From the Science Directorate

• Templeton Positive Psychology Prizes Awarded by David Partenheimer, APA Public Affairs Office
• Nora Newcombe Advocates for NSF on Capitol Hill

Templeton Positive Psychology Prizes Awarded by David Partenheimer, APA Public Affairs Office

A University of Kentucky researcher has received psychology’s largest monetary prize for her research showing the health benefits of optimism. Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky is the first place winner of the 2002 Templeton Positive Psychology Prize. The $100,000 award is divided as a cash prize of $30,000 to be used any way Dr. Segerstrom chooses, and a grant of $70,000 to support her research in the positive psychology field.

The American Psychological Association (APA), with underwriting support from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), created the awards program. Now in its third year, the prizes are intended to encourage first-rate mid-career scientists to devote their best efforts to positive psychology topics, such as optimism, moral identity, self-control, goal-focused living, thrift, courage and future-mindedness.

Dr. Segerstrom’s research is aimed at understanding the processes behind optimistic dispositions and beliefs and, in particular, how these processes relate to the functioning of the immune system. “Like pessimists, optimists attend to negative information and process it consciously,” said Dr. Segerstrom. “However, they differ from their pessimistic counterparts in their equal or greater attention to positive stimuli and they show signs of immune suppression as a consequence of working harder to achieve their goals.”

The positive effects of optimism are sometimes viewed with skepticism both in the scientific community and in the broader culture, noted Dr. Segerstrom, “with some saying optimists are naive and vulnerable to disappointment when they come face to face with reality. My evidence suggests that optimists are not naive; they are however, wiser in expending their energies and better at directing their attention to and elaborating positive information.”

Three other researchers also received Templeton Positive Psychology Prizes during today’s ceremony in Philadelphia. Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside won the second place award of $50,000 ($15,000 cash prize and $35,000 grant) for her work on developing a “science of human happiness.” Her research addresses such questions as 1) What makes people happy?; 2) Is happiness a good thing?; and 3) How can we make people even more happy? Dr. Lyubomirsky has found that exceptionally happy people construe themselves, their peers and life events in ways that seem to maintain their happiness, such as reacting to life circumstances in relatively more positive and more adaptive ways than unhappy people.

The third place award of $30,000 ($10,000 cash prize and $20,000 grant) was won by Kennon M. Sheldon, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Missouri. Dr. Sheldon’s research focuses on personal goals and how these goals affect people’s growth, development and well-being. One of his recent studies looked at what makes people the happiest and found it wasn’t money or attaining popularity, but autonomy (feeling that your activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed), competence (feeling that you are effective in your activities), relatedness (feeling a sense of closeness with others) and self-esteem that made people the happiest.

And the fourth place award of $20,000 ($7,500 cash prize and $12,500 grant) was won by Laura D. Kubzansky, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Social Behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Kubzansky’s research centers around the role of resilience in health and disease prevention. She studies whether psychological factors may prevent the development of disease and maintain healthy functioning. She has found that optimism may influence both physiology and behaviors, and through them, major health outcomes. Dr. Kubzansky’s research also shows that resilience factors like optimism or a sense of control are influenced by the social environment, with socioeconomic status, gender and race/ethnicity strongly associated with resilience.

The Templeton Positive Psychology Prize is open to researchers from any country in all the social sciences, not just psychology. To be eligible, candidates must not be more than 40 years of age, or if older than 40, not more than 12 years past receiving their doctoral degree.

Nora Newcombe Advocates for NSF on Capitol Hill

Basic research took center stage on April 16th when Division 7 President Nora Newcombe testified on behalf of APA in a hearing in the U.S. Capitol. Newcombe (Temple University) spoke before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds a number of federal agencies and departments with behavioral science portfolios, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

In her oral testimony, Newcombe highlighted a new program in NSF’s Fiscal Year 2003 budget – one with particular relevance and opportunity for psychological scientists. The President has proposed $20 million in new funding for NSF Science of Learning Centers (SLCs), a foundation-wide program designed to support both large centers and smaller “catalyst” research studies focusing on learning, broadly-defined. In the full written testimony submitted for the Congressional Record, APA detailed recommended funding increases for NSF, NASA and VA behavioral research programs (see http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/sfy03vahud.test.html on our website to read the full testimony).

Following the public witness hearing, Newcombe and PPO staff member Heather Kelly headed over to the House of Representatives to talk about the Science of Learning Centers with the Appropriations Subcommittee’s lead Democratic staffer. Several weeks later, PPO brought in an adult learning and memory researcher from the University of Virginia, Daniel Willingham, as well as Executive Director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations, Howard Silver, to have a similar discussion with the Republican Clerk of the Subcommittee. Both meetings have been critical in stimulating interest in the SLCs on Capitol Hill, and NSF staff have been invited to provide more details about the new program as congressional funding committees begin to finalize their version of the FY 2003 budget. For more information on the SLCs, contact NSF Social Psychology Program Officer Steve Breckler.