It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It


In the 1970s, the psychologist Albert Mehrabian suggested that only 7% of the information in speech is contained in the words. The real information, he suggested, was contained in the visual signals we use (the grimaces, the hand-waves, the body movements) and the way we say it (the intonations and inflections, how loudly we speak). These, he suggested, explain 55% and 38%, respectively, of the meaning. His suggestion caused a big stir at the time, but later he was widely criticized for various good reasons, and his ideas have been forgotten.

Our interest in this issue was motivated by the observation that, in a valiant attempt to get at the mechanisms involved in processing communication cues, many studies focus on the meaning encoded in how we say a single word or expression, or even just a laugh. They invariably forget that the words we use are just the bricks that create conversations, and it is the conversations, not the words, that create the elegantly beautiful building of our relationships.

To explore this, we asked a group of native English speakers and a group of native Spanish speakers to listen to audio-only clips of two people engaged in a completely natural conversation. Could they identify the quality of the speakers’ relationship with each other from just hearing what they said and how they said it? We used audio clips representing eight different relationship qualities including such contexts as friends in idle chat mode, friendly banter, provocation, gossip, and annoyance. To avoid boredom, the clips were short (30-60 seconds), but always involved two speakers. Participants listened to clips in only one language (either their own or the other less familiar language), but they listened to three separate versions of the clips. One was the full audio clip; the second was a version in which the words had been masked electronically so that they could hear the rise and fall of the voices but not the words themselves—a bit like sitting at the back of a busy restaurant when you can hear the conversations around you, but not really distinguish what is actually being said; and finally, a version in which the conversation had been converted to pure tones, so that much of the richness of the audio signal was lost, but not the rise and fall of the two distinct voices. They heard all eight clips for each version together in randomized order, so the chances of remembering clips one version to the next was actually quite slight.

We found that, on the full (unaltered) audio clip, people were around 80% accurate on identifying whether the relationship was positive or negative (the criterion in almost all these kinds of experiments), against an expectation of 50% had they responded at random. Moreover, they still managed 75% accuracy with the altered vocal clips, and even 60% accuracy with the pure tone versions (still well above chance). Even when asked to identify the actual type of relationship in individual clips, they performed at much better than chance level: around 30% correct on the full audio clip, and 20% correct on the other two versions—against an expectation of just 12.5% if they had been responding at random. More importantly, both groups of language speakers were as good with the other language as they were with their own.

So it seems that Mehrabian was right after all. Notwithstanding all the criticism of his claims, a lot of the information about social relationships is contained in the nonverbal cues—though our results suggest it is more like 80% than the 93% estimated by Mehrabian. In other words, we certainly get some additional information from the words, but actually we could get by pretty well without them.

That does raise a puzzle. If so little information is contained in the words, why do we have language at all? We could have carried on growling and whinnying at each other, and that would have done just fine. So what difference do the words actually make? I would suggest it allows us to do two thing: specify time and place.

Nonverbal communication, like the equally complex vocal communication of all monkeys and apes, is very good at telling you how I feel about you right now, but it won’t allow me to tell you how I felt about you last month—or would like to feel about you next month. It won’t allow me to suggest that we meet up at the coffee bar on Main Street at four o’clock next Thursday—or that I met Susan and James there last Thursday. What’s more important, perhaps, is that I couldn’t tell you a story that required you to imagine being in another time or place. There would be no novels and no plays, no histories and no community folklore. And it is these that provide an important part of community bonding.


For Further Reading

Dunbar, R. I. M., Robledo del Canto, J.-P., Tamarit, I., Cross, I., & Smith, E. (2021). Nonverbal auditory cues allow relationship quality to be inferred during conversations. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-021-00386-y.
 

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK, and he studies social evolution in humans and other primates.

 

Flourish: A Retreat for Pre-tenure Faculty of Color

Through the assistance of a Community Catalyst Grant, SPSP members Ivy Onyeader and Evelyn Carter developed the BlaSPR retreat to help foster community among Black graduate students and postdocs studying social and personality psychology. During BlaSPR's second meeting after SPSP 2019 in Portland, attendees Morgan Jerald, Kelci Harris, and Angela Bell teamed up for a writing/accountability group. The three continued to meet regularly after the convention, and discussed the need for further programming and mentorship around the retention of pre-tenure faculty of color in the academic pipeline. From those conversations, Flourish was conceived.

Though born out of BlaSPR, Morgan, Kelci, and Angela were keen to have Flourish be an expanded space for all underrepresented faculty of color. They applied for and were awarded a Community Catalyst Grant in 2019—and along with the help of a Diversity Initiative Grant from Lafayette College—planned their first meetup after the 2020 SPSP Convention in New Orleans. The 13 attendees represented a diverse group of tenure-track professors at different levels of their career from a variety of institutions, ranging from regional liberal arts colleges to R1 universities.  

The day-and-a-half retreat took place in a casual meeting space at a boutique hotel in New Orleans. The event's distinguished guest, Simine Vazire, joined the group for lunch and shared her experiences and opinions on publishing, grants and award applications, mentoring students, and becoming a public academic through Twitter and her podcast, The Black Goat.

Following lunch, sessions were organized around topics most relevant to pre-tenure faculty, including getting one’s scholarship and teaching established, fostering collaborations, and managing money.  The attendees appreciated the informality of these conversations, as well as the space for peer mentorship they provided. One participant said of the peer mentoring conversations: “I appreciated and genuinely benefited from the peer-to-peer knowledge and insight sharing. It was also wonderful to be in a space that is so unlike most experiences in academia, one in which people of color are represented.” 

The day ended at a dinner shared with the BlaSPR team, bringing the first day of Flourish full circle. Flourish attendees shared their experiences of being on the job market, working at teaching- vs. research-centered institutions, and living life as early-career faculty members with BlaSPR's graduate students and postdocs. The students’ enthusiasm for connecting with each other and the Flourish attendees was infectious, and the dinner was a highlight for many. One Flourish attendee commented in the feedback survey: “I absolutely had a blast at the BlaSPR dinner—thanks so much for having this be part of our program.” After beginning the retreat with mentorship from a senior faculty member and continuing with peer mentorship, Day 1 concluded with an opportunity to connect with the graduate students.

The following morning, Flourish regrouped for breakfast and lunch to exchange resources for personal and professional productivity and create plans for future retreats and further involvement in SPSP’s diversity initiatives. To help people keep in touch, the Flourish organizers set up a Slack channel and group chat; attendees have also made good use of Twitter. 

