrees, the State Council, P R China; President-elect of the Chinese Association of Social Psychology; Associate Editor of Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology; and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, etc.
Professor Liu had been an unflagging and influential supporter of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. In his Presidential Address at our July 2025 conference, he noted that his journey with AASP began with his 2011 role as Conference Chair for the 9th Biennial Conference held in Kunming, China. His professional leadership roles within the organization included serving as President Elect from 2023 to 2025, Secretary General from 2015 to 2019, Regional Representative for East Asia from 2013 to 2015, and Representative-at-Large for China from 2011 to 2013. In addition to his organizational contributions, Professor Liu has made significant scholarly impacts on our association as a journal editor. He was instrumental in forging collaborative relationships between AASP and the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, for which he served as Co-Editor-in-Chief since 2015. He also served as a Special Issue Editor for the Asian Journal of Social Psychology in 2010, and served on the editorial board from 2014 to 2024.