EBSCO reaffirms support of APF Campaign
For the third year, EBSCO Information Services has donated $25,000 to APF's Campaign to Transform the Future. The donation, which recognizes APA's journals, books and database programs, brings the company's total campaign giving to $75,000.
For more than 60 years, EBSCO Information Services, based in Ipswich, Massachusetts, has provided access to research through databases, e-books and e-journals. A major business partner of APA, EBSCO has supported APA and psychological research in many ways over the years. Through the donation, EBSCO helps talented psychologists to carry out groundbreaking work in several crucial areas, including connecting behavior and health, preventing violence, helping in the aftermath of disaster, and reducing stigma and prejudice. The gift will launch new and innovative research, ensuring young psychologists get the boost they need to succeed.
More information on the Campaign to Transform the Future is available online.
Robert Hogan honors the legacy of John Holland
Robert Hogan, PhD, has donated $50,000 to the APF Dr. W. Bruce and Jane Walsh Fund in Memory of Dr. John L. Holland.
Holland, who died in 2008, was a leader in applied psychology and assessment, developing several occupational assessment tools, including the Holland Vocational Preference Inventory. Hogan, of Hogan Assessment Systems, credits Holland's "brilliant sense of humor, his originality, his incredible work ethic and productivity, and his high standards of quality for psychometrics and applied research" as having a profound influence on his career.
Hogan was the first psychologist to demonstrate the link between personality and organizational effectiveness. Driven by a desire to be the premier personality psychologist of his generation, Hogan and his wife Joyce founded Hogan Assessment Systems in 1987. Since then, the company has pioneered the use of personality assessment to improve workplace performance.
With his gift to APF, Hogan "hopes new generations of students will pay attention to John Holland's contribution to the study of careers" and will continue on his important legacy.
The Dr. W. Bruce and Jane Walsh Fund in Memory of John L. Holland supports research on how personality, culture and environment influence work behavior and health. Find more information online.
Graduate students combat mental illness stigma with Franks Scholarship
APF has presented the $5,000 Violet and Cyril Franks Scholarship to Ian Stanley and Melanie Hom, clinical psychology graduate students at Florida State University (FSU). The scholarship will fund their research project, "Modifying Help-Seeking Stigma: Development and Prospective Evaluation of a Novel Cognitive Bias Modification Intervention."
The project is looking at how to reduce help-seeking stigma among both suicidal and nonsuicidal individuals who are suffering from mental illness. With the scholarship, Stanley and Hom are conducting a pilot study to develop a transdiagnostic, computer-based intervention for modifying stigma about help-seeking.
Stanley and Hom work under the mentorship of Thomas Joiner, PhD, in the Laboratory for the Study and Prevention of Suicide-Related Conditions and Behaviors at FSU.
The APF Violet and Cyril Franks Scholarship supports graduate-level scholarly projects that use a psychological perspective to help understand and reduce stigma associated with mental illness. Get more information about the Franks Scholarship.
Examining psychopathy from a neurobiological standpoint
APF has presented the $2,000 F.J. McGuigan Dissertation Award to Rachel Bencic Hamilton, a fifth-year clinical psychology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Bencic Hamilton will use the prize to complete her dissertation research, which aims to specify and test a novel theoretical perspective of psychopathy that bridges the gap between existing affective and attentional models. Ultimately, her aim is to better characterize the nature of cognitive processes in psychopathic individuals.
Specifically, Bencic Hamilton will examine the factors underlying cognitive deficits in psychopathic individuals, such as abnormalities in attention and information processing, and how they are expressed in the brain and physiologically.
The F.J. McGuigan Dissertation Award supports research that addresses any aspect of mental function (such as cognition, affect or motivation) and seeks to understand the mind from both a behavioral and neural perspective. More information about the McGuigan Award is available online.
Helping children with serious emotional disturbance
APF has presented two John and Polly Sparks Early Career Grants to early career psychologists working to help children with serious emotional disturbance (SED).
Catherine DeCarlo Santiago, PhD, an assistant professor in clinical psychology at Loyola University– Chicago, won $17,000 to continue her evaluation of a school-based intervention for elementary students with elevated PTSD symptoms. She will also be examining the challenges experienced by school-based providers participating in the effectiveness trial.
Brendan Andrade, PhD, of the University of Toronto, won $10,000 to improve treatment methods for children with disruptive behavior disorders and SED. He will also use the grant funds to study how changes in brain function are associated with treatment outcomes through a randomized clinical trial that will compare the efficacy of current evidence-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to novel emotion-enhanced CBT.
The John and Polly Sparks Early Career Grant supports early career psychologists conducting research on early intervention and treatment for serious emotional disturbance in children. See more information on the Sparks Grant.
Grantee Spotlight: Understanding stigma for disabilities
In 2013, Jessica Esposito, a graduate student at Teachers College at Columbia University, received the $10,000 APF Scott and Paul Pearsall Scholarship, which supports work to increase the public's understanding of the psychological pain and stigma experienced by adults who live with physical disabilities.
Specifically, Esposito looked at how stigma and the decision to conceal one's illness affected life satisfaction among people with multiple sclerosis (MS). She found that strengthening people's social support networks and helping individuals with MS understand stigma and discrimination reduced their psychological distress. Her results also demonstrated that disclosing one's illness can help improve life satisfaction and decrease distress after experiences of discrimination.
Esposito hopes her research will not only help people with MS, but also help health professionals integrate mental health treatment and medical treatment for this population.
Esposito says the Scott and Paul Pearsall Scholarship was a true honor. "Receiving this scholarship opened the opportunity for me to focus on my research, distribute the results to the public through publication and mainstream outlets, but most of all, it validated the importance of increasing awareness for individuals with chronic illnesses," she says.
