Associate Professor
Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology
Blair Hall 216
(937) 327-7486
lcrane@wittenberg.edu
Dr. Crane is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the former Director of Wittenberg鈥檚 interdisciplinary East Asian Studies Program. As a sociocultural psychologist, her work focuses on the question of how cross-cultural differences emerge and are maintained over time. She and her collaborators investigate the socializing effects of religious engagement, schooling, and language use in the U.S., Japan, and India, where she was a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar. Her courses address how culture and the social situation reflect and support human psychological functioning, including Psychology & Culture, Applied Social Psychology, and Sociocultural Research in Psychology. Off-campus, she has provided cross-cultural training seminars to U.S. Air Force personnel and international business professionals and their families. She also has led political depolarization workshops through the cross-partisan organization Braver Angels.
Dr. Crane has taught courses at Stanford University, Williams College, Kenyon College, and Nagasaki Junior College in Japan and has lectured at Banaras Hindu University in India. Additionally, she has carried out social science research & development work in a corporate setting at Sociometrics Corporation. She earned her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Sample Publications:
Human Development in Japan & the U.S.
- Mukaida, K., & Crane, L. S. (2026). Contrasting the narrative structure of Japanese folktales and Grimms鈥� fairy tales. Narrative Inquiry.
- Crane, L. S., & Fernald, A. (2017). Cultivating American- and Japanese-style relatedness through mother-child conversation. Discourse Processes.
- Mukaida, K., Azuma, H., Crane, L. S., & Crystal, D. S. (2010). Cultural scripts in narratives about future life: A comparison between Japan, China and the U.S. Japanese Journal of Personality.
Schooling in India & the U.S.
- Sia, S. K., Crane, L. S., Jain, A. K., & Bano, S. (2022). Understanding psychology in the context of relationship, community, workplace, and culture. SpringerNature.
- Crane, L. S. (2022). Role fulfillment and self-expression: Culturally meaningful messages conveyed implicitly in Indian and U.S. high school classrooms. In S. K. Sia, L. S. Crane, A. K. Jain, and S. Bano (Eds.), Understanding psychology in the context of relationship, community, workplace, and culture. SpringerNature.
- Crane, L. S., & Mishra, R. C. (2018). Studying schooling in northern India: Calibrating fieldwork to cultural realities in a non-Western country. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Spirituality in Japan & the U.S.
- Crane, L. S., Bruce, J. L. (鈥�10), Salmon, P. Y. (鈥�10), Eich, R. A. (鈥�10), & Brandewie, E. N. (鈥�10). (2012). Blending Buddhism, Shinto, and the secular: Interview findings regarding Japanese conceptualizations of The Divine. Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research.
- Crane, L. S., Burns, E. (鈥�08), Johnson, H. E. (鈥�09), Brown, B. (鈥�09), Ufholz, K. E. (鈥�09), & Riehle, J. L. (鈥�09). (2009). Conceptualizing human nature and The Divine: Qualitative interviews with Christians and Buddhists from a mixed-methods study. Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research.