Maya Rossignac-Milon is an Assistant Professor in the Managing People in Organizations Department. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University and a BA in Psychology from McGill University. Prior to joining IESE, she was a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Management Division at Columbia Business School.
Maya’s research examines the underpinnings and consequences of social connections in personal and professional life. What makes new acquaintances and employees click with each other? When and how do relationships with friends and colleagues deepen to such an extent that people feel they have “merged minds”? And how do these connections influence employees’ work meaningfulness and productivity?
In her work, Maya has introduced the novel construct of Generalized Shared Reality—the experience of sharing the same thoughts and feelings with an interaction partner about the world—as a critical catalyst for forging and deepening interpersonal connections. Her ongoing research examines the role of shared reality in improving important organizational outcomes, like work meaningfulness, job satisfaction, and performance. She uses a wide range of methodologies, such as controlled laboratory experiments, organizational field studies, natural language processing, and intensive longitudinal paradigms.
Maya’s work has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychologist, and Current Directions in Psychological Science, and has been covered by international media outlets such as the BBC and Psychology Today. She received Dissertation Research Awards from the American Psychological Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology.