During her fellowship year, Yukiko Uchida plans to evaluate the current global ranking systems of well-being from a cultural psychological point of view. Special attention will be paid to how the current trend of market globalization changes local cultures, and consequently, the psychological functions of people in such cultures. Subsequently, she would like to examine how people understand and re-construct their psychological realities as a consequence of globalization.

Uchida is currently a professor of social and cultural psychology at Institute for the Future of Human Society, Kyoto University. Upon receiving her PhD in social psychology from Kyoto University in 2003, she started her academic career as a visiting researcher at the University of Michigan and Stanford University. Since 2008, she has been based at the Kokoro Research Center. As a cultural psychologist, she studies the psychological mechanisms behind the experience of emotions like happiness. Her cross-cultural studies also examine how a participation in meaningful cultural practices fosters these psychological processes. Uchida is a 2019-20 Berggruen fellow at CASBS.