I hope this finds all of you well in the opening months of 2025. Both in the year that just ended and the new one we have just begun, a new and increasingly challenging global political climate has emerged. Economic conditions remain uncertain, even as it feels like we have only begun to emerge from the dislocations generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate change and the extreme weather events that have become more frequent have affected lives across globe, and numerous violent conflicts continue to uproot lives and polities. With respect to the latter, I think in particular of the devastating havoc wreaked upon the population of Gaza, along with the unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel that preceded it. I also think of the ongoing war in Ukraine that has resulted from Russia’s invasion of the former. Alongside these grave situations, we must not forget other bloody conflicts that have received less attention, such as those in Sudan and Congo. Collectively, ISPP condemns the senseless violence that these conflicts and many others have brought about, and we express our concern for the wellbeing of our associates and their families who have been affected by them. ISPP, in line with its values, champions continued dialogue and political action devoted to furthering justice, peace, and security. In addition, new threats to democracy and civil liberties have emerged. Autocratic regimes around the globe continue to unsettle lives, including the lives of our academic colleagues. With the 2024 U.S. presidential election result, democratic insecurity has now extended itself to the United States, with consequences that are likely to reverberate not only for Americans but human beings around the world. As always, the leadership of ISPP asks members to extend support to our colleagues and associates in political psychology who have been affected by these developments through the Scholars Under Threat (SUT) program, which we encourage you to donate to: https://ispp.eventsair.com/ispp-members/donmod/Site/Register.
The fractious state of global politics and the urgency of all these crises make political psychology all the moral relevant. Our forthcoming meeting in Prague, focused on “Social Identity, Political Conflict, and the Future of Democracy,” will highlight many issues relevant to events that concern us as both local and global citizens. In this year’s meeting, we are interested in ideas, theories, and current research on political and psychological processes that address the interplay between different types of identity and the consequences of such interplay for democratic values and practice, with an eye to how we might protect robust, socially diverse democratic societies that have come under strain amid conflict and the rise of autocratic leaders. Political psychology is uniquely situated to address the nexus between identity, political conflict, and the future of democracy. I welcome you to join us in Prague on 3-6 July 2025 for this event.
The 2025 conference chairs, Christina Farhart, Xiaowen Xu, and Andrea de Angelis have worked diligently to assemble an engaging and timely program. We received an enormous number of submissions (1015 across all formats). The chairs accepted 920 papers and they are planning for a conference with approximately 170 sessions. The conference will also feature engaging keynote addresses from two distinguished scholars from our Central European destination region: Dr. Anna Kende of Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) and Dr. Martina Klicperova of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic). We are also planning three special-interest panels: the first will be a memorial to Dr. James Liu, the second will honor Dr. David Sears on his 90th birthday (inspired by a chapter he wrote with reflections on political psychology from past presidents), and the third will be focused on political issues relevant to the Czech Republic. We will also offer two topical roundtables: focused on engagement with Palestinian scholars and their communities, and on the forthcoming Handbook of Innovations in Political Psychology edited by Christopher Karpowitz, Cara Wong, and Ethan Busby. Registration for the conference is now open, and we remind all those whose presentations are accepted to register before the presenter deadline of 6 April 2025. Gracious thanks are due to Dr. Farhart, Dr. Xu, and Dr. de Angelis for all of their organizational work, as well as the diligent work of the section chairs who evaluated the submissions to each section.
We also look forward to welcoming our ISPP Academy Fellows to the 2025 ISPP Academy, which will be organized by Academy Director Dr. Gizem Arikan in her last turn as director before handing on the reins to a new director for 2026.
Finally, I would like to thank the members of the ISPP Governing Council for their continued service, particularly during the mid-winter meeting that took place virtually in January. We were able to work through and efficiently deal with a plethora of issues, including the management of our budget, the scheduling of future conferences, and review of the work of numerous ISPP committees. The work of the Society could not occur without their investment of time and effort, along with the work done by Executive Director Sev Bennett and Executive Assistant Minnie Chappell in the Central Office.
