Awards and events
The Founders' Awards
Through the annual Founders’ Awards, we honor the contributions of Carl W. Backman, Paul F. Secord, and Gerald (Jerry) P. Ginsburg to the Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Ph.D. Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. In 1955, Carl W. Backman (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1954) and Paul F. Secord (Ph.D., Stanford University, 1950) arrived at the University and joined the then “Department of Psychology, Sociology & Anthropology.” Carl, a sociologist, and Paul, a psychologist, collaborated on many scientific articles and textbooks. In 1962, the first social psychology students were admitted. With the 1963 arrival of Gerald P. “Jerry” Ginsburg construction of the Program began. It was modeled after the well-known interdisciplinary social psychology program at the University of Michigan, where Jerry had received his Ph.D. The Program was explicitly interdisciplinary from its inception and has continued in this proud tradition to the present day. When in the spring of 1967 a vote by the Board of Regents officially created the Program, there were already four students ready to graduate. Over the following decades, much of the work on the ground was carried out by Jerry Ginsburg who served as the Program’s Director for many years, retiring in 1998; he passed away in 2018. Paul Secord left the University in 1971 and, following a long career at the University of Huston, died in 2017. Carl Backman served in a variety of capacities at the University, including as Social Psychology Ph.D. program faculty, Sociology Department Chair, and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He retired in 1996 and passed away in 2008.
There are two separate awards.
- The Founders’ Best Paper Award seeks to recognize the best research paper by a student in the Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Ph.D. program that was submitted for publication or published during the 12 months prior to the submission deadline. The winner will receive a prize of $750. In addition, the Founders’ Award committee has the option of giving a $250 award for the runner-up.
- The Founders’ Best Research Proposal Award seeks to support student research by funding the best research proposal submitted by a student in the Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Ph.D. Program. The proposed project must be conducted during the student’s time at the University. Each proposal should consist of a 200-word abstract, a 1,000-word research proposal, and a brief explanation of how the funds would be spent. The winner will receive up to $750 based on their need. In addition, the Founders’ Award committee has the option of giving a $250 award for the runner-up.
All students in the program, who are not on academic probation, are eligible. Students may choose to apply for one or both awards; however, in any given year a student may receive only one of the two awards. For both awards, submissions that are single-authored, or co-authored by a team of students, are eligible. In case of a win of a co-authored paper, the award monies will be split between the team members. For both awards, submissions that are co-authored by a student and faculty are eligible if (a) a student is first author, and (b) the student first author’s contribution to the project exceeds 50%. Faculty co-authors will be asked to provide a formal statement concerning the extent of their contribution to the project. Whereas students can submit to both the Best Paper Award and the Best Research Proposal Award, each student can only make one first- or single-authored submission to each award.
The Founders’ Awards committee is comprised of three or four members of the Social Psychology Faculty, and one student representative. The review process will be blind and is based on criteria including but not limited to the degree to which the topic is social-psychological in nature and original, writing is clear, the theory is chosen and applied appropriately, and papers adhere to appropriate formatting guidelines (e.g., APA style, ASA style, or similar style). For the Best Paper award, if submitting a paper that is already published, please submit a pre-print version of the manuscript. For more detailed information on the assessment criteria for the two awards, please refer to the Assessment Rubrics. Winners will be announced by May 1st.
Submissions are due on April 1st at midnight via email to Professor Markus Kemmelmeier markusk@unr.edu, Social Psychology Ph.D. Program Director.
2022
Best Paper ($750):
Opioid Addiction, Attributions, and Stigma: An Online Vignette Experimental Study” by =James Ragsdale=
Runner up ($250):
“Revisiting the Black-White Mental Health Paradox During the Coronavirus Pandemic” by Megan LaMotte
Best Research Proposal ($750):
“The Impact of Attorney Language Abstraction on Juror Verdicts” by Justice Healy
Runner up ($250):
“Towards a More Parsimonious Conception of Pride: A Pre-registered Experiment to Unravel the Nature of Attributions in eliciting Authentic and Hubristic Pride” by Kodai Kusano
2021
Best Paper:
“Development and Validation of a General Legal Moral Disengagement Scale” by Jacqueline Kirshenbaum
Best Paper, runner-up:
“Psychopathy, antisocial behavior, and rule governance” by Shelby Curtis
Best Research Proposal:
“Effects of Direct and Indirect Emotional Manipulations on Mock Jurors’ Decision-Making” by Charles Edwards
Best Research Proposal, runner-up:
“Status is a Double-Edged Sword” by Kodai Kusano
2020
Best Paper:
“Empowering, Humbling, and of course Arousing”: Experiences with Power in Sexual Relationships” by Tyler N. Livingston
Best Paper, runner up 1:
“Evaluating Effects on Guilty and Innocent Suspects: An Effect Taxonomy of Interrogation Techniques” by Jean J. Cabell & Sarah A. Moody
Best Paper, runner up 2:
“Multi-level Modelling of Time-Series Cross-Sectional Data Reveals the Dynamic Interaction between Ecological Threats and Democratic Development” by Kodai Kusano
Best Research Proposal:
“Effects of Criminal Stereotypicality on Interrogators’ Guilt Presumption” by Jean J. Cabell
Best Research Proposal, runner-up:
“Capturing Populism: Concept, Measurement and Application” by Waleed Jami
2019
Best Paper:
“A Multidimensional Examination of Conflict and Subjective Health over 16 Years of Marriage” by Marcella ‘Rosie’ Shrout
Best Paper, runner-up:
“The Changing Association between Political Ideology and Closed-Mindedness: Left and Right Have Become More Alike” by Jesse Acosta
Best Research Proposal:
“Controlling Other People’s Legal Outcomes: Effect of Felt Power on Perception and Decisions in a Mock Jury Paradigm” by Tyler Livingston
2018
Best Paper:
“’Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ Understanding the Noninvolved Partner’s Decision-Making Process Following Infidelity” by Marcella ‘Rosie’ Shrout
Best Paper, runner-up:
“Ecology of Freedom: Competitive Tests of the Role of Pathogens, Climate, and Natural Disasters in the Development of Socio-Political Freedom” by Kodai Kusano
Best Research Proposal:
“Examining Disclosure and Reporting of Sexual Assault on College Campuses” by Ann E. Jones
Best Research Proposal, runner-up:
“Normalizing Violence Against Women: What Motivates People to Justify the Gender System?” by Alicia Devault
2017
Best Paper:
“Exploring a Contextual Model of Sexual Self-Disclosure and Sexual Satisfaction” by Randal Brown
Best Paper, runner-up:
“Justification-Suppression and Normative Window of Prejudice as Determinants of Bias toward Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexual Adoption Applicants” by Alicia Devault
Best Research Proposal:
“Incorporating the Role of Culture in the Perceived Reparability of Shame” by Marisa K. Crowder
Best Research Proposal, runner-up:
“Hierarchical causal chaining: Examining the impact of necessity, sufficiency, foreseeability, and choice on attributions” by Julie Chomos
Social Psychology events
Join us for brown bags, dissertation defense and more events in and around campus. We hold brown bags throughout each semester, in which students and faculty from the program present informally in front of their peers, often in preparation for conferences or to elicit ideas on how to improve their research.