Based on the participant feedback, this first iteration of Flourish seems to have accomplished its community-building goals:

“Flourish was absolutely the highlight of my conference and it makes me want to support SPSP”

“I seldom have the luxury of navigating spaces where every person wants to see me win and that alone made the trip worth it. Flourish is EXACTLY what I needed!”

“I left the post-conference feeling affirmed, energized, and even more ready to produce and contribute to the field through my research, teaching and service.”

The organizers look forward to expanding Flourish in future years, continuing to facilitate a space for pre-tenure faculty of color at SPSP at varying institutions and in different stages of the pre-tenure process.

 

The Psychology of Ritualized Suffering

Human ritual behavior poses an intriguing conundrum. Throughout recorded history, people in all times and places around the world have spent great amounts of time, resources, and energy in organizing, performing, and attending collective ritual practices that, at first glance, offer no obvious benefits to their performers. In fact, certain cultural rituals even involve physical and psychological pain and suffering – think of practices like genital mutilation, piercing, cutting and self-flagellation, walking on burning embers or shoes made of nails, and other gruesome activities. Why do so many cultures have such extreme rituals that seem to go against some of our most basic instincts, such as the avoidance of pain and harm?

While anthropologists and scholars of religion have tried to understand the role of ritual in individual and social life since the very inception of their fields, psychological research has rarely focused on ritual. Given that ritual is a universal feature of all human cultures, this neglect constitutes a second noteworthy puzzle in itself. This situation, however, is beginning to change in recent years.

A number of interdisciplinary projects have brought psychologists and anthropologists together to investigate the multifaceted effects and functions of ritual practices as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved. These projects are expanding psychological research beyond the narrow confines of the laboratory to conduct field experiments that increase the ecological validity of their findings. Importantly, this work is increasingly part of collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts that combine qualitative observation with innovative methodologies that bring quantification and rigorous testing of those theories.

For example, Emile Durkheim, often considered the father of sociology, argued that highly arousing collective events help cement social cohesion by producing an effect he called collective effervescence: the alignment of a crowd’s emotional states that results in a feeling of oneness with the group. One century after Durkheim’s insight, the concept of collective effervescence was one of the most touted anthropological terms, but remained untested and unmeasurable.

Using a mixed methods approach, my colleagues and I set out to study this emotional alignment during the performance of a fire-walking ritual in Spain.[i] My ethnographic observations and participant’s own testimonies seemed to support the effervescence hypothesis: “When we go up there, we all become one”, people told me. But would those subjective feelings be detectable at the physiological level? To find out, we used heart-rate monitors to measure emotional responses among performers as they were walking across burning embers, as well as among spectators who were merely watching. We found a spectacular degree of synchronicity in heart-rate patterns, which could be predicted based on the level of social proximity. That is, the closer any two local participants felt to each other, the more similar their heart rate activity was. In other words, we saw the very kind of emotional alignment that Durkheim had predicted.

Moving on to the behavioral level, my team and I conducted a study of an extreme ritual in Mauritius.[ii] This was the annual Thaipusam Kavadi ritual, where Hindu devotees of Muruga pierce their bodies with numerous needles, hooks, and skewers, carry heavy objects for hours under the burning tropical sun, and drag large chariots by chains pierced through their skin. We devised a donation task to examine the effects of ritual pain on supporting a communal goal. We found that the more pain participants felt, the more money they donated, and that this effect also extended to those who merely watched them get pierced. It appears that high-intensity rituals have cohesive effects for the entire community.

Looking at the effects of extreme rituals at the individual level, we found that prolonged suffering during a ceremony that involved walking on knives and burning coals resulted in performers feeling less tired and more euphoric after the event.[iii] And more recently, we found that participants’ psychological health increased after the performance of a painful ritual.

Overall, our quantitative results seem to support long-standing anthropological observations and theories. But how do these effects come about? Further research is needed to uncover the inner workings of ritual suffering. At a physiological level, endorphin release may be related to the euphoric sensations reported by our participants, similar to the “runner’s high” experienced by marathon runners. At the psychological level, engaging in a painful activity might retrospectively increase the personal salience of the event and feelings of affinity to those involved. And at the social level, participation in a costly ritual may signal one’s loyalty to the group: if you are willing to scar your body to celebrate your group membership, it is safe for others to assume that you are a committed and trustworthy member of that community. Thus, those who invest more heavily in their participation reap the rewards of social recognition, and groups that require such investments benefit from higher levels of cooperation.

Research on the psychology of ritual suffering has the potential to reveal valuable insights on human behavior that go far beyond religious rituals. From military drills to extreme sports and from fraternity ordeals to gang initiations, this research might shed more light on some of the ways in which human beings around the world find meaning, forge bonds, and build communities.


[i] Konvalinka et al. (2011). Synchronized arousal between performers and related spectators in a fire-walking ritual, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 108 (20): 8514-8519.

[ii] Xygalatas et al. (2013). Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality. Psychological Science 24(8): 1602–1605.

[iii] Fischer et al. (2014). The fire-walker’s high: Affect and physiological responses in an extreme collective ritual. PLOS ONE 9(2): e88355.


Dimitris Xygalatas is an experimental anthropologist at the University of Connecticut in the USA and visiting Associate Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark. He has previously held positions at the universities of Princeton and Masaryk, where he served as Director of the Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion. For more information, see www.xygalatas.com

DARN Community Members Share Advice and Inspiration for Graduate Students with Disabilities

This SPSPotlight feature aims to highlight strategies for students who may be encountering ableist academic experiences with inspiring expert advice from advocates for disability equity in psychology and academia. My personal research interests include studies on underrepresented groups, health disparity groups, and students with disabilities. This research journey led me to find the Disability Advocacy and Research Network (DARN) Community through the SPSP Open Forum channels. I highly recommend joining the newly launched SPSP Community's Student Channel and staying up to date on Open Forum.

Background

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that one in four adults living in the United States has "some type of disability," or 27% of the population. The University of Michigan's School of Public Health report conducted an online study of 96,000 U.S. college students from over 130+ campuses during the 2021–2022 school year that suggested "44% of students reported symptoms of depression," 37% anxiety, and "15% reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year" making it "the highest recorded rates in the history of the 15-year-old survey." With these increases in public health demand for individuals with disabilities and health disparities, it is important to learn and research on the topic as much as possible from the leading organizations promoting anti-ableist protocols and teaching styles, as well as hear inspirational stories from students just like us. 

