Harold Lasswell Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Political Psychology
James Gibson, Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. James Gibson has made path-breaking influential contributions in a wide range of areas of relevance to political psychology, including Institutional legitimacy, intergroup relations and conflict, truth and reconciliation, political tolerance, and social identity theory. With precise and in-depth analyses, his work has found broad recognition on an international scale. He is among the most highly cited political psychologists in the world. For example, a 2018 study in the American Political Science Association's journal PS ranked him as the top political scientist in the U.S. on both the number of scholarly articles published in top prestigious publications and the scholarly impact of that work. As an example his "Overcoming Trilogy" —a set of three political psychology books addressing various aspects of South Africa’s transition from apartheid— represents a broad, coherent, and cumulative explication, with the first book focusing on the problem of political intolerance, the second on reconciliation, and the third on historical injustices. His work on institutional legitimacy, African-Americans and the U.S. legal system, and multiple other topics puts him among the top scholars of political psychology in the world.

Nevitt Sanford Award for Outstanding Professional Contributions to Political Psychology
Michał Bilewicz, University of Warsaw

Dr. Michał Bilewicz has been extraordinarily engaged in creating knowledge about the general application of psychological principles to intergroup relations and reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide and mass atrocities. With great theoretical and methodological rigor, his research on post-genocide reconciliation in the context of Turkish-Armenian, Polish-German, Polish-Jewish, Jewish-German, and Bosniak-Serb relations has produced knowledge that can be used to help restore positive intergroup relations between conflicted groups. Together with Sabina Čehajić-Clancy, he developed the concept of reconciliation based on moral exemplars. He has applied these principles to Poland in the context of Poland's increasingly nationalistic and restrictive views, creating the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw, a leading center for research on intergroup relations and for monitoring human rights in Eastern Europe. He not only has an impressive record of scholarship, but he has brought political psychology into the public sphere in an increasingly authoritarian society, with great courage and resolve and at significant personal risk.

David O. Sears Best Book on Mass Politics Award
Nathan P. Kalmoe, Louisiana State University, USA for With Ballots and Bullets

We may be tempted to believe in the uniqueness of our own time. With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War eschews this tendency and shows how contemporary partisan divisions have evolved from past partisan warfare. Kalmoe, by using our current knowledge about the dynamics of partisanship and public opinion, explains what happened during the bloody years of the American Civil War. The book has been enriched with analyses using extensive, original data from the analysis of 1860s newspapers to county-level election results. With Ballots and Bullets is more than a book examining the Civil War with modern weapons of political psychology; it is also an inspiring exemplar for scholars interested in conducting comparative analyses.

Lafleur Stephens-Dougan, Princeton University, USA for Race to the Bottom

Issues of inequality and race have been “front and center” in American politics, as Black communities face devastating health and economic outcomes during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as ongoing police brutality and need for criminal justice reform. This well timed book Race to the Bottom: How Racial Appeals Work in American Politics uses creative theoretical and methodological approaches to advance the study of race in American public opinion. Stephens-Dougan develops a theory of “racial distancing,” which is how political leaders use negative racial messaging to convince voters that the racial status quo will remain intact. Race to the Bottom illuminates these racialized communication strategies used by both the political right and left, their electoral benefits, and their concerning implications for American race relations.

Juliette and Alexander L. George Outstanding Political Psychology Book Award
Meghan Condon, Loyola University Chicago, USA and Amber Wichowsky, Amber Wichowsky, Marquette University, USA for The Economic Other

Given economic disparities are challenging many countries, the study of social comparison and its impact could not be more important and timely. The Economic Other: Inequality in the American Political Imagination is a fascinating analysis of the psychology of inequality and its influence on American public opinion. Using innovative survey experiments, Condon and Wichowsky analyze how citizens engage in cross-class comparisons and explore their relevance for redistributive action and support for relevant public policies. Even though the book’s data are collected in the United States, theoretical insights are applicable well beyond the American context and make invaluable contributions to the political psychology subfield.

