FINALLY - It's Here. Please check out the PROGRAM.

A Look Back

If you are a founding member of the Society of Southeastern Social Psychologists, get ready for a look back at that original meeting at the University of Georgia in 1978. If you are among the many who have joined SSSP since 1978, enjoy a brief look at our roots. You can get a more detailed history of SSSP by visiting http://www.ssrc.msstate.edu/sssp/overview.htm and clicking on History.

The symposia during the inaugural meeting included:

Attention & Intimacy: Trends & Future Prospects - Coordinator: David J. Senn

Graduate Training for What? Uses of Social Psychology - Coordinator: Sidney Rosen

Victims of Violence: Child Abuse, Wife Abuse, & Rape - Coordinator: Lawrence Calhoun

Non-Experimental Methods in Social Psychology - Coordinators: William Graziano & Abraham Tesser

Application of Social Psychology Principles to Law - Coordinator: Jerry Frey

Kurt W. Back, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology (emeritus) at Duke University, was the original keynote speaker. Kurt was an emigrant to the United States following the Nazi invasion of Vienna, Austria where he was born and raised. He graduated from New York University in 1938 and earned his MA at UCLA in 1941. Drafted into the army in 1942, he studied with Kurt Lewin and Leon Festinger at the University of Iowa during Army Specialist Training. He continued his studies with Lewin after his discharge and earned his PhD from MIT. After holding research positions at the University of North Carolina, the University of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Aberdeen Proving Ground, and the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia, Kurt joined the Duke University faculty in 1959. His research addressed 1) communication, interpersonal influence, and power; 2) how to know and how to describe to the reader what you know; and 3) personal dilemmas and decision making. His honors and contributions are too vast to innumerate here. He was very much ahead of his time in taking an interdisciplinary approach in an attempt to better understand the human condition. His colleagues noted that he was a “true renaissance person.” We encourage you to learn more about this remarkable man at http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/apr00/departments.html .

Thirty Years Later

Three decades after that first meeting, many areas that were relevant to social psychologists then are relevant today - albeit that they may be known by slightly different names. We have therefore devised a program that focuses on contemporary research in many of the areas addressed in the original symposia.

The program for the 30th Annual Conference will include symposia on:

Close Relationships - Chair: Laurie Couch, Morehead State University

Career Development - Chair: Christopher Leone, University of North Florida

Aggression - Chair: LouAnne Hawkins, University of North Florida

Research Design and Analyses - Chair: Rick Hoyle, Duke University

The Self - Chair: Mark Leary, Duke University

Psychology and Law - Chair: Martin Bourgeois, Florida Gulf Coast University

This year our Keynote speaker is Robin M. Kowalski from Clemson University. Robin earned her BA from Furman University, her MA from Wake Forest University, and her PhD is Social Psychology from University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research interests include courage, health psychology, aversive interpersonal behaviors (e.g., teasing and complaining), and cyber bullying. Her most recent publications include Electronic bullying among middle school students, coauthored with S. E. Limbic which will appear soon in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Culture and hurt feelings which will appear in Feeling Hurt in Close Relationships edited by A. Vangelisti, and Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age which was coauthored with S. E. Limber and P. W. Agatston. In addition to her many contributions to scholarship, Robin is well known for her exceptional teaching. She has been recognized for her outstanding teaching as the recipient of the Clemson University’s Mentor Award of Distinction, Clemson University’s College of Business and Behavioral Science Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Clemson University’s Psi Chi Teaching Award, Western Carolina University Botner Superior Teaching Award, Western Carolina University Legislative Teaching Award, and Western Carolina University Teaching-Research Award. She is coauthor of the 2008 textbook Psychology (5th ed.) published by John Wiley & Sons. You can visit Robin's web page at http://www.clemson.edu/psych/people/robin_kowalski.html .

Please check out the Program for updated information as it becomes available.