I quickly became a DARN student ally and member. I discovered the work of Dr. Kathleen Bogart from Oregon State University, Dr. Lisa Aspinwall from the University of Utah, and Clinical Research Coordinator Afrooz Hadimi from the University of British Columbia, all three founders of the DARN Community. I scoured Dr. Bogart's publications and the DARN website for resources.  I watched DARN webinars or attended when possible, and I joined the DARN Community's Google Group and Slack channel. I recommend watching Dr. Bogart's TedX Talk on The Psychology of Ableism, a keynote from DARN Teaching and Learning Conference: Dr. Michelle Nario-Redmond, the APA's Session 9: Guidance for Students with Disabilities, and several other recorded videos from the recent DARN Conference on Teaching about Disability in Psychology.

What is Ableism?

Dr. Bogart defines ableism comprehensively as a form of "stereotyping, prejudice, or discrimination" directed towards individuals with disabilities. It is an attitude that can manifest both implicitly and explicitly, ranging from "subtle to overt" expressions. In the context of social psychology, ableism is understood through the framework of the ABCs of attitudes, which include affect (emotion), behavior, and cognition (thoughts and beliefs). Specifically, stereotyping is linked to cognition and involves the concept that certain characteristics are typical of people within a particular group. Prejudice is rooted in "affect" and is characterized by negative emotions towards group members. Discrimination is behavioral, where actions are taken based on stereotypes or prejudice. Bogart discusses that people with disabilities often face stereotypes that paint them as warm but incompetent, leading to microaggressions, patronizing behaviors, or neglect. This discriminatory attitude not only affects the social interactions of individuals with disabilities but can also have broader implications for their opportunities and well-being.

Expert Advice on Ableist Attitudes

Members from the Disability Advocacy and Research Network (DARN) Community were recently asked to share resources and expert advice for students with disabilities intersecting with topics on ableism. I asked several DARN Community experts, including Kelly Deragon, PsyD of the Cleveland Clinic, Taryn Eudaly, MDiv from the Oregon Public Health Association, Noriko Katsuya, PhD from The University of Tokyo,  Virginia S. Wood, PsyD from Kennesaw State University, and fourth-year psychology doctoral student Ryan Armer, several questions to help students with disabilities navigate ableist attitudes with positive strategies for change and cultural ethos understanding.

Expert Highlights

The contributing experts from the Disability Advocacy and Research Network (DARN) Community discuss several key themes regarding ableism and accommodations for students with disabilities in academia. One prominent theme is the importance of self-advocacy and understanding one's rights. Students are encouraged to be proactive and assertive when disclosing disabilities and requesting accommodations, emphasizing the assets they bring to their field and the necessity of their accommodations for success. Another theme is the significance of documentation and communication. Students are advised to keep detailed records of all interactions, accommodations, and any instances of ableism they encounter. This includes sending reminder emails to maintain a written record of discussions and reporting any noncompliance with accommodations to the appropriate university offices or even external authorities if necessary. The surveyed experts also highlight the need for early and clear communication with faculty and advisors. Students should approach faculty early with their approved accommodations and assume a positive, cooperative stance, expecting the faculty's willingness to make necessary adjustments. Additionally, there is a focus on leveraging institutional support and resources. Students are advised to consult with university departments dedicated to assisting students with disabilities and to utilize student services for direct intervention with faculty when facing ableist attitudes. Lastly, the experts emphasize the importance of maintaining professionalism and emotional composure in the face of ableism. They suggest building a support network, including peers, mentors, and family, to provide emotional support and advice. Students are also encouraged to educate themselves on their rights and their professor's obligations and document all interactions meticulously.

Questions and Answers

What is your expert advice for students currently experiencing ableist mentalities or obstacles from faculty?

Dr. Kelly Deragon: Recognize that ableist views are a reflection of their bias and not a reflection on you.  Seek out a counselor, mentor, or member of the disability community who validates your experience and empowers you to move forward in the face of adversity. 

Taryn Eudaly: Keep records—every comment, every microaggression, every time they don't follow the accommodations agreement. Every. Single. One. And report at the end of each week to the Disability Services Office. If nothing happens, you absolutely have the right to report their noncompliance to the Department of Justice. But the first time - just remind them.

Dr. Noriko Katsuya: Instead of confronting that teacher on your own, I would suggest that you consult with an institute within the university that assists students with disabilities, such as the Center for Students with Disabilities. I think it is better to have as many allies as possible.

Dr. Virginia Wood:  Go straight to student services. They should handle this directly with your professor or instruct you what to do. They're old hands at this, and have likely even dealt with your department or even this specific professor before. Plus, the playing field is leveled that way. Get support from the disability community: Have a safe place to vent and seek advice off campus. Have a cheering squad of friends and family on speed dial (I called my husband every day on my lunch break from The Internship From H*).

P.S. There's little you can do yourself, directly, about somebody else's mentality. You can educate occasionally, but you are not in a position of equal power here so that can at times just be a waste of breath. It is best to direct your efforts to leveraging institutional power to change behavior. Attitudes will follow or at least, blessedly, go underground.

Ryan Armer: Be strong and explore your rights, if you are being discriminated against, complain until you make someone listen. You are as important as anyone else but it's important to advocate for yourself, even if that's just to get an advocate to support you.

What is your best advice for students when disclosing disabilities and submitting approved accommodations to faculty advisors or professors?

Dr. Deragon: Make sure that you recognize the assets you bring to the field. It's important to emphasize that you can be successful with the appropriate accommodations and understanding of supervisors!

Eudaly: Begin with the assumption that you deserve the accommodation you need. And begin as early as possible—a lot of professors get frustrated when something new pops up on their radar that adjusts their mental image of how the class will go. Approach them early on with your approvals and assume they will be pleased to adjust so you can learn what they have to teach.

Dr. Katsuya: I think it is best if the student can be specific, clear, and persuasive about the reasons why the accommodation is needed. I would suggest that they include specific stories to help a faculty advisor or professor understand that it is absolutely necessary and not excessive in compensating for a mental or physical disability.