I am looking forward to welcoming everyone to our annual meeting in Prague this coming July, and I offer my best wishes to all of you as we make our way through 2025.
Our 2026 Annual Meeting will be held at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom on July 16-19.
If you are interested in hosting a future conference of ISPP, please contact the Central Office to obtain the necessary guidelines and materials.
Call for the Twinning Program
Call for the Twinning Program in English [see below for the call in Arabic, French, Spanish and Turkish]
We are happy to announce that we are still accepting applications for our New Twinning Program among Scholars under Threat (ISPP members who lost their academic positions or their income in direct connection with political persecution and/or to members who have been displaced as a result of political persecution). The New Twinning Program has been set up with the aim of facilitating scholarly collaborations between threatened political psychologists and program partners. These collaborations can offer the opportunity for threatened scholars to continue their academic activities, maintain and advance their careers, and integrate into international political psychology; furthermore, partners can engage in political advocacy on behalf of threatened scholar. We are grateful to the 24 scholars who have already expressed their interest to work together with a scholar under threat as partners. We would kindly like to ask our members to reach out to those scholars within their networks around the world who may benefit from participating.
You can find more information about the Twinning Program here.
ISPP is committed to protecting its members whose academic freedom is at risk anywhere in the world due to the political context where they work or live. ISPP's Scholars Under Threat (SUT) Committee has been working to support ISPP's members at risk. Academic freedom as it relates to both research and teaching is absolutely essential for the advancement of scientific knowledge. The SUT can support academics by providing free membership to ISPP, access to emergency funds for scholars under threat to continue their livelihoods, and access to the ISPP twinning scheme for academics who wish to have mentorship or support from colleagues in less risky contexts. If you or someone you know has had their academic freedom put at risk and feel that you would benefit from ISPP support, please contact us.
Call for abstracts – Political Psychology Special Section
ISPP’s flagship journal, Political Psychology, is issuing a call for submissions for an upcoming special section on empathy and perspective-taking in national security, human security, and conflict settings.
Political Psychology advanced early work on empathy in security, strategy, and policymaking in which published a series of articles by Ralph K. White on “realistic empathy” (White, 1983; 1990; 1991). He defined realistic empathy as understanding how the world looks through another actor’s eyes. Rather than feeling sympathy for another’s plight, realistic empathy entails cognitively understanding another’s perspective without judgment (White, 1967). From his initial conception, the notion of realistic empathy was interdisciplinary, putting psychological processes in strategic and international context. This special section aims to expand upon this past research in Political Psychology and continue the tradition of integrating academic disciplines to inform a richer and more nuanced understanding of our contemporary context.
Empathy in security contexts raises questions around conceptual definitions, theoretical implications, and ethical considerations. We are therefore looking for contributions that advance our understanding of the concept, and its limitations in these contexts. Furthermore, as a lot of work on empathy in strategy has focused on an American perspective, this special section aims to highlight what the concept means in an international context and seeks contributions that will examine the diverse applications of empathy and perspective taking in security and strategy. To this end, it seeks theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions from political science, psychology, international relations, and related fields that offer original case studies from around the world.
Potential research questions that this special section might address include:
What are the limits and tensions of empathy in strategy and security settings?
How can strategic empathy be inculcated across and within security organizations and strategic thinking?
Where and how has strategic empathy contributed to reducing insecurity or enhancing engagement with adversaries?
On the other side, how is strategic empathy experienced by adversaries?
How might historical empathy inform contemporary strategy and security thinking?
These are just indicative questions, rather than an exhaustive list. We are especially keen to see a range of regional and national case studies and perspectives from diverse disciplines.
The timeline for this special section will be: Submission of proposals (a short abstract/ summary): May 2025; Decisions made in consultation with the journal’s editorial team, and confirmation to selected authors: June 2025; First draft submission: November 2025; Reviews and decisions by editors: Jan 2026; Second review and final decisions: April 2026.
