Sam McFarland: “I am sincerely honored by this nomination and will delight in the service if elected. Our common ISPP task is to promote excellent and useful scholarship in political psychology; the president’s role is to help strengthen our framework for doing so. Beyond the prescribed duties, the president needs to offer a few ideas, solicit many, and help bring focus to our needs and opportunities. Goal-wise, I will only mention that I want to expand opportunities for third-world scholars to participate in ISPP and to help ISPP function effectively.

"Regarding myself, I have taught psychology at Western Kentucky University since 1971 and human rights since 1991. My recent work includes (with coauthors) Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary People (palgrave/macmmillan, 2007) and “Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty?,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2007). “Religion and Authoritarianism” awaits publication in the forthcoming Handbook of the Psychology of Religion (Oxford University Press). This year I hope to complete two ongoing research projects and a book of short biographies on 20 forgotten persons who made major contributions to human rights law. Earlier work (on human rights, the combined effects of authoritarianism and social dominance, Russian authoritarianism, the Implicit Association Test, etc.) is listed on my website, http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/~smcfar/.

"I have served ISPP for two terms on the Governing Council, as Program Chair, as chair of several committees (Nominating Committee, Erikson Award Committee, a constitutional review committee in 1996, and others), and as a member of many other committees.

"For many years, ISPP has helped sharpen my intellectual focus and offered enduring friendships. For both reasons, I will look forward to serving you in yet another way.”