Steven W. Webster, , Indiana University, USA for American Rage

American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics is an excellent example of how putting emotions back in the analysis of political behavior may help us to understand the complexities of today’s political landscape. Webster emphasizes “negative partisanship” and anger as a fundamental emotion that helps us to interpret the world in which we live. The theoretical relationships between anger and democratic values are analyzed in detail and supported with the novel empirical data. The book deserves special attention, especially in the post-pandemic world as democracies face serious threats everywhere and the number of authoritarian regimes increases day by day. The rage may not be unique to the American voter, and it may be another common element of various polities.

Jim Sidanius Early Career Award
Mark Brandt, Michigan State University, USA

Dr. Mark Brandt has been an amazingly productive scholar in the eight years since earning his Ph.D. His work is methodologically flexible and adept and he is intellectually curious and productive, becoming a top political psychologist of his generation. His work has been consequential and is highly cited, and his interests and contributions have been broad and theoretically important. Dr. Brandt's most recent work on belief system networks tries to change how we study belief systems by focusing on the idea that belief systems are interconnections of attitudes and identities that can be modeled (e.g., with network analyses). His initial work on this idea has shown that political identities are central to belief systems, that belief systems can be replicable, and that conservatives' moral belief systems are more tightly integrated than liberals' moral belief systems. He has recently turned to simulations of individuals' belief systems to test whether his model of belief system networks can account for existing phenomena in the literature, with considerable success. In sum, he has offered impressive and "fresh" contributions to the advancement of studies in core areas of political psychology, such as the psychological roots of ideology, moral reasoning, and their relationships with intergroup conflict and prejudice.

Nour Kteily, Northwestern University, USA

Dr. Nour Kteily is immensely productive, and his elegant program of research in political psychology is theoretically ambitious, methodologically innovative, and topically important. He has an exceptional record of high impact publications. His research contributions on dehumanization and related processes and behaviors constitute an important advance in studies on interpersonal and intergroup perception, on conflicts deriving from them, and on conflict resolution. For example, he created a direct measure of blatant dehumanization, leveraging the "Ascent of Man" image, which begins with an ape-like figure and with each successive figure becoming more physically and culturally evolved. Using this scale cross-nationally, Dr. Kteily found that individuals reliably rated outgroup members as less human than their own group. For the field of intergroup relations, this was a watershed study because it challenged the prevailing view that people in contemporary societies are unwilling to express blatant dehumanization. Dr. Kteily then introduced a new concept: meta-dehumanization, which occurs when one believes that another group holds dehumanizing attitudes about one’s group. He found that being perceived as less than human by an outgroup leads to reciprocal dehumanization, creating a vicious cycle.

John L. Sullivan Mentorship Award
Kristin Monroe, University of California – Irvine, USA

Dr. Kristin Monroe has made an indelible mark on the many students she has intensely mentored at the University of California, Irvine in both Political Science and the Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, which she founded in 2003. Six of her mentees, including graduate students, post-doctoral students and junior faculty, note that she has exhibited "outstanding commitment and exceptional academic passion in creating a scholarly community and … providing that community with space, her time and outside financial support so that those engaged in advancing research in political psychology… could flourish." She has also mentored undergraduates and even high school students through the Center's Summer Internship Program. Her students cite Dr. Monroe's generosity and the care and respect she shows for her students, noting that her faith, compassion and support facilitated their self-confidence, contributing both directly and indirectly to their career trajectory and successes. One interns notes that she "embodies what she teaches: altruism" and "her passion to foster moral courage and altruism has come to cultivate a strong sense of empathy in me that I never experienced before." She continues to serve as close colleague and ex-mentor for many of them throughout their careers.

