Placek grants aim to increase understanding of homosexuality
and reduce prejudice
The American Psychological Foundation (APF) has announced the recipients of the 2000 Wayne F. Placek Research Grants. The Placek Fund supports research designed to increase public understanding of gay men and lesbians and to reduce the prejudice they experience.
The 2000 Placek Scientific Review Committee recommended the following investigators for approval by the APF Board of Trustees for their outstanding research proposals:
Research grants
• Douglas W. Creed, PhD, received $35,000 for his proposed study, "Cut from the same cloth? The workplace and career expectations of gay and lesbian ministers," which will examine how various institutional, political and organizational factors affect the ways in which gay and lesbian ministers enact and strategically create their identities--and the ways in which they pursue greater inclusion for themselves and other gay men and lesbians--in several mainline Protestant denominations.
Creed, an assistant professor in the department of organization studies at Boston College, is a former commercial banker with a doctorate in organizational behavior and industrial relations,
and a master's degree in religion from the Yale Divinity School.
• Sharon S. Rostosky, PhD, received $35,000, for her proposed study "Gay and lesbian couples: negotiating relationship values in young adulthood." After receiving her doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1998, Rostosky initiated a research program examining gender, sexuality and romantic relationships in adolescence and young adulthood.
"My goal is to construct a richer, more complex portrait of the individual, interpersonal and sociopolitical contexts in which same-sex couples negotiate their relationships," explains Rostosky,
who is currently a practicing counseling psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Kentucky.
• Stephen T. Russell, PhD, was awarded $16,000 for his proposal, "Adolescent sexual orientation, risk and resilience." Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as a starting point, Russell will consider two risk factors associated with adolescent sexual orientation: substance abuse and suicidality. He will focus on why many youths with same-sex sexual orientations negotiate adolescence without experiencing significant risks in their lives and look for explanations of risk and protective
factors.
Russell received his PhD in sociology from Duke University, and is
currently a youth development extension specialist at the University of California, Davis.
• Nilanjana Dasgupta, PhD, received $6,000 for the project, "Implicit and explicit sexual prejudice: Examining behavioral correlates and testing a prejudice reduction intervention."
"I have been investigating subtle but widespread expressions of prejudice and stereotyping toward different racial and ethnic groups and toward women and the elderly and exploring the ways in which such beliefs and attitudes influence social behavior," says Dasgupta. With the grant's funding she will extend this line of
research to the domain of implicit sexual prejudice toward lesbians and gay men. Dasgupta, assistant professor in social psychology at the New School University in New York, received her PhD in social psychology from Yale University.
Investigator development grants
• Evelyn Blackwood, PhD, will receive $5,000 in seed money for her proposal, "Cultural negotiation of gender identities: tomboys and femmes in West Sumatra, Indonesia," a study of the ways gender and sexual identities are produced and situated culturally. Blackwood, an associate professor in anthropology and women's studies at Purdue University, describes it as "an investigation of the production and transformation of gender and sexual identities over time for women of one ethnic group in Indonesia."
This anthropological approach focuses on lesbian subjectivity and how women negotiate among local, religious, national and transnational narratives of gender and sexuality. Blackwood will employ classic participant observation ethnography by collecting interviews, life stories and demographic and related background material.
• Peter J. Hegarty, PhD, was recognized for his proposal, "Gender essentialism and sexual orientation," with $3,000 in development money to build on his earlier research examining stereotypes of lesbians and gay men.
"While previous research has assumed that gender schemata or gender roles are the basis of these stereotypes," Hegarty explains, "in the Placek-funded research I will be asking whether seemingly basic meanings of gender-related terms are based on heterosexist foundations."
Specifically, he will examine how the construction of lesbians and gay men as "gender inverted" or "gender nonconforming" shapes normative definitions of masculinity, femininity and gender. Hegarty, who holds a PhD in psychology from Stanford University, is an assistant professor at the College of Staten Island of The City University of New York.
Information regarding both major categories of Placek grants can be obtained from the APF office at (202) 336-5814 or foundation@
apa.org. In the 2001 grant cycle, the Fund will continue support for two large research grants of up to $40,000 each, as well as several small research grants of up to $5,000 each.
Apply for neuropsychology grants
The American Psychological Foundation and Div. 40 (Clinical Neuropsychology) are accepting applications for the Henry Hécaen and Manfred Meier Neuropsychology scholarships. Both annual scholarships are one-year, $2,500 grants. The scholarships seek two graduate students whose scholarly or research graduate activities in neuropsychology show great promise or achievement.
To apply, students should submit a letter that documents their scholarly or research accomplishments and explains their need for this financial award and how it will be used. The letter should be co-signed by their faculty mentor or director of training to certify its accuracy. Send seven copies of the letter and any supporting materials to Hécaen and Meier Scholarships, American Psychological Foundation, at the APA address. All applications must be received by June 1.
Both scholarships are made possible through major gifts from Arthur Benton, PhD, in honor of two esteemed neuropsychology colleagues.
