News from the Accelerator - July 2019

We have a range of updates and small requests for help this month, including paper submissions, an upcoming data release, elections, hackathons, and a crowdfunding campaign.

Current Studies

• 001 Face Perception. We are nearly done with data collection in all world regions! We will release a simulated data set in August, complete data collection in October, release ~1/3 of the data set in late October as an exploratory segment, and then release the remaining ~2/3 of the data set as a confirmatory segment concurrently with the release of the Stage 2 manuscript at Nature Human Behaviour.
• 002 Object Orientation & 003 Gendered Prejudice. Data collection is now rolling out in English speaking labs and will expand to the other study languages soon if all goes smoothly with the early collection sessions.
• 004 True Belief. Data collection is also currently rolling out for this project as labs test their lab-specific links and get a final check on all materials.
• 005 Stereotype Threat. The Stage 1 Registered Report manuscript is now under review at Nature Human Behaviour. We still welcome new labs to join the project if they are based in the USA and can recruit black college students.
• 006 Trolley Problem. The Stage 1 Registered Report manuscript received a favorable "revise and resubmit" from Nature Human Behaviour. The lead team is currently working on the revisions and will reach out to all co-authors for feedback and suggested edits soon.
• 007 and beyond? Remember that the deadline for submissions to this year’s round of study selection is September 15th!

Funding

PSA members are actively working on a range of grant submissions to the US National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the European Research Council Synergy program, and Canada's National Research Council, but there are probably other opportunities for us to pursue. If you know of a funding mechanism that would be a good fit for the PSA, please pass along any information you have, and let us know if you’d like to lead the grant writing effort or collaborate on a submission!

Patreon

Remember that we can also support the PSA via our Patreon page. Even just $1 a month can be extremely helpful and provide meaningful funding if we get a large base of supporters. I’ve given myself the challenge of getting the PSA one new Patreon supporter every workday. I’ve been successful for the past week, and I hope to keep the streak going for a very long time! Perhaps you could find a new supporter each year? Each month? Each week? Every little bit helps.

Hackathons

We have been holding weekly PSA hackathons for the last three weeks and plan to continue these for the foreseeable future. They've been extremely fun, productive, and energizing! The three previous hack topics were "brainstorming funding sources," "editing our needs assessment process for new studies," and "updating and organizing our file management system." This Friday, August 2nd, at 14:00 UTC we will host a hackathon on improving our get involved page on psysciacc.org. We will announce all future hackathons on twitter and on the new #hackathons slack channel. Let us know if you have any ideas or requests for future sessions.

Meta-Policy

We have drafted a new PSA policy defining the process by which the PSA creates and approves new policies :). We now welcome feedback on this policy before we put it up for a vote. Please provide your comments in the next two weeks in the draft document.

Elections

PSA elections for Assistant Directors, Associate Directors, and the Director will begin in January 2020 and then be held each subsequent July and January. During each election, we will select 3 Assistant Directors (who serve 3 year terms). Most elections will also select an Associate Director (who serve 4 year terms). We will elect a new Director every 5 years. You can see more details about the upcoming elections, including the initial schedule (which was selected randomly), towards the bottom of this policy document. More details on election specifics are coming soon!   -That’s all for this month. Be on the lookout for some exciting posts and updates during August as we celebrate 2 years of accelerating psychological science (our anniversary is August 26th). I’ll leave you with two pictures of PSA members meeting up (one online and one in person) and making each other smile about the future of psychological science!

Chris