Dr. Wood: Say and do absolutely no more than is required by your school. Do not act entitled, and do not be apologetic. "Here is my letter - thank you." Better still if student services handles delivery for you, as our school does these days, and directs all professor's questions to their office. All my students ever hear from me is an email acknowledging "I have your letter. Please let me know if you experience any difficulties with the accommodations as I have set them up," and that is as it should be.

Armer: I generally initiate first contact through the Diversity and Inclusion department to get them to share my learning and assessment plan and the accommodations I would need, that way a third party with knowledge about discrimination has made first contact. Following that, I've found many of the lecturers quite open to speaking with me about my needs. If I come across any further issues while dealing with the lecturer I make contact with the Equity department again to advise them of what is going on. Even if I speak to someone face-to-face, I send a reminder email regarding our talk that way there is always a written record of what has been discussed.

Please share any additional expert advice on ableism that would be helpful for graduate students with disabilities.

Dr. Deragon: Many people don't recognize their ableist views. Like other biases, it's important that we address misconceptions about differently-abled individuals. It is not always easy, but your efforts will help to promote increased diversity in the professional field.

Eudaly: Most professors have been doing this for a long time. They either have a story of a previous student who did just fine with different or no accommodations, or they have somehow never had to accommodate a student. Humans aren't very good at navigating change, but how you respond to them (with strength and calm) will affect how they see everyone who comes after you. It's a heavy burden to bear, to be a waymaker, but it's a noble role.

Dr. Katsuya: I think it is very important to have a network of peers in the same situation, and DARN is one such network. I thought this paper was interesting, although not a study for graduate students: Lindsay, S., & Fuentes, K. (2022). It is time to address ableism in academia: a systematic review of the experiences and impact of ableism among faculty and staff.

Dr. Wood: Do not ever let anything your professor says or does visibly rattle you. That's the old game of See What I Made You Do—never let them win a round because it weakens your position. Remain professional at all times. Do not feel you have to respond to anything immediately: keep a poker (professional!) face and have a mental card file of polite (did I mention professional?) deflections that will just roll off your tongue no matter how mad/scared/hurt/humiliated you feel inside and buy you time. Document, document, document, and get witnesses. (It goes without saying that you store your documentation off-site and have backups). If you think your professor is gunning for you or might retaliate in the future, then be sure your own behavior is absolutely impeccable. Don't give them the tiniest thing that they can use against you. The best thing you can do is compile a list of your own that fits your situation: besides the obvious (ADA), any organization that advocates specifically for people with your disability, all relevant university web pages (know your rights, complaint, and appeal procedures, etc.), and a copy of the faculty handbook. What are your professors' obligations? The handbook is a gold mine. And, of course, your professional code of ethics. APA has a whole section on ethical behavior for academics!

Many THANKS to all of our panelists from the DARN Community for your contributions!

Top Themes

In my research for this article, I targeted the top themes shared by the experts surveyed, the videos and webinars watched, and synergetic materials from experts in the field. Dr. Michelle Nario-Redmund's keynote from the recent DARN Teaching and Learning Conference included top themes revolving around recognizing and responding to ableism, the diversity and rights of people with disabilities, and the importance of inclusive practices in society and media representations. In this lecture, ableism is identified as a pervasive issue that affects a significant portion of the population, with one in four people experiencing some form of disability during their lives. Addressing ableism is, therefore, a responsibility for everyone.

News and Trends

The health disparity classification for individuals with disabilities was just recently enacted. On September 26, 2023, the NIH designated individuals with disabilities as a "population with health disparities," with new updates and changes to follow. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently recognized people with disabilities as a population with health disparities and is actively supporting research to improve understanding of these disparities. The NIH has also issued a notice of funding opportunity for research on the impact of disability, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on healthcare access and outcomes.

DARN Member Dr. Hari Srinivasan was recently published in a Time article addressing several key themes related to autism and societal perceptions of independence and connection. One of the central themes is the pervasive loneliness experienced by individuals with autism, which is often exacerbated by the societal push for independence. Srinivasan discusses how this pursuit of self-sufficiency can lead to social marginalization and economic disenfranchisement for those with disabilities, particularly for individuals with autism who may struggle with social interactions and establishing relationships.

Researchers have created a new rating scale database if you are interested in ableism and disability research. The new rating scale database compiles an open repository of ableism scales or the Ableism Scale Database. Check out all the links and resources for further research on ableism topics below!

Additional Resources

  1. Join the DARN Community: X/Twitter | Google Group | Community Directory
  2. DARN Resources & Links
  3. Related Resources for APA Session 9, Guidance for Students with Disabilities
  4. Dr. Kathleen Bogart's Psychology Today Disability is Diversity Blog
  5. CDC: Disability Impacts All of Us
  6. Podcast: Included: The Disability Equity Podcast
  7. Journal of Social Issues Special Issue on Ableism
  8. Disability-related Manuscripts
  9. NIH designates people with disabilities as a population with health disparities

Be well and thrive!

 

Meet the Team Behind Marginalia Science

A few years ago, I was introduced to Marginalia Science when I read their commentary in Nature about how social science research has marginalized some ideas that are vital to scientific and societal progress. When researchers pursue "non-mainstream" topics like indigenous rights or political violence (to name a few), or work with populations that are non-White or from the Global South (in addition to other marginalized or disadvantaged communities), they are often relegated to the margins of our science by funneling them into specialty journals and receiving less funding compared to more "basic science". In an effort to build community for scholars who do this work and who themselves might belong to marginalized identities, Pia Dietze, Ana Gantman, Hannah Nam, and Laura Niemi came together in 2016 to form Marginalia Science, which works to promote and highlight work this is not traditionally promoted by the academic status quo. The group has since grown to a community of several hundreds, with a new leadership team at the helm. This month, I spoke with Ivy Gilbert, Eliana Hadjiandreou, Minjae Kim, and Jordan Wylie about their own research, their work with Marginalia, and what they have planned next for the group. Check out the interview below!

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey here? Anything goes—from your research and career interests, to what brings you joy!

Jordan: I am currently an NSF SBE postdoc at Boston College, working in Dr. Liane Young and Dr. Gregg Sparkman's labs. My work broadly focuses on how emotions and morality influence how we navigate our everyday lives. I'm fascinated by everyday moral decisions (e.g., should I jaywalk or not?) and the ways that morality shapes and constrains how we understand the world around us, including who and what we are curious to learn about. In my spare time, I like to watch TV and film (especially horror), and play tennis. I also recently got a puppy, which has brought a source of joy to my life that has far exceeded my expectations. 