Submission deadline: May 2025 | More informationCall for participation
Dear psychologists,
We are collecting data from psychologists all around the world to understand whether psychology researchers develop and use strategies to make research more participatory, what practices they may implement, and how this is decided upon. The survey, which does not take more than 10-15 minutes, includes some open-ended questions about your past experiences (if any) with participatory research practices at different points in the research process. This will include questions about the strategies you have/wish to use(d) and the participants that you have/wish to engage(d) when practising participatory research.
The Research Team:
Ana Figueiredo (Universidad de O'Higgins),
Carolina Rocha (University of Dundee),
Ella Marie Sandbakken (Oslo New University College; University of Oslo),
Marlies de Groot (Tilburg University),
Özden Melis Uluğ (University of Sussex),
Yue Ting Woo (University of Sussex)
Call for Unpublished Data –Two meta-analyses on children's explanations for inequality
Dear colleagues,
We are conducting two meta-analyses relating to children’s explanations for the causes of inequality (https://osf.io/u53yd and https://osf.io/6vwts). This subject is the focus of growing interest in the fields of social and developmental psychology and we believe that robust meta-analyses of existing work will make a valuable contribution to our understanding of these social and developmental trajectories. Specifically, we are asking:
RQ1: How do children explain inequalities?
RQ2: What are the downstream consequences of children’s explanations for inequality?
We are now looking for unpublished studies that match the following criteria:
1. Study includes at least some participants aged 2-17.
2. Study includes either:
a. a quantitative measure of children’s perceptions/explanations/attributions for the causes of some kind of inequality (this could be coded open explanations generated by children or their evaluations of provided explanations).
b. a manipulation/intervention offering a causal explanation for inequality and a quantitative outcome variable.
3. Study includes sample sizes and effect sizes for relevant analyses, or the appropriate data to calculate these.
We would also be grateful if you could forward this request to any colleagues who might have relevant studies.
Thank you for your time and consideration—we look forward to your contributions and know they will make an invaluable addition to this synthesis!
Andrei Cimpian, New York University
Sébastien Goudeau, Université de Poitiers
Julia Spielmann, New York University, Abu Dhabi
Lewis Doyle, Université de Poitiers
Submission deadline: 24 March 2025
Call for papers – Special Issue: International Journal of Social Psychology
Psychosocial processes in context: Insights from Latin America to advance toward a global social psychology.
Psychological studies have consistently shown an overrepresentation of individuals from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies (Arnett, 2008; Henrich et al., 2010; Thalmayer et al., 2021). Moreover, these studies highlight that such samples exhibit psychosocial processes that differ significantly from those of individuals in other contexts (Henrich, 2020).
Despite this evidence, uncritical inferences about human nature based on research conducted in WEIRD contexts persist (e.g., Rad et al., 2018). While social psychology research has progressively incorporated regions beyond WEIRD contexts, this expansion has been primarily focused on Eastern countries (namely China and Japan; Kryst et al., 2024). In contrast, regions such as Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East remain underrepresented in high-impact scientific publications within the field of social psychology.
This underrepresentation is problematic because it constrains our global understanding of psychosocial processes. The Latin American context offers a unique opportunity to explore social realities that are less familiar to the Global North, providing insights into alternative dimensions of human psychology. Specifically, Latin American psychology has theorized and conducted research in contexts characterized by high levels of social and economic inequality, political violence, crime, social mobilization, and a pronounced community-oriented focus. From this perspective, this special issue aims to compile research emerging from the Latin American context to broaden our understanding of the interplay between historical, political, and social contexts and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
The aim of this special issue is to foster an exchange between Latin American perspectives and approaches in social psychology and those of the Global North. To this end, we seek to compile research that highlights psychosocial processes from Latin American contexts, thereby promoting a more inclusive and global understanding of psychosocial phenomena. This special issue invites the submission of empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods) that explore topics and areas of interest, including but not limited to:
The idiosyncratic characteristics of Latin American culture (e.g., identities, norms, values, etc.) and their relationship with various psychosocial processes and mechanisms.
