(Donate to the project here)

In 2018, the Psychological Science Accelerator selected an unusual study to conduct. Instead of using the PSA network to achieve an international sample, this study focused on a hard-to-reach study population: Black American college students. Compared to previous studies, the project was also unusually applied-facing, as it focused on a theory that was developed to understand, and hopefully address, performance gaps in settings like college where strong performance could affect a person’s life trajectory. 

The proposed project aimed to address potential weaknesses in the evidence for the theory while simultaneously demonstrating how we can use big team science to achieve the sample sizes needed for informative quantitative tests of theories about hard-to-reach populations. The budding PSA network saw merit in this project, and at least one journal has agreed, as the project was accepted in principle as a Registered Report at Nature Human Behaviour.

Four years later and data collection is going strong. As of October 31, 2022, we have recruited 1025 Black college students into our project. This is a stunning accomplishment, and already puts our project among the largest ever studies of stereotype threat among Black American college students. This accomplishment has only been possible due to financial contributions from the project leadership team, which we have redistributed to data collection labs to defray the costs of participant recruitment.

However, 1025 is still short of our goal of a minimum of 2000 participants. We now believe we need crowdfunding to reach our data collection goal.

You can donate to this project here. Any donations we receive that exceed our financial need will be donated to the PSA at project’s end, as we have relied heavily on PSA resources to make this project happen.

Help us finish an amazing – and, for psychology, historic – project, further demonstrating the potential of big team science for solving some of behavioral science’s most pressing problems.

– The PSA Stereotype Thread administrative team

The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is accepting nominations for two Associate and six Assistant Directors. Associate Directors serve on the Board of Directors and are elected by all PSA members for 4-year terms. Assistant Directors co-lead (with another Assistant Director) specific committees for 3-year terms and are elected by vote by the Board of Directors. 

The positions are open to all members of the PSA–and current non-members are also eligible if they sign-up for a [free] PSA membership. Members can either nominate themselves or others for each role. There are no term limits. For more information about PSA elections policies, see this document.

Nominations are due July 29 2022. To nominate yourself or others, please (1) login to the PSA membership portal, (2) navigate to the PSA Membership course page, (3) click on the Quizzes tab, and (4) complete a short nomination form.

All current members of the PSA should have received an email invitation to the Canvas membership site within the past year. If you know you have a PSA ID, you can reset your password by going to https://canvas.psysciacc.org/. If you aren’t sure what email to use, contact psa.membersite@gmail.com. If you do not have an account, you can sign up for an account using this form: https://member.psysciacc.org/

See below for more information about the open positions.

Associate Directors

Associate Directors serve on the Board of Directors, which serves as the steering body of the PSA. Typically, they meet 1-2 times a month with an assigned committee, help the committee perform essential tasks, and serve as a liaison between the committee and the Board of Directors. They also attend a Board of Directors meeting every three weeks.The estimated time commitment is 4-5 hours per month. For more information, please contact the current Director (ncoles@stanford.edu).

Assistant Director of Project Monitoring

The Project Monitoring Committee consists of two assistant directors and a larger team who actively serve as project monitors of PSA studies and provide general feedback about PSA project procedures. The committee meets twice a month, wherein committee members share project updates, troubleshoot problems, and discuss project management strategies. Assistant Directors are responsible for coordinating these twice-a-month meetings and for regularly communicating updates to the PSA Board of Directors. For more information, contact the current Assistant Director (david.vaidis@u-paris.fr).

Assistant Director of the Study Selection Committee 

The Study Selection Committee consists of two assistant directors and a small team that is tasked with reviewing and selecting projects for the PSA. Study proposals that pass an initial quality and feasibility check by the committee are then reviewed by members of the advisory committees and internal and external content experts. For more information, contact the current Assistant Director (kathleenschmidt1@gmail.com).

Assistant Director of the Funding Committee 

The Funding Committee works with the PSA Board of Directors on grant applications, money management, and the developing of the PSA funding strategy. The Funding Committee also offers occasional support to PSA study investigators in funding applications. For more information, contact the current Assistant Director (nlewisjr@cornell.edu).

Assistant Director of the Ethics Committee

The PSA Ethics Committee helps ensure high quality assessment and identification of ethical risks or challenges, as well as protection and safeguarding of ethical practices of PSA research projects. In the broadest sense, the committee is responsible to: 1) provide reviews of proposed PSA projects with an eye toward ethics, 2) provide ethics-oriented consultation to selected PSA projects (e.g., co-develop the material to ensure hassle-free approval in the majority of PSA labs), 3) curates ethics procedures towards successful implementation of ongoing PSA projects (especially related to the IRB and ethics review board materials prior to distribution to the larger PSA group), 4) work with other PSA committees to ensure ethical practices. For more information, contact dana.basnightbrown@gmail.com.

Assistant Director of the Translation and Cultural Diversity Committee

The Translation and Cultural Diversity committee coordinates translations for each PSA project, expands the PSA community by recruiting translators, and helps ensure that PSA members from every country are treated fairly and equally.

Assistant Director of the Community Building Committee

The Community Building and Network Expansion Committee (CBNEC) is tasked with engaging, assessing and expanding the PSA Network (“improve the reach of and access to the PSA, both internally and externally” Moshontz et al., 2018 pg. 511). The Assistant Directors provide the long-term vision for the committee and coordinates its daily/monthly operations.

Today, the PSA is launching a pilot of a new stream of activity called “PSA-affiliated projects”. 

Due to resource and infrastructure constraints, the PSA is limited in the number of projects it can officially support. Nonetheless, members of the PSA often self-organize to create initiatives and collaborations that are not “officially” supported by the PSA, but are nonetheless guided by PSA principles and policies. The goal for the PSA-affiliated project line is to develop a formal mechanism for recognizing, promoting, and supporting these types of activities.

Official policies and infrastructure will be developed along the way, but PSA-affiliated projects will be expected to follow three rules:

1. Be led by at least one member of the PSA who has agreed to abide by the PSA Code of Conduct.

2. Follow the five PSA Core Principles (or transparently articulate why those principles are not followed).

3. Provide annual updates on how PSA core principles are being upheld (until the project is completed).

To pilot this initiative, we will start with one project: “The Preference-Matching Project: Testing the Predictive Validity of Ideal Partner Preference-Matching Across Cultures”, led by Paul Eastwick, Jehan Sparks, Eli J. Finkel, & Eva M. Meza. This project provides a unique opportunity to test the PSA-affiliated initiative because it was originally accepted with minor revisions by the PSA Study Selection Committee–but placed on a waitlist due to PSA resource constraints. PSA committees will not offer direct support to this project, but we suspect that many members of the PSA would be interested in contributing.

See the following links for a manuscript draft and recruitment flyer.

If members of the PSA seem interested in more of these types of initiatives, we will consider expanding this program in the future!