Minjae: I recently started a postdoc with Dr. Shari Liu in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. I received my PhD from Boston College, where I was advised by Dr. Young. I'm broadly interested in how we infer and represent the causes behind people's behaviors, and I'm excited to investigate how brain regions for social reasoning and physical reasoning contribute to these processes. I like to find the NYT Spelling Bee pangram as fast as I can, try out new restaurants, and scroll through Letterboxd reviews as soon as I leave the theater.

Ivy: I'm a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University, working with Dr. Laura Niemi. I hold an MA in linguistics from Florida Atlantic University, where I mostly studied cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. I also spent some time interning and working with animal protection organizations before starting my PhD. Now I broadly study moral psychology, and I'm primarily interested in understanding moral decision-making in the realm of consumer behavior, consumer perceptions of animal agriculture, and ultimately how to promote total animal liberation. I love cooking, learning about the French Revolution, reading fiction (especially Nabokov), and taking my rat terrier to the dog park.

Eliana: I am finishing my PhD at the Empathy and Moral Psychology lab at Penn State University, and starting a post-doc at the Computational Affective and Social Cognition Lab (CASCogLab) at the University of Texas at Austin. I consider myself a moral psychologist, broadly interested in altruism, empathy, and prosocial behavior, and specifically studying how we think about, are surprised by, and sometimes (negatively) judge the kindness of others. I enjoy psychological thrillers, trolley dilemma memes, watching videos of dogs reuniting with their owners, and scouting for new vegan restaurants.

How did you get involved with Marginalia Science? What does this work that you're doing as a group mean to you?

Jordan: My grad school advisor, Dr. Ana Gantman is one of the four founding members. The other founding members include Dr. Pia Dietze, Dr. Hannah Nam, and Dr. Laura Niemi. They really built the foundation of the group and have now passed it down to the next generation of early career researchers who are passionate about these issues. Marginalia Science is really important to me—it was a space where I felt belonging and comfortable as a grad student attending SPSP. And so I'm really hoping we can continue that legacy and pay it forward—to play this same role for researchers looking for community, while helping build the platform and reach.

Minjae: Jordan was my entry point to the community! Over the years, I've grown to appreciate spaces where a diversity of backgrounds and experiences are valued, and the power of highlighting and citing underrecognized scientists. I'm thankful I get to work with the rest of the leadership team to help promote the work of scholars from underrepresented groups, and identify ways to grow our community.

Ivy: Like Jordan, my PhD advisor, Laura Niemi, is one of the original founding members. I'm really honored to be part of Marginalia's new leadership team. I'm a first-generation student and would have benefited so much from a community like Marginalia when I was floundering as an undergrad and feeling my way somewhat blindly through my MA. A community that celebrates scholarship from diverse and nontraditional backgrounds and helps people grow and connect with one another is really important to me, and I'm excited to be part of it. 

Eliana: Like Minjae, I got introduced to Marginalia through Jordan, although I had heard of the initiative in the past through SPSP. Following the launch of a very successful international moral psychology network group that Meltem Yucel and Jim Everett initiated (and later joined by Cillian McHugh), I was encouraged to see moral psychology move beyond the "philosophy bro" stereotype that was permeating the field for some time. I'm seeing Marginalia as an extension broadening out beyond moral psychology, to include underrepresented scholars from all sub-fields of psychology. 

What do you hope to accomplish with Marginalia in the next few years?

Our main goal is to grow the reach of the group. We were thinking about this in a couple of ways. First by growing our social media presence, but the decline of Twitter/X has put a damper on that plan. We are now rebuilding on Bluesky (follow us!!). And second, by continuing to grow our newsletter. Switching to Substack has made tracking this easier, and we can see that we are slowly but surely gaining more and more subscribers every month. We have over 350 subscribers at the moment.

Can you tell me a little about ongoing initiatives at Marginalia Science? How can people who are interested get involved?

Our primary initiative is our monthly newsletter. Each month, we have a guest feature who shares a little about themselves and their work with the community. We keep things fairly casual (and, if you follow our newsletter you'll also know that we love our emojis!). We make sure to showcase the featured guests' selected articles of interest - both authored by them and also favorite reads. We also solicit updates on new work by members of the group and gather current funding and job opportunities, calls for papers and conferences, relevant popular press articles to include in the newsletter.

We also have a special set up with the Stanford Psychology Podcast (check out our first featured episode in the links below). When our guest feature is an early career Assistant Professor, they also have the opportunity to share their work on the podcast. This is just another way we have been thinking about growing the reach of the group, and further promoting the work of the scientists in our community.  

If you want to be featured in Marginalia, or have suggestions for people who want to be featured, relevant articles on representation, or any other cool leads we should include in our monthly feature, please get in touch with us via email!

How has the Marginalia community grown since it was first formed in 2016? Do you have any community building events planned in the coming months?

Since Marginalia Science was established in 2016, our digital following has more than tripled, which has been wonderful to see; in recent years we have had the privilege of hosting in-person meetups at the annual SPSP convention, where we aim to provide a supportive space for strengthening our network. This year, Marginalia Science hosted its very first community symposium at Boston College, featuring talks from three early career researchers that were broadcast live to the greater academic community; we hope to continue to invite scholars to share their work to a wide audience.  

We are also excited to share that we will be hosting a meet up at SPSP 2024, thanks to a Community Catalyst Grant! We'll get together Thursday night at 8 PM for a friendly, informal gathering near the convention center, with free food and non-alcoholic beverages. You can RSVP for the event here.

Learn more about Marginalia Science and join the community:

  1. Join the Marginalia Science community!
  2. Marginalia Science newsletter
  3. Marginalized ideas are key to scientific progress (Nature)
  4. Marginalia intro episode on the Stanford Psychology Podcast
  5. SPSP newsletter feature of Marginalia Science's founding members
  6. Share your work, interesting papers from the margins, opportunities, etc. with the Marginalia Science community

 

Meet the 2023–2024 Early Career Committee

Navigating the years post-PhD is a unique journey filled with transitions and challenges. That's why our committee is here: to support Early Career (EC) Scholars like you by providing opportunities for networking, professional development, and finding your community within SPSP. We recognize that our members are the future, and we strive to ensure that this future is bright.

