Franki Y. H. Kung

Areas of Expertise

• Conflict Management
• Goals and Motivation
• Cultural Diversity
• Mindsets
• Difficult Conversations

HHS Signature Research Area(s)

• Healthy Lifestyles and Vital Longevity
• Sustainable Organizations and Thriving Communities

Department of Psychological Sciences Research Area(s)

• Industrial - Organizational Psychology
• Social Psychology

Biography

Growing up as a first-generation high school student in British Hong Kong and having lived in multiple countries, Dr. Kung has personally experienced both the opportunities and challenges that arise from cultural and interpersonal differences. His enduring curiosity about how organizations and individuals can transform conflict into opportunities for understanding and collaboration—across groups, identities, and even within the self—drives his research, career goals, and approach to teaching and community engagement at Purdue and beyond.

Dr. Kung’s current research program centers on three key areas:

1. Building Culturally Inclusive and Humanizing Workplaces
   Investigating intergroup and interpersonal dynamics in multicultural environments, with a focus on transforming conflict into collaboration.
2. Fostering Understanding and Grace in Difficult Communication and Disagreement
   Identifying and training effective approaches for navigating difficult conversations, such as negotiations and performance evaluations.
3. Regulating Self and Multiple Goals for Success
   Exploring how individuals conceptualize and organize their goals, aiming to enhance strategies for managing and resolving multiple or conflicting goals.

His team’s work often intersects these themes. For example, they are examining how internal self-regulation processes relate to social conflict, such as the perception of individuals with high self-control as robotic, and how this mechanistic dehumanization may contribute to unique intergroup biases and mistreatment, particularly toward Asian Americans.

Dr. Kung currently serves on eight editorial boards (e.g., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Business and Psychology, Academy of Management Discoveries) and will join Personality and Social Psychology Review as an Associate Editor (starting January 2026).

To learn more or get involved, please visit the lab’s website (link below) and reach out for further information.

Education

• PhD, Social and Industrial-Organizational Psychology, University of Waterloo

Websites

• Conflict Collaboratory

Social Media Accounts

• LinkedIn
• Bluesky

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Past Director, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Science Consortium
• Past Co-Chair, Early-Career Committee, Society for Personality and Social Psychology (https://spsp.org/about/committees/earlycareer)

Current Courses

• PSY 27200 - Introduction to Industrial-Organizational Psychology
• PSY 39000 - Research Experience in Psychology
• PSY 49800H - Honors Thesis Research
• PSY 68020 - Survey of Organizational Psychology
• PSY 68200D - Culture and Diversity at Work
• PSY 68200G - Self-Regulation, Goals and Motivation

Selected Grants

• Principal Investigator, Developing and analyzing a cultural mindset module for improving multicultural engineering team effectiveness. National Science Foundation (IUSE 2044390). Period: 02/2021-01/2024. Total: $299,973.
• Principal Investigator, NSF CAEER Award: Mechanistic Dehumanization of Asians: Identifying Causes, Consequences, and Countermeasures for a More Inclusive STEM Workforce. National Science Foundation (BCS 2237461). Period: 07/2023-06/2028. (discontinued in 2025). Total: $936,983.