Academy Fellow

Hugh Mackay is a social psychologist and researcher who has spent more than sixty years studying Australian society, mainly through listening to thousands of Australians talking about their lives – their hopes, dreams, disappointments, frustrations and aspirations. 

His primary research vehicle was The Mackay Report – a program of quarterly qualitative research projects that was launched in 1979 and ran for twenty-five years, publishing over 100 reports on all aspects of Australian life. He has now retired from ‘hands-on’ social research, but remains active as an observer and interpreter of social trends.  

Hugh is the author of twenty-five books (including nine novels), starting with Reinventing Australia in 1995, and covering social analysis, communication psychology, ethics and motivation. His fiction writing focusses primarily on human relationships. He was also a weekly newspaper columnist for almost thirty years, offering regular commentary on social, cultural and political trends. 

He describes his life’s work as ‘trying to explain us to ourselves’ and he has always been passionate about the need to share his research findings as widely as possible, believing that the social sciences have a crucial role to play in helping Australians to understand the impact of social change, and to find healthy ways of adapting. 

Currently, his chief concern is with the increasing fragmentation of our society, and the rise of loneliness and social isolation as public health issues. Based on recent archaeological research shedding light on why all other species of humans became extinct and only we survived, Hugh is now promoting the idea that we should think of social connection, co-operation, social harmony and kindness as having the status of species survival skills.     

Self-employed. Honorary past appointments have included Deputy Chair of the Australia Council for the Arts; chair of the board of trustees of Sydney Grammar School; founding char of the ACT Government’s Community Inclusion Board; Member, Creative Advisory Board of Bell Shakespeare; etc. 

Fellow, Australian Psychological Society 

Fellow, Royal Society of NSW 

Officer, Order of Australia 

Mackay, Hugh, The Way We Are, 2024, Allen & Unwin, Sydney 

Mackay, Hugh, The Kindness Revolution, 2021, Allen & Unwin, Sydney 

Mackay, Hugh, The Inner Self, 2019, Pan Macmillan, Sydney 

Mackay, Hugh, Australia Reimagined, 2018, Pan Macmillan, Sydney 

Mackay, Hugh, What Makes Us Tick (2nd edition), 2019, Hachette, Sydney