What We Do

Building Community

Building community is at the core of what we do. We endeavor to create a community both virtually and in person to foster a sense of belonging.

  • SPSP Connect!: This online community allows EC members to share ideas, collaborate, and create networking opportunities.
  • Virtual Writing Groups: Ever popular, we hold twice-weekly writing groups throughout the year on Zoom where scholars can find accountability in a group setting, brainstorm through questions and challenges, and meet others in their early career community. Indicate your time preferences for Fall 2023 here.
  • EC Social Hour: Held during the SPSP Annual Convention, the social hour is always a blast and a great opportunity to reconnect with or meet other early career scholars attending the conference!

Recognition

Recognizing the hard work of early career scholars is crucial. Our expanded awards system ensures that both very early scholars and more senior early career scholars receive fair recognition, with accolades for excellence in teaching, service, and research.

Professional Development

We aim to ensure EC members are equipped to face the unique challenges of transitioning between jobs in the critical phase of less than seven years post-PhD.

  • BECOME Mentoring Program: EC members are matched with a mentor tailored to their needs. This program is halfway through its second successful year, and we look forward to announcing the third round soon.
  • Annual Convention Programming: At the SPSP Annual Convention, find our professional development sessions tailored to EC members and their needs.
  • Early Career Mentor Tables: A popular roundtable event at the Annual Convention where you can sit down and get guidance on publishing, grant writing, succeeding in your first faculty position, and more.
  • Online Resources: We continue to collect useful materials for career planning and guidance, including navigating postdocs, the academic and non-academic job markets, and links to EC-focused grants.

Who We Are

Gili FreedmanGili Freedman

  • Assistant Prof., St. Mary's College of Maryland, U.S.
  • Area of Expertise: Social rejection, gender biases, and game interventions
  • Committee Role: Co-chair

"My hope is that the ECC can help early career members form a community and feel a sense of belonging within our field."  

Veronica LamarcheVeronica Lamarche

  • Senior Lecturer/Associate Prof., University of Essex, UK
  • Area of Expertise: Balancing trust, dependence, and uncertainty in close relationships
  • Committee Role: Co-chair and Director of the BECOME mentoring program

"I want to help support our global and diverse community of early career scholars as they embark on their unique careers that will shape the future of social-personality psychology.  I see the ECC as a resource offering community, professional development, and a voice for our EC members."

Jessie SunJessie Sun

  • Assistant Prof., Washington University in St. Louis, U.S.
  • Area of Expertise: Examines well-being and morality
  • Role: Overseeing the Emerging Scholar and Early Career Awards

"The ECC helps to build community, promote the interests of EC members, and advocate for change within SPSP."

Alison Jane MartinganoAlison Jane Martingano

  • Assistant Prof., University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, U.S.
  • Area of Expertise: Explores empathy and designs strategies to enhance it
  • Role: Newsletter writer, event coordination

"The ECC has a great opportunity to break down barriers to success, particularly for first-generation academics, by sharing the unwritten rules and norms no one likes to say out loud."

Ben BlankenshipBen Blankenship

  • Assistant Prof., James Madison University, U.S.
  • Area of Expertise: Social identity, context attachment, and political engagement
  • Role: Leading writing group meetings, conference planning, facilitating BECOME

"I want to help scholars from marginalized backgrounds and/or less research-focused institutions find community at SPSP, especially as many of us started our careers at a very difficult time (during the pandemic)!"

Marjorie ProkoschMarjorie Prokosch

  • Assistant Prof., Rochester Institute of Technology, U.S.
  • Area of Expertise: Environmental impacts on perception and decision-making
  • Role: Hosting writing groups, organizing events

"I'm especially interested in incorporating feedback from members that can help us to increase the reach and inclusivity of our committee's initiatives."

Together, we focus on supporting the EC community within SPSP. From professional development, mentoring, and recognition, we pave the way for a more inclusive future in personality and social psychology. Feel free to reach out to us via SPSP Connect! And join us in making a lasting impact on our community.

¡PODER! A Latinx Community-Building Network

With the assistance of a Community Catalyst Grant, SPSP members Brittany Torrez, Lyangela Gutierrez, and Amanda Perez organized the ¡PODER! (Psicologxs Orgullosxs Derrumbando El Racismo) network, with the intent of building connections and collaborations among Latinx scholars through the SPSP conference.

In response to a noted lack of community-building opportunities amongst Latinx SPSP members, we wanted to create a virtual space where Latinx graduate students could meet before the SPSP convention. SPSP can be challenging to navigate alone, even more so as the conference was virtual this year.

The virtual retreat, which occurred over a span of three days, invited 32 Latinx graduate students to participate in a mix of social and professional development activities online.

We began with a panel of Latinx faculty answering questions generated by our attendees. Our wonderful panelists included: Drs. Rudy Mendoza-Denton (UC Berkeley), Mary Murphy (Indiana University Bloomington), Miguel Unzueta (UCLA Anderson), Kathy Espino-Pérez (Western Oregon University), and Corin Ramos (Catalyst, Inc.). The panelists provided helpful advice on graduate school issues, faculty life, and financial planning that our attendees really appreciated. As one attendee mentioned:

I think my favorite part was the panelist talk because it was encouraging to know that individuals who were once in our shoes were able to navigate academia and created very productive research labs. I think having role models in this field can really help aid belonging.”

After that we had an introduction activity to get everyone acquainted followed by a low-stakes research blitz for people to present their research ideas:

I liked how the research blitz was low stakes in that everyone was so supportive and so excited. I really love spaces that make you feel that your research is important and the way we affirmed everyone's work was amazing.”

Finally, we ended our first day with a happy hour dinner and game night to get to know each other. One PODER attendee commented in the feedback survey:

I loved the game night. I haven't laughed so hard in so long. It's been hard being out in [the Midwest] miles from my family and being isolated from my friends. I felt so full leaving the PODER retreat and I hope that we continue to have movements like this.

Across the following two days, we had sessions on writing & responding to reviews, tips on presentations, and statistical analysis. In addition, to provide a foundation for community building and professional development, we created a virtual networking space via Slack. Dedicated channels allow members of our community to interact around specific topics, such as well-being, advice, resource sharing, and celebrating accomplishments. Throughout the conference, we used Slack to shout out our fellow scholars’ presentations.

