New APS Travel Award Will Support Early Career Scientists

APS is excited to announce a new travel award made possible by a generous gift from Dr. Robert A. Baron in memory of APS Charter Member and Fellow Dr. Donn Byrne.

The APS Early Career Scholar Travel Award provides financial support for early career and postdoctoral researchers who have completed their PhD within the prior 7 years and would otherwise be unable to attend the APS Annual Convention.

Support covers convention registration and hotel accommodations for up to three nights at the APS Convention hotel. APS intends to make up to seven awards each year. Applications will open in late 2026 for the May 2027 APS Annual Convention in Seattle, Washington.

Remembering Donn Byrne

The fund that supports this travel award was created in honor of the late Donn Byrne, a renowned personality and social psychologist who passed away in 2014 at age 82. Byrne contributed foundational theories to psychological science through his research on interpersonal attraction, human sexuality, repression–sensitization, and authoritarianism. 

Byrne is remembered as an outstanding mentor by his graduate students, modeling exceptional conceptual insight, superb writing skills, kindness, and a willingness to share ideas.

Related: Read the APS memorial for Donn Byrne published in 2014.

Robert A. Baron, a social psychologist and former professor at Oklahoma State University, was a long-time friend and colleague of Byrne’s. The two psychologists worked together at Purdue University and coauthored a seminal social psychology textbook together in 1974. The fourteenth edition of the textbook was released in 2021.

“Very few of us make contributions that last—that exert influence for decades,” Baron said. “Donn Byrne is an exception to this rule. His work on attraction was important in itself but also helped shift the focus of social psychology from efforts to build ‘grand theories’ to focus on specific forms of social behavior and social thought.” 

Baron’s generous donation to APS to establish the early career travel award was made in honor of Byrne, to recognize his contributions to psychology. 

“It was a pleasure to work with him and a privilege to offer these travel grants in his honor,” Baron said. “Young social psychologists often have limited funds for travel, so these grants will, I hope, help them to build their careers and enhance their research.” 

Applicant Eligibility: 

• Applicants must have received their PhD within 7 years of the annual meeting for which they are seeking travel support.
• An active APS membership is required to receive an award.
• Applicants may apply for multiple assistance programs but may receive only one award. 

Interested in making a donation? 

Your contribution to the APS Early Career Scholar Travel Award expands access, fosters rigorous science, and supports the professional development of the next generation of the psychological science global workforce. With your support, scientists can share findings and bring innovative research to the forefront of psychology. 

The Association for Psychological Science is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in the United States. Contributions may be tax deductible for individuals paying income taxes in the United States (please consult your tax advisor). 

Donate to the APS Early Career Scholar Travel Award.

Explore Byrne’s Research 

Baron, R. A., Byrne, D. E., & Branscombe, N. R. (2007). Mastering social psychology. Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. 

Baron, Byrne, and Branscombe’s textbook provided up-to-date coverage of all things social psychology, including the fundamentals of the topic and the most recent research at the time. 

Baron, R. A., Byrne, D. E., Johnson, B. T. (1998). Exploring social psychology. Allyn & Bacon. 

Baron, Byrne, and Johnson’s book sought to provide psychological scientists access to data and industry trends. As the fourth edition, the textbook covered topics including understanding social behavior, perception, prejudice, interpersonal attraction, and more. 

Byrne, D. (1961). Interpersonal attraction and attitude similarity. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(3), 713–715. 

It was hypothesized that “(a) a stranger who is known to have attitudes similar to those of the subject is better liked than a stranger with attitudes dissimilar to those of the subject, (b) … is judged to be more intelligent, better informed, more moral, and better adjusted … and (c) … is evaluated more positively on … four [other] variables.” The first two hypotheses were confirmed.  

Widely cited, the research in this article also led to the publication of his 1971 book, The Attraction Paradigm. 

Byrne, D. (1966). An introduction to personality: A research approach. Prentice Hall. 

Byrne published this textbook on personality, with a strong emphasis on research methodology and an illustrative review of five areas of empirical personality research.  

In an APS memorial published about Byrne in 2014, Ramadhar Singh (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) said Byrne’s textbook “replaced the traditional contents of grand theories in personality courses with a more empirical approach to the assessment, antecedents, correlates, dynamics, and change of a dimension of individual differences (e.g., authoritarianism, intelligence, self-concept, etc.).” 

Byrne, D. (1976). Social psychology and the study of sexual behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 3(1), 3–30.  

Byrne argued that any of the traditional principles and research paradigms of social–personality psychologists were directly relevant to understanding sexuality. He introduced the sexual behavior sequence as a tentative model of a social psychological approach to this research domain. 

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