Summer Institutes in Social Psychology

Society For Personality And Social Psychology, Annandale VA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests funding to continue and extend the highly successful program of Summer Institutes in Social Psychology. First offered in 2003 and then biennially, the Summer Institutes in Social Psychology are designed to provide graduate students with two weeks of intensive instruction from leading senior scientists in social psychology, as well as to foster professional development and scholarly collaboration among these early-career professionals. Social psychology has become an increasingly specialized, theoretically complex, and technologically demanding science. Individual doctoral programs cannot span the broad range of concepts, content areas, and methodologies that define the field''s cutting edge. By providing intensive instruction about both advanced concepts and methods to young scholars who are beginning their research careers, the Summer Institutes will enhance the quality and impact of research being conducted throughout the field. With the participation every two years of approximately 80 of the field''s most promising graduate students, this enhancement effect will be extensive, widespread across topical areas within the field, and long lasting. Furthermore, the networking and communication functions of the Summer Institutes have already been demonstrated to foster collaborations across laboratories, universities, borders, and interest areas, an approach to scientific research that will undoubtedly become increasingly important in the future. This proposal seeks funding to conduct and evaluate the Summer Institutes that will be held in 2009 and 2011, as well as to continue monitoring the effectiveness of the earlier Summer Institutes.