Comparative studies of psychosocial processes across countries and regions within and beyond Latin America.
Research centered on Latin America that examines how different aspects of its social ecology (e.g., economy, politics, climate, etc.) relate to various psychosocial phenomena and processes.
Psychosocial research aimed at understanding and addressing populations, circumstances, and issues particularly relevant to Latin America, such as political violence, social exclusion and inequality, Indigenous peoples, migration dynamics, among others.
Development of new theoretical-conceptual frameworks and/or adaptation of concepts and methods for analyzing different psychosocial phenomena in the Latin American context.
Call for Applications – Summer School on Network Psychometrics
Network Psychometrics has rapidly gained prominence across various subfields of Psychology and beyond, introducing groundbreaking perspectives on personality traits, psychopathological dynamics, attitudes, and more. By framing psychological phenomena as networks, researchers can investigate how these phenomena emerge from the intricate interplay of their core components.
This course provides a comprehensive opportunity to explore the theory and practice of this advanced methodology, including, for example, network analysis on cross-sectional and longitudinal data, multi-group network analysis, frequentist and Bayesian estimates, and advanced applications that integrate networks and latent variables.
A poster session will be organized on the first day to encourage networking among participants and instructors. Daily practical sessions will empower students to directly apply the acquired knowledge using R. This program aims to equip participants with a thorough understanding of Psychometric Network Analysis, enabling them to apply these methods to their research and contribute to the evolving landscape of psychological data analysis.
The summer school welcomes researchers with different expertise, including but not limited to PhD students, Post-doctoral students, and Early-Career Researchers. Students are encouraged to bring their own data to use in practice sessions.
Application
The school will be open to 30 qualified and selected students.
Registration fee: 590 EUR (VAT 22% incl). The fee covers: all lectures; wi-fi connections; lunches and coffee breaks. The fee does NOT cover accommodation and travel.
Discounted registration fee: 450 EUR (VAT 22% incl.). The discounted fee applies to individuals affiliated to the two sponsoring universities: Università degli studi di Milano-Bicocca e Università Cattolica di Milano.
How to apply: Prospective participants have to fill out and submit the form on this page and upload a CV and a 1-page motivational letter (pdf).545
Lake Como School of Advanced studies is located c/o Fondazione Alessandro Volta in the beautiful setting of Villa del Grumello, in Como, Italy
Call for Papers –JESP Special Issue on "Current Directions in Social Dilemmas Research"
Many of today's global challenges, such as climate change and health crises, have the structure of a social dilemma where individual interest conflict with collective goals. Whereas social dilemma research has a long tradition, with its foundation over six decades ago, the field is changing and recently focusing on new directions. For example, researchers have recently started investigating social dilemma behavior across national borders, including samples from societies currently underrepresented in psychological research. Furthermore, researchers use economic paradigms to investigate current societal crises, such as climate change or health crises, thereby testing the predictive power of some of the established determinants of social dilemma interactions and identifying new ones. Other topics that gained more relevance include the use of new technology (e.g., VR) to examine motives underlying social dilemma behaviors or interdependent interactions with AI agents. This special issue shall be a compilation of new directions in social dilemma research.
This special issue aims to provide a compilation of new directions, mainly in quasi-experimental and experimental social dilemma research, potentially including one or two review articles. Specifically, it can consist of a) experimental studies on social dilemmas across national borders and b) experimental studies that address behavior in real-world social dilemmas such as climate change or health crises. Furthermore, the special issue shall include c) experimental (replication) studies on social dilemma behavior with samples from underrepresented societies. Finally, the special issue will cover d) studies using new technologies (e.g., AI, VR) to understand further the antecedents and consequences of social dilemma behaviors.