David Sears, University of California – Los Angeles, USA

Dr. David Sears has, for almost sixty years, been an incredibly successful mentor of many generations of renowned scholars of political psychology. His students populate universities around the world, extending his research and creating their own path-breaking agendas. Over the decades, he has co-authored voluminous highly cited and influential works with many of his students, continuing to this day. His incredible ability to blend psychology and political science (long before other scholars were able to master both disciplines) made him a seminal scholar in the field and it also helped him become an amazingly successful mentor. His "academic dynasty" is one of the most significant in the field of political psychology. Former students emphasize his "passion for the intellectual fusion of psychology and political science" and his emphasis not only on theory but also on real world problems. They note his unique ability to hold and maintain very high standards. Dr. Sears was able to astutely identify flaws in students' work but he always offered suggestions and solutions while never losing sight of his students' individual strengths, and he ensured that they felt heard and valued. He has demonstrated the ability to mentor his students with patience, trust, and kindness.

Best Dissertation Award
Kirill Zhirkov, University of Virginia, USA
Immigration in Our Heads: The Political Relevance of Mental Schemas about Immigrants

Kirill Zhirkov is an Assistant Professor (General Faculty) in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. He studies political psychology and public opinion, mainly in the United States but also in Europe. Kirill's core research interests are in how people perceive the social world and how these perceptions affect political preferences and behaviors. He is also deeply interested in political methodology with particular emphasis on the measurement of politically relevant beliefs and attitudes beyond standard survey self-reports. Kirill's research has been published in Political Analysis, the Journal of Politics, and Public Opinion Quarterly, among others. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and an MA in Statistics from the University of Michigan. At the time the award was made, Kirill was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the LAPOP Lab at Vanderbilt University.

In his dissertation, Kirill has explored mass stereotypes about immigrants and public attitudes toward immigration. Using original survey studies on citizens in the United States and Britain, he has described stereotypes about the immigrant populations among the American and British public and demonstrated that these stereotypes are consequential for immigration policy opinions. To deal with social desirability concerns, Kirill has designed two novel indirect measures of stereotypes based respectively on implicit association tests and conjoint experiments.

Léïla Eisner, Queensland University, Australia & University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Social Change and Perceived Social Norms: An Application to Sexual Minorities in Switzerland

Dr. Léïla Eisner is a political psychologist who works on assessing the dynamic interplay between the legal situation, norm perception, and individuals’ health. During her Ph.D., she collected data from a representative sample in Switzerland to investigate attitudes toward gender and LGBTIQ+ issues, initiated a large-scale longitudinal panel following over 3’000 individuals over time (www.swiss-lgbtiq-panel.ch), and conducted natural experiments capitalizing on changes in the legal situation. In her most recent work, she investigates the impact of democratic outcomes on norm perceptions and the well-being of minority populations. Finally, she believes in bridging the gap between academia and the community. Therefore, she strives towards the diffusion of research findings among the public.

Roberta Sigel Best Conference Paper by Early Career Member Award 1
Hui Bai, University of Minnesota, USA
"When Racism and Sexism Benefit Black and Female Politicians: Politicians’ Ideology Moderates Prejudice’s Effect More Than Politicians’ Demographic Background"

Max Bai is a post-doctoral scholar in the Polarization and Social Change Lab as part of the Stanford Impact Labs. He received his social psychology PhD from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities with a minor in political psychology. He studies race, politics, and controversial issues that emerged from social progress in general. The abstract with citation for the paper that was the basis of his award is below:

Bai, H. (2021). When racism and sexism benefit Black and female politicians: Politicians’ ideology moderates prejudice’s effect more than politicians’ demographic background. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1480–1520. CLICK HERE.

Roberta Sigel Best Conference Paper by Early Career Member Award 2 (for best paper with an Early Career Scholar as lead author)
Ryan Shandler, University of Haifa, Israel (with Michael L. Gross, Sophia Backhaus, Daphna Canetti)
“CYBER TERRORISM AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR RETALIATION: A Multi-Country Survey Experiment”

Narrative from the committee TBD

Noel Markwell Media Award
Amnon Abramovich, Israel

Mr. Amnon Abramovich, an Israeli publicist, journalist, and political analyst and commentator of Channel 12 (Israel's most watched commercial TV channel), is the recipient of the Award for this year.

