Summer Institutes in Social and Personality Psychology

Society For Personality And Social Psychology, Annandale VA

Investigators

Abstract

Theory, methodology, and statistics in support of research in social and personality psychology has grown in complexity over the past three decades. These scientific advances are partly due to increasingly connected and diverse academic and professional networks among faculty. This project supports the continuation and extension of Summer Institutes in Social and Personality Psychology (SISPP). Graduate students from social psychology and personality graduate training programs attend the advanced two-week intensive training program, led by renowned scholars and teachers in the field. Training at this level helps to advance these fields of science and supports the production of important innovations. The Institute also focuses on broadening the participation of graduate students who may be from groups historically and currently marginalized in these fields and who may not have intensive access to scholars in multiple subfields of their interest. Evaluation of the previous training institutes (supported by NSF) reveals that graduate students who participate are successful in obtaining academic positions, peer-reviewed publications and funding for their research. Affording graduate students with cutting-edge theoretical and methodological training enhances their ability to participate in interdisciplinary and international collaborations, which are increasingly important across all of science.   Scheduled every two years, SISPP provides an opportunity for approximately 100 advanced graduate students in social and personality psychology Ph.D. programs to obtain intensive experience and instruction in cutting-edge theories, research, and methods. Because graduate programs offer strengths in different areas, preference for attendance is given to students whose home institution does not offer strengths in the topics covered during a particular Summer Institute. SISPP has been successful in fostering diversity in the field, both in promoting the careers of members of historically underrepresented groups and in enhancing the graduate training of students from programs with different emphases and resources. SISPP has been successful in fostering research collaboration and communication networks among individuals from different laboratories, universities, regions, and nations, and creating a collaborative scholarly community for a new generation of researchers. The diversifying experiences enabled by SISPP are critical for fostering creativity, innovation, and flexible scientific practices, and for expanding the scientific potential for social and personality psychology to support solutions to important societal challenges.  This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.