Guest Editors
Angela Dorrough (FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany)
Angelo Romano (Leiden University, the Netherlands)
Giuliana Spadaro (VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Shuxian Jin (University of Sussex, the United Kingdom)
Assistant Professors (2) – Loyola University New Orleans, USA
The Loyola University New Orleans Department of Psychological Sciences invites applications for two tenure track appointments at the Assistant Professor level beginning in August 2025.
Position 1
Assistant Professor, Social/Personality Psychology – Department of Psychological Sciences
Position 2
Assistant Professor, Area of Expertise is open; Developmental Psychology preferred – Department of Psychological Sciences
Qualifications: PhD required although ABDs will also be considered. The ideal candidate should possess expertise in (a) Social/Personality Psychology or (b) any other area of Psychology, with Developmental Psychology preferred. The selected candidate will teach three courses per semester, including Social Psychology (Position 1) and Developmental Psychology and related courses (Position 2) and some combination of Theories of Personality, Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Research, Statistics and Methods, and courses in their areas of specialization. Online teaching experience is beneficial, as some courses might be offered in the University’s online programs. Candidates should demonstrate a commitment to excellence in teaching, and in addition to teaching, will be expected to advise undergraduate students, supervise undergraduate research in areas of expertise, participate in governance at the department, college, and university levels, and maintain an active research program that engages undergraduate students.
Loyola University New Orleans is a Jesuit institution located in an urban setting. The Department’s website is http://cas.loyno.edu/psychology
To apply: Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, undergraduate and graduate transcripts, a statement regarding approaches to teaching and evidence of teaching effectiveness (such as a summary of teaching evaluations), and research plans. This information should be uploaded to NeoEd. The names and contact information for three professional references should be provided; applicants will be notified prior to named references being contacted.
For more information, please direct questions to: Evan Zucker, Professor and Chair, zucker@loyno.edu, 504-865-3255, or Kimberly Kahn, Office Manager, kjkahn@loyno.edu, 504- 865-3125.
Psychology Lecturer/Assistant Professor/Associate Professor – Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, China
The Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts is seeking vibrant candidates to teach a full range of undergraduate and graduate psychology courses related to Industrial-Organizational Psychology, including, but not limited to: Introduction to Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Behavior Modification, Psychological Dimensions of Human Resource Development, Personality & Behavioral Assessment, Analysis of Small Group Processes, Research Methods Seminar, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Behavior, and Employee Selection and Assessment. Candidates will also be expected to contribute to research and mentor students in industrial-organizational psychology fields.
All faculty positions are full-time assignments, effective for the year 2025. These positions are full-time assignments appointed on a 3-year contract at the first instance.
Candidates with doctorate degrees from reputable universities (Carnegie R1 institutions or comparable research institutions with strong academic reputations in the fields) are encouraged to apply.
Teaching assignments and related responsibilities may include day, evening, weekend, and online courses. Interest or experience in using advanced instructional technologies to improve the teaching/learning process is highly desirable. All faculty may be required to teach General Education courses as needed. Opportunities are also available to teach disciplinary support courses. Candidates with an interest in teaching across disciplines are encouraged to apply.
Application Instructions
Applicants are required to apply online. To receive full consideration by the search committee, candidates need to submit the following documents via Interfolio.
Candidates should send a cover letter, CV, statement of teaching philosophy, a research statement describing research interests, past accomplishments in research, and future research plans, unofficial transcripts, and the email contact information of three professional references. Three current letters of recommendation (within the last 9 months) will be required before advancement. Official transcripts for all degrees are required before appointment.
The Faculty of Psychology in Katowice, SWPS University, is inviting applications for the role of Assistant Professor.