During a long period of time, of more than 40 years in the print and broadcast media in Israel, Abramovich's myriad contributions in covering and analyzing issues that are at the core of the ISPP made him the clear choice for the Award. These issues include the socio-cultural elements affecting the working of the government, government ministries, and officials; the roles and activities of political leaders, including their psychological motivations in seeking and keeping positions of power and their communication style; government officials' use (and abuse) of power in regard to human rights and the democratic process; corruption and fraudulent conduct of power holders including prime ministers and the president of Israel; public opinion and voting attitudes; and media-politics relationship. By reporting and interpreting related news items and subjects during more than four decades in various media channels, Abramovich's journalistic contribution is of a different magnitude. He is a particularly noteworthy and relevant figure in the Israeli media landscape, who have increased public awareness to almost every aspects of political behavior and attitudes at the individual and the collective level in Israel: domestic and foreign policy making; leadership motivation, function, and their rhetorical strategies; individual rights, equality, and freedom of expression; public opinion and choice; and voting behavior, social movement and protest, and other collective action--all which are at the center of political psychology.

At a time of "fake news" Abramovich was able to provide important, accurate, responsible, and fearless journalistic work, often affecting public opinion and the political agenda in Israel. Through his revelations of numerous political misconducts and bribery cases of political leaders, including prime ministers, and his critical stances over policy decision-making and issues vis-à-vis power holders and the government, he has been a thorn in the side of Israeli politicians for many years.

At the same time Abramovich is also a symbol of a journalist who withstands political and psychological pressure (one of the criteria for the Award). Abramovich has come in the last few years under verbal attacks and threats to his life. The pressure from politicians and public figures, to whom he has been exposed for about forty years, along with numerous cases of personal attacks, including aggressive, abusive, intimidating, threatening discourse of physical harm, and threat to his life, which is also expressed in the attacks in places he attended and demanded a police rescue, also indicate he is an appropriate candidate for the ISPP Noel Markwell Media Award.

Presidential Scholarship in Criminal Justice (Special Award given in 2021)
Tyler Jimenez, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA

The award committee was excited by Jimenez’s proposal for its groundbreaking nature on a topic rarely studied in political psychology- the causes and consequences of police militarization on college campuses- with a large number of papers that might emerge from the work he is proposing.

The committee recommended Jimenez’s proposal for a number of reasons. First, the puzzle is important: Evidence suggests racial prejudice is an important factor driving police militarization across the country. If so, why are minority-serving institutions of higher education participating in the 1033 program at such rates given the fraught history of racial injustice they were founded to address?

Second, methodologically speaking, we were impressed by the development of an original scale to measure support for police militarization in his previous work, and we believe this scale might be of use to other scholars studying the same and related phenomena. We were enthusiastic about supporting a multi-method approach to policing and criminal justice institutions in general. In this project, semi-structured interviews as part of an initial wave of data gathering would work to put the voices and experiences of students of color at HBCUs at the center of the research agenda.

Third, we appreciated the breadth of the proposed sampling procedure drawing on HBCUs, especially the Hispanic Serving and Tribal institutions Jimenez is focusing on. This project also fits well with the theme of the 2021 ISPP conference, which was to be held in Montreal before being rescheduled to the virtual format due to the global pandemic. Incorporating work on the political psychology of First Nations is exciting to us, as it potentially breaks new ground, broadening the reach of our organization to new scholars and new scholarship.

Finally, the grant awarded has the potential to seed a larger research agenda on police militarization and minority students. The proposed survey, following as it does on the initial descriptive and hypothesis-generating work from the in-depth interviews, would allow for a more systematic understanding of the issue and could encourage other scholars to focus more on police militarization, in general, and on minority-led institutions (educational, political, religious, etc.). It honors a commitment of ISPP to catalyze research by and about young scholars of color.