Based on participant’s feedback, the first iteration of the ¡PODER! Retreat has contributed to the goal of community building:

“I really enjoyed being able to connect with other Latinx graduate students. I did not realize that there were this many of us in the field.”

“A Latinx community is something that we need so much and it's so great to see it starting to grow strong.”

“I really appreciated the care and love that was put into creating such a supportive and welcoming environment by the PODER organizers/facilitators. I wasn't sure how the event would go, but I was drawn in by the idea of being a part of a community of Latinx psychologists and that's exactly how this retreat was...”

“Especially for having to be virtual, I was really impressed with the way the retreat seemed to foster community so quickly!”

"[There were] lots of great parts [of the retreat], but I really liked feeling connected to other Latinx scholars...”

The organizers look forward to expanding this retreat and network in the future, hopefully next time in-person. We also strive to implement the wonderful feedback we got from our retreatants, and encourage other Latinx graduate students to get involved. Please contact Brittany Torrez ([email protected]) to be added to our online community on Slack!

In 2020, Community Catalyst Grants were also awarded to:

  • SPSP Network of Multiracial Scholars (NOMS)
  • Flourish: A retreat for pre-tenure faculty of color
  • Southeast Asian Social and Personality Psychologists Meeting
  • Connecting Undocumented Social & Personality Psychologists (CUSPP)

Grant Helps Southeast Asian Psychologists Form Community Group


When I was 10, my parents traded our lives under the tropical Malaysian sun for the promises of the American Dream. I barely spoke English then, but my parents knew that by immigrating here, I would be able to receive the education that they never had growing up. I attended SPSP 2020 in New Orleans as a newly minted assistant professor at Colby College, a dream job that neither my parents nor I thought would be possible 20 years ago when we first landed in LAX. 

Throughout the convention, I spent my time thinking about who gets to present, who has a seat in the audience, and what my colleagues and I can do to increase representation and inclusiveness. It was in this spirit that Vivian Ta, Fred Duong, and I hosted the first gathering of Southeast Asian Social and Personality Psychologists (SEASAPP) on the first night of SPSP 2020. The approximately 40 attendees are from or have heritage from Southeast Asia, with representation from Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines. 

We were often asked why we created a space for Southeast Asians specifically. Although Asians as a broader category are 14% of SPSP membership (as of 2019), it is important to note that the challenges and needs of Southeast Asians are different than other Asian groups. Southeast Asians are the largest refugee community in the U.S., and many SEASAPPers are refugees or children of refugees (including Fred and Vivian). Many SEASAPPers, including the three of us,  are the first in their family to graduate from high schools and colleges. Many have to navigate both college and graduate school on their own. Many have parents who cannot speak English and must act as a translator at a young age. Many are pursuing their college and graduate degrees abroad, thousands of miles away from their families and friends. 

For these reasons, we applied for and received the SPSP Community Catalyst Grant to host a social event for SEASAPP. We wanted a space for other SEASAPPers to share their experiences and connect with one another. We were inspired by the stories we heard and the new connections that were forged. As one attendee said, “it was a great opportunity to be able to chat with other psychologists who look like me, share my background, and relate to my experience… a unique social environment for researchers of all career stages to connect.” This sentiment was echoed by other attendees, many of whom didn’t know that such a space was sorely missing in their academic career. SEASAPP hopes to provide a new refuge for many who often feel unseen or like they don’t belong in the field. Southeast Asians are underrepresented in higher education and as educators, and we hope that SEASAPP can become a catalyst for change.

SEASAPP Group photo

After the event, we created a Slack channel to facilitate collaborations and discussions of various topics (e.g., teaching, research, parenting, memes). We use Slack to increase a greater sense of belonging and celebrate one another’s accomplishments. In the near future, we are planning on setting up a mentorship program between faculty and early career researchers (e.g., grad students, postdocs) as well as between grad students and undergraduates. Through this mentoring program, we aim to fix a leaky pipeline and increase participation and retention in our field. We are thankful to have the support from SPSP to host our inaugural event, and we hope SEASAPP will become a yearly social gathering with a growing community. 

If you are interested in learning more or joining SEASAPP, please contact us at: 


Have an idea for an event like the SEASAPP meetup in New Orleans? SPSP's Community Catalyst Grant Program accepts applications annually (deadline: June 1).

learn more

 

Marginalia Science: Breaking Barriers and Creating Inclusiveness

As PhD students preparing for life in and after grad school, Hannah Nam, Ana Gantman, Laura Niemi, and Pia Dietze recall the traditional advice they would receive on how to market themselves and their research at conferences and meetings. But the power dynamics that can infuse those conversations didn’t make sense to them, and as women and minorities, they feared their words could be interpreted differently.

They also recall the barriers to connecting with mentors who had faced the same challenges in their careers. “We felt there weren’t enough opportunities for getting to know these people in the field,” says Ana, now an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, “and we wanted to create a space for that.” Hannah, also an Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, adds “we wanted to do something that we felt we could have used.”

There were also conversations about the research that perhaps only members of marginalized groups might conceptualize, and how they wished these topics could receive more sunlight. They knew their colleagues were working on great research, but it was not getting much attention outside of their community. “We wanted to create a platform for that, too,” says Hannah.

They determined the easiest way to connect and get the word out was a listserv-type email newsletter. Coming up with a name for the group and the newsletter was not as easy. “We had a long list of terrible ideas,” jokes Hannah. (The dorkiest - 1 Minus Beta - was quickly rejected.) One name, however, rose to the top of their short list of somewhat less dorky names. A punster at heart, Ana suggested Marginalia. “It was maximally inclusive, but also a fun play on words,” she explains. Her inspiration came from the little notes or sudden great ideas that often get jotted down in the margins of a notebook. “Something that isn't the main text, but can still be an important contribution” says Hannah.

The resulting e-newsletter is now shared monthly with more than 160 of their like-minded peers, including students and professionals in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Israel and the Netherlands. It provides a centralized space to showcase new research by scientists largely underrepresented in psychology and the broader social sciences, including women, non-gender conforming individuals, members of LGBTQI+ community, people of color and the differently abled. In other words, the scientists who are not typically promoted by the academic status quo.

In addition to links to abstracts, events, grant opportunities and job postings, each edition of the newsletter includes a dose of helpful advice for under-represented minorities navigating an often perplexing job market. “But we always try to start the newsletter with something light and fun and joyful,” says Hannah (for example, an early edition of the newsletter opens with a picture of a hedgehog wearing a party hat). Information dissemination and career advice is their main focus, but they manage to balance the serious stuff with a healthy dose of positivity, encouragement and emotional support.