Tasks
Conducting research activities aimed at building scientific achievements, including:
publishing in reputable scientific journals and publications
acquiring external funds for conducting scientific research
creating a research team to launch a research center
improving the research workshop
Teaching classes in psychology at the premises of the Department of Psychology in Katowice, as well as continuous improvement of the teaching workshop.
Requirements
possession of a doctoral degree in the social sciences, in the discipline of psychology (obtained no later than September 30, 2025) and a master's degree in psychology
fluency in English and Polish
a minimum of one year of teaching experience (conducting classes with students and preparing teaching materials)
willingness to work on weekdays and weekends
experience in active participation in foreign scientific conferences
experience in carrying out grants (manager, principal investigator, grantee) financed from external sources or experience in obtaining funds for scientific research
declaration of employment at SWPS University as the primary place of work
Nice to have
research interests in the area of clinical psychology of children and adolescent or forensic and criminal psychology
teaching experience and academic achievements in one of the following areas: clinical psychology of children and adolescents or forensic and criminal psychology
Required documents
resume with a list of academic, teaching, and administrative achievements (with direct reference to the qualification criteria specified above)
a scan of the document confirming the receipt of a degree and a professional title (or a statement about the planned date of obtaining it, along with information from the promoter about the status of the work)
Application deadline: 27 March 2025 |More informationPostdoc Grants in STARS@UNIPD Programme – University of Padua, Italy
The STARS@UNIPD funding programme welcomes young pioneers of frontier research, offering support to ground-breaking ideas with definite potential to turn into competitive proposals for international funding, such as the prestigious ERC grants.
STARS grants are open to all scientific areas and fund research projects of 30 months to be developed in one of the 32 Departments of the University of Padua.
The scheme STARS Starting Grant (StG) is addressed to PIs of any age and nationality, who intend to establish their own team and launch an independent research. Successful candidates get a fixed-term post-doc position of 30 months in Padua. Applicants must have defended their first Doctoral Degree within a maximum of 5 years prior to 1st January 2025 (cut-off dates: 01/01/2020 - 31/12/2024).
The sole evaluation criterion will be the scientific excellence. Projects will be evaluated based on their innovative nature, ambition and feasibility. PIs will be rewarded for their scientific skills, creativity, and commitment.
STARS Grants offer a research budget of up to 75,000 € (for Social Science and Humanities domain) or 125,000 € (for Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences domains) for 30 months, plus a fellowship for the PI of up to 105,000 € gross amount for 30 months, equivalent to 42,000 € gross amount/year. Researchers from abroad may benefit from an extra Mobility allowance of 15,000 € (gross amount for 30 months).
Application deadline: 21 March 2025 | More informationPhD in Social Psychology – University of Basel, Switzerland
The Center for Social Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Basel is recruiting for a full-time PhD position (100%) starting June 1, 2025, or latest Sept 1, 2025.
The Center for Social Psychology specializes in research topics of high societal relevance, including social exclusion. Feeling socially excluded can have severe consequences on the individual and group level, and is related to a variety of economic, political, and societal parameters. We explore topical questions such as the connection between political events and exclusion feelings or the preference for political exchange versus exclusion. This specific PhD project will focus on feelings of social exclusion in a personal or political context or on political participation and exchange. Our team places emphasis on state-of-the-art methodology including artificial intelligence tools.
Research
Coordinate and manage research projects
Conceptualize, design, conduct, and analyze research studies (e.g., experiments, panel data)
Mentor research assistants
Document and present research findings in English
Teaching
Design plan, and teach courses (lectures, seminars, tutorials, practical courses) and design, perform, and evaluate course-related examinations (written and oral certificates)
Supervise students and review their contributions (seminar, bachelor and master theses); support examinations on the BSc and MSc level
Training and service
Continue your education/training (e.g., take courses on research methods and didactics)
Take responsibility for various organizational processes within the Center for Social Psychology, including communication & outreach activities (websites, media contact, brochures, annual reports, etc.)
The next ISPPNews will be published in April 2025.
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Benefits of your ISPP Membership
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