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Awards and Honors

APS’s Awards Program recognizes psychological scientists for outstanding contributions at all career stages. Nominators and awards committees are asked to consider the diverse and international nature of our field. APS seeks nominations of members of underrepresented groups in psychological science

The new APS James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship honors APS Members for their lifetime of outstanding psychological research that advances understanding of historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups and/or understanding of the psychological and societal benefits of racial/ethnic diversity, equity, and inclusion. The type of scholarship honored by the award is broad in scope and research methodology, and encompasses research on historically disadvantaged racial/ethnic groups residing anywhere in the world. Recipients must be APS members, and their contributions may be in any field or area of psychological science. The inaugural winners, Patricia Gurin and James M. Jones, were honored at the 2022 APS Annual Convention.

APS Fellow nominations no longer require that a current APS Fellow contribute one of the nomination letters, and criteria for Fellow status have been amended to include consideration of “an outstanding record of mentoring students from diverse backgrounds, working with research participants from diverse backgrounds, and making outstanding contributions to diversity and inclusion within the field of psychological science.” 

Grants

The APS Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science supports the teaching and public understanding of psychological science in the U.S. and around the world. A special category within the grants program supports projects that aim to eliminate racial bias in psychological science curricula and incorporate principles of racial justice into psychological science curricula.

The William K. and Katherine W. Estes Fund supports advanced training opportunities in mathematical and computational modeling for psychological science in summer schools and focused workshops. Funding criteria include an express commitment to “the inclusion of scientists of all genders, races, sexual orientations, disability statuses, countries of origin, geographical locations, and disciplinary expertise.”

The RISE (Researching Injustice and Social Equality) Award, open to APS Student Affiliates, seeks to cultivate psychological science research in fields related to socially and economically underrepresented populations, and recognizes outstanding student researchers from diverse racial, ethnic, geographic and cultural backgrounds, as well as other underrepresented groups in psychological science.

Public Policy

In ongoing outreach to legislators and federal agencies about the contributions behavioral science can play in addressing societal ills, APS promotes the use of empirically validated findings in the treatment and prevention of mental illness and in improving public health, education, economic productivity, social justice, and more. Recent and upcoming APS activities include:

• In addressing the COVID-19 crisis, referencing the crisis of racism and the role psychological science can play in better understanding and combatting those issues.
• Providing feedback to science agencies and other government entities about the role that psychological science can play in combatting structural racism, such as APS’s April 2021 comments in response to NIH’s UNITE initiative. 
• Hosting the National Research Mentoring Network, which seeks to help historically underrepresented mentees successfully progress in their behavioral and biomedical research careers, for a January 2021 webinar for APS members.
• Collaborating with scientific coalitions in joint action, such as a September 2020 message asking the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a study to acknowledge and assess the full participation of racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in science, tech, education, and math.
• Advocated for increased funding for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which helps student scientists, including those from backgrounds underrepresented in science, pursue scientific careers. NSF now awards more, bigger fellowships.

Journals

APS’s six journals publish cutting-edge research across all areas of the field and promote the integration of scientific perspectives within psychological science and with related disciplines. Committed to broadening the diversity of their reviewer, author, and editorial pools, the editors seek original research that aids in public understanding of the causes and harmful effects of racism, stereotypes, and inequities; the psychological and societal benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the most effective ways to foster these outcomes and advance a more just and equitable world. Recent APS journal activities include:

• Publishing a special issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science on the topic of racial microaggressions, guest edited by Monnica T. Williams, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Williams was also interviewed about the issue on the APS podcast, Under the Cortex.
• Undertaking the collection of anonymous demographic data from authors of submitted and accepted manuscripts. Having an accurate understanding of the pool of APS authors will allow us to track our progress as we aim to expand that pool and ensure that the authors represented in our journals reflect the diversity of our field.
• Hosting a webinar with APS journal editors and staff aimed at students and early career researchers explaining the peer review process and what makes for a quality review with an eye toward creating a larger and more diverse pool of reviewers evaluating manuscripts submitted to APS journals.
• Curating collections of APS journal articles related to issues such as racism, and making the articles contained in these collections freely accessible to the public.
• Preparing a special issue of Clinical Psychological Science, “Understanding Ethnoracial Disparities and Advancing Mental Health Equity through Clinical Psychological Science,” showcasing innovative clinical psychological research that characterizes psychopathology among people of color, elucidates determinants of ethnoracial mental health disparities, and informs culturally responsive prevention and treatment.

Convention Programs

APS conventions, including the Annual Meeting, present a wide array of diverse voices from across the psychological science community. Explore the program for the 2023 APS Convention, Special programs, and Student Diversity Registration Award. 

Inclusivity Spotlight 

Each year, the APS Board asks the Annual Convention Program Committee to plan a special invited event to highlight research related to diversity. This program can be an address by a prominent speaker or a panel of speakers on psychological science research related to ethnicity, culture, race, sexual orientation, disability or other dimensions of diversity.

The 2023 program, “Upending Racism in Our Science: Where the Rubber Meets the Road” will discuss how psychological science lacks diversity in topics, populations researched, scientists, reviewers of our science, and dissemination avenues and how this narrow lens stifles intellectual contributions, idea generation and scholarly innovation. This talk will highlight structural and procedural barriers holding psychological science back and offer concrete strategies to deviate from that norm.

The 2022 program, “Bias in Graduate Admissions: Solutions and Future Directions,” assembled three thought leaders in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education to explore where bias comes in during the admissions process, how biases can be reduced, and where more empirical research is needed. In addition to the live events, APS shares content broadly on social media to engage a broader audience.

Notable examples include:

• Reducing Biases in the Graduate School Admissions Process (2022)
• Reducing Race and Other Disparities in and Through Psychological Research (2021)
• Understanding and Capturing the Value of Diversity: A Special Look at Gender (2019)
• STEMing the Tide: How Female Experts and Peers Act as “Social Vaccines” to Protect Young Women’s Self-Concept in STEM (2018)
• Real-World Implications of Implicit Bias (2018)
• Bring the Family Address: “The Paradox of Diversity: Promise, Pitfalls, and Implications for Racial Progress” (2018)
• Diverse Perspectives in Psychological Science (2016)
• Inside the Psychologist’s Studio with Jennifer Richeson, Yale University (2016)
• Why Should Psychological Science Care About Diversity? (2015)
• Inside the Psychologist’s Studio with Margaret Beale Spencer, The University of Chicago (2012)