The foundation will sponsor invited addresses and symposia featuring prominent psychologists.
Print version: page 68

The American Psychological Foundation (APF) will sponsor a variety of programming at APA's Annual Convention, including a pre-conference workshop for up-and-coming research scholars, invited addresses by prominent researchers and practitioners and symposia on cross-cutting research in emotion, motivation and personality and optimizing performance in gifted children.

Here's a preview:

What's new in research

The ninth annual Charles D. Spielberger Symposium on Emotion, Motivation and Personality, to be held on Friday, July 30, at 10 a.m., will explore current research in these three areas and how they intersect. Charles D. Spielberger, PhD, a former president of APA, will chair the symposium.

The speakers and their talks are:

* Robert B. Zajonc, PhD, Stanford University, "Preferences."

* Annette La Greca, PhD, University of Miami, "Children and trauma: reactions and resilience."

The Esther Katz Rosen Symposium, "Perspectives on giftedness: voices from the divisions," on Saturday, July 31 at 11 a.m., will feature a discussion with representatives from five APA divisions on optimal performance of gifted children at home, in school and in the psychologist's office. Divs. 7 (Developmental), 10 (Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts), 15 (Educational), 16 (School) and 53 (Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology) will be represented at the session, which will offer continuing-education credit and be chaired by Rena Subotnik, PhD, director of the APF-funded Center for Gifted Education Policy.

Professional development for student scholars

The Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Pre-convention Workshop in Child Psychology will be held Tuesday, July 27, for graduate students who have won 2003 and 2004 grants or travel awards through APF's Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Child Psychology Graduate Fellowship Program. The program awards three grants of $20,000 to up-and-coming graduate students researching child psychology and five $4,000 graduate student travel awards.

Each of the three 2003 grant winners will present a talk on their research at the workshop, chaired by APF Trustee Camilla Benbow, EdD, of Vanderbilt University. Koppitz winners will also have the opportunity to meet and discuss their research with prominent child-development researchers.

In addition, child-development expert Sandra Scarr, PhD, will speak about her career in child psychology. Scarr is professor of psychology emerita at the University of Virginia and spent nine years on the Board of Directors of KinderCare Learning Centers, the nation's largest child-care company.

Distinguished speakers

This year's eight APF-sponsored speakers will address issues ranging from teaching pitfalls to race, to clinical neuropsychology assessment.

* Div. 5 (Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics) President Paul T. Costa, PhD, will present the Arthur W. Staats Lecture on the Unification of Psychology on Friday, July 30, at 10 a.m. For more than 20 years, Costa has headed the Personality and Cognition Laboratory of the National Institute on Aging. He is best known for his Five-Factor Model of personality assessment, which has influenced social psychology, health psychology, psychopathology, organizational behavior and developmental psychology. The lecture is co-sponsored by APA's Div. 1 (Society of General Psychology).

* Kennesaw University psychology professor G. William Hill IV, PhD, will present "Pitfalls and pratfalls: avoiding common mistakes in the classroom" for the 2004 Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award address on Saturday, July 31, at 11 a.m. Hill is a founder of the Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology and a former president of APA Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology). He revived the division's long-term planning group and established its popular Psychteacher listserv. He directs the Kennesaw State Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

* Longtime race-relations researcher James S. Jackson, PhD, will speak on "Race, social science and public policy: exploring the intersections" for the William Bevan Lecture on Psychology and Public Policy on Saturday, July 31, at 11 a.m. Jackson directs the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research as well as the university's Center for Afro-American and African Studies. In 1999, the National Institute of Mental Health awarded his research team more than $8 million to document the physical, emotional, mental and economic conditions of African Americans at the beginning of the 21st century.

* Clinical neuropsychologist Edith Kaplan, PhD, will discuss "Clinical neuropsychology assessment: an evolutionary perspective" for the Arthur Benton Lecture on Clinical Neuropsychology on Friday, July 30, at 10 a.m. Kaplan, a professor of psychology at Suffolk University and former president of Div. 40 (Clinical Neuropsychology), is known for developing the "process approach" to neuropsychological assessment. Kaplan is also a former president of the International Neuropsychology Society and an adjunct professor of neurology and psychiatry in the behavioral neuroscience program at the Boston University School of Medicine.

* University of Arizona psychologist Peter Killeen, PhD, will discuss "Greek mind, geek mind: chaos, complementarity and consciousness" for the Frank J. McGuigan Lecture on Understanding the Human Mind on July 30 at 11 a.m. Killeen is a professor of behavioral systems in the psychology department at the University of Arizona whose research interests include mathematical models of discrimination, instrumental responding and timing. He is developing a dynamic systems model of behavior and its motivation as well as a general theory of perceptual relativity.

* University of Iowa psychologist David F. Lohman, PhD, will discuss "Identifying academically gifted children: an aptitude perspective" for the Esther Katz Rosen Lecture on Gifted Children on Saturday, July 31, at 10 a.m. Lohman is a past winner of the State of Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence and has written extensively on the implications of cognitive theories of ability constructs for the measurement of academic aptitudes--particularly reasoning abilities--and for efforts to adapt instruction to the needs of learners. He has contributed to national debates on the role of reasoning tests, such as the SAT, in the admission of minority students to college and the implications of aptitude theory in the identification of academically gifted children.

* Wesleyan University professor of psychology Scott Plous, PhD, will discuss "Beyond the headlines: what psychological research tells us about terrorism" for the Lynn Stuart Weiss Lecture on the Psychological Study of Social Issues on Friday, July 30, at 10 a.m. Plous oversees several Web sites on psychology and prejudice, including the Social Psychology Network (www.socialpsychology.org), Understanding Prejudice (www.understandingprejudice.org), the Stanford Prison Experiment (www.prisonexp.org) and the Jigsaw Classroom (www.jigsaw.org).

* Nancy McWilliams, PhD, will discuss "Preserving our humanity as therapists" for the Rosalee G. Weiss Lecture on July 31 at 10 a.m. McWilliams is a psychology professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and maintains a private practice in Flemington, N.J. She also teaches at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey, the National Training Program in Contemporary Psychotherapy, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and the Minnesota Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies.Y

--COMPILED BY APF STAFF