In an effort to broaden and strengthen their message, the group applied for and were recently awarded an SPSP Community Catalyst Grant. The funding they received through SPSP enabled the group to organize an after-hours meet-up during the recent convention in Portland.

“It was really amazing to get this grant from SPSP so that we could put this more official gathering together,” says Hannah. “It really increased our numbers,” adds Ana, “and it would be great to do this annually at SPSP. It’s the perfect place for it.”

More importantly, the gathering helped reinforce a sense of community and identity. “The goal for that evening was to keep things as low pressure as possible” says Hannah, “and we heard from lots of people who said that they were glad to have done a conference event and not feel self-conscious about it.” But they have also heard of potential collaborations as a result of conversations at the meetup. Ana, for example, was recently pitched an idea on women and sports from some grad students who connected at the February event.

“We really want to be driven by what our community wants,” says Hannah, “and be as broad-minded about this as possible.” It’s this philosophy that has inspired the next incarnation of the newsletter, in which they will hand over the reins to a guest editor each month, giving their Marginalia peers an opportunity to share with the group what they are thinking about and reading.

Long-term, Hannah, Ana, Pia and Laura hope their work might lead to greater visibility of “fringe” research beyond just the specialty journals. They would love to see more productive conversations around and broader acceptance of research topics like microaggressions, slut shaming, sex work legalization, sexual harassment and assault, and indigenous or First Nations issues.

“We would love to be able to give out awards for this kind of research and to fund grants” says Ana, but for now they are happy to be helping diverse voices find each other. As Ana points out, “because we know they are out there.”

Interested in being a part of Marginalia? Drop a note to the team at [email protected] or check out marginaliascience.com

View a sample of some recent editions of the Marginalia newsletter

Building Community Among SPSP’s Black Membership

While most folks were busy catching flights home after the annual SPSP convention in Atlanta, friends and colleagues Ivy Onyeador and Evelyn Carter were busy working out the final details of their own event - a retreat to help foster community among Black social and personality psychologists.

Dubbed BlaSPR—the Black Social and Personality Psychologists Retreat was a day-and-a-half gathering in Atlanta of Black junior scholars coming together to support one another in their professional development.

Given the significant underrepresentation of Black social and personality psychologists within SPSP, and the fact that they are often one of very few, if any, Black members in their respective departments, it can be especially difficult for members to find one another and forge those essential and valuable connections that can help open doors in the future.

BlaSPR grew out of Ivy, Evelyn and a small group of members finding each other through SPSP. “As far back as grad school, we had been discussing the need for this type of recognizable space within SPSP,” says Evelyn.  Throughout their years of grad school, PhDs, postdocs and first jobs, they had each made valuable connections while gathering a wealth of information in the process. “Having done the hard work, we wanted to be able to share those experiences and resources with the younger generation coming up behind us,” adds Ivy.

At the 2017 convention in San Antonio, Ivy raised the idea of an event like BlaSPR when she participated in a panel discussion on increasing diversity and inclusiveness within SPSP membership. Sapna Cheryan, the then chair of SPSP’s Diversity & Climate Committee, proposed the development of a new grant program to SPSP’s board of directors—a program that could specifically assist underrepresented groups within SPSP in their efforts to build community. The result of these efforts—the Community Catalyst Grant Program—was launched last year. Ivy and Evelyn quickly submitted their application and proposal for the BlaSPR retreat when the new program was announced, and were fortunate enough to be the grant’s first recipients.

The response from membership when BlaSPR was announced surprised them both. Based on the selection criteria (essentially graduate and early career members who self-identify as Black or African American), 68 registered convention attendees were eligible to apply. Almost half of those applied and, in the end, 21 were asked to participate.

The format for the retreat was kept intentionally informal. A group brunch on Sunday afternoon kicked things off, followed by a getting-to-know-you session where folks swapped elevator pitches about themselves and their research. A convention debrief and an overview of the ways members can get involved with SPSP’s diversity initiatives followed. Postdocs and tenure-track professors from research and teaching-focused institutions (including several from R1 universities) also shared information and resources with the group.

Through it all, the intention was to foster a communal, conversational experience that was not performative, but instead promoted the sharing of information and advice.

A highlight of the retreat for Ivy and Evelyn and several of the attendees (surveys were completed after the event) was a one-on-one dinner and discussion with Dr. Phia Salter, who recently received tenure at Texas A&M University. “Hearing firsthand from a more senior and highly respected member and mentor about their career trajectory provided an important role model intervention,” says Ivy. “It was important to have someone in front of us who had made it through the process, but is still really invested in mentoring the community.”

“The hope is that seeing other people who reflect your experience, and seeing people ahead of you who have finished their PhD or received tenure will hopefully improve the completion and retention rate of this crop of scholars,” adds Evelyn.

So what’s next for the group? “We would love to do it again,” says Evelyn. “This was a great opportunity to see what we could do with the Community Catalyst Grant and we have talked about ways to extend this into subsequent years. Our attendees felt strongly that this needs to be a thing that keeps momentum. We could see it becoming an important part of the Black SPSP experience.”

If a second retreat does happen, they would like to add more time for attendees to engage with each other's research and more time for working on collaborations. “Another day to really work together on symposia or review papers or collaborative projects would be ideal,” says Ivy.

“We’d also like for them to walk away with concrete accountability groups,” adds Evelyn, “people that you can check in with regularly to talk about your collective goals and the work you want to accomplish.”

And they would both like to expand the retreat so that more people can participate.

“It was nice because it was small and intimate and not overwhelming,” says Evelyn, “but the need is broader than just the 20 people who attended. It’s about balancing accessibility with the goal of increasing community so that everyone is getting to participate.”

Feedback from BlaSPR:

“This retreat enriched me in so many ways - from a personal level, where I felt that my experiences are not exclusive to me alone, and on a professional level, where I got to learn first-hand how others have navigated their post-PhD career progression.”

“Having a chance to interact with a community of graduate students, post-grads, and early career professors who shared similar and diverse experiences really made me feel that there was a home for my shared and individual interests, research passions, and general self in social psychology.”

“I had never been in a room with so many Black scholars where our focus was betterment and exchange of information. I imagine that this is what academia was originally designed to foster.”