Jeanne Tsai

Jeanne L. Tsai is the Dunlevie Family Professor and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. She co-founded the Asian American Research Center at Stanford in 2024.

Education She earned a Bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996.

Research Affect Valuation Theory (AVT) Tsai formulated Affect Valuation Theory (AVT) in the early 2000s. AVT addresses the question of how cultural ideas and practices shape emotion. AVT has three main premises: 1) how people actually feel (actual affect) differs from how they ideally want to feel (ideal affect); 2) cultural factors shape ideal affect more than actual affect; and 3) people try to reduce the discrepancy between their actual and ideal affect by engaging in specific mood-producing behaviors that help them achieve their ideal affect.