SPA Grants

Dissertation Grant | Student Research Grant | EISJ Grant

 
Grant Applications are NOW OPEN!! Apply now through October 15, 2024 for either the Dissertation Grant and/or the Student Research Grant.    
Please note, you can only be granted one grant. Check back on this page for updates regarding grant notifications. 

SPA Dissertation and Research Grants will be evaluated on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) on the following domains:

  • Overall Quality of the Proposal
    • Proposal is clear and well-written
    • Proposal provides a clear rationale for the project with appropriate citations
    • The method described in the proposal is clear and appropriate for the proposed project
  • Feasibility of the Project
    • The project is feasible based on the timeline and budget provided
  • Potential to Contribute to the Field of Personality Assessment
    • The proposed project will significantly contribute to the field of personality assessment and/or advance the field of personality assessment

A successful proposal will be well-written, provide a clear and compelling rationale for the project, the methods described are clear and appropriate for the proposed project, the project is feasible within the time and budget proposed, and the project has the potential to significantly contribute to and/or advance the field of personality assessment. 


Dissertation Grant 

July 25, 2024 - October 15, 2024 

The Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) will be making grants to support dissertation research in the area of personality assessment. These awards of up to $800 dollars must have an approved dissertation proposal before applying for the grant. Although not required at time of application, to receive the grant, the student must hold an active student membership for the 2025 calendar year. It is expected that the findings of the dissertation will be presented at a forthcoming Annual Convention of SPA. 

 

APPLY HERE

  

2024 Dissertation Grant Winners
Megan Airey Attachment Trauma: How the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP) May Inform Our Understanding of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS)
Anthony Battaglia The Psychological Vest: Trauma, Resiliency, and Posttraumatic Growth among Police Officers
Emily Bemis-Keir Examination of the Convergent and Discriminant Validity of a Self-Report Version of the SCORS-G (SCORS-G-SR)
Rachel Chavin Differences in Personality Pathology among Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Suicidal Behavior Patterns: A Latent Class Analysis
Kelci Davis Gender Euphoria: Exploring a Potential Protective Factor Against Psychopathology in Transgender and Gender Diverse Populations
Adrienne Eldridge  Identifying the Moral Foundations of the Traditional Background Hypothesis of the MMPI-3 L Scale
Leah Emery The Role of Self-Discrepancy Magnitude, Change, and Experience in the Expression of Personality Pathology 
Alexandra Halberstadt A Free, Open-Science, Empirically Supported Standardized Training Protocol for Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID)
Hyungji Kim  Momentary Suicidal Ideation in the Context of Romantic Conflict
Savnnah Parker The Rorschach Performance Assessment System and the Measurement of Agression 
Camryn Sutton  Using the MMPI-3 to Detect the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Somatization
 
2023 Dissertation Grant Winners
Ali Yunus Emre Akca When it is Fake and When it is Flawed: The Impact of Biases and Stereotypes in Professionals' Decision Making About Fabricated Symptoms 
Edleen De Jesus-Sanchez An Examination of MMPI-3 Score Patterns of Sex Trafficked Women
Alana Gallagher Hierarchical Structure of Post-traumatic Cognitions and Complex PTSD in Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence 
Callie Jowers Do Dimensions of Object Relations Mediate the Relationship between Pathological Traits, Defenses, and Coping? 
Julianne Lawson Killing Two Birds with One Phone: Attachment, Technology-Interference, Relationship Satisfaction within Daily Couple Interactions
Gillian Moloney Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the PAI-A Antisocial Features Scale
Kathleen Tully The Role of Narcissism in Instagram Consumption

2022 Dissertation Grant Winners
Mark Blanchard  Do Relatedness and Flourishing Predict Doctor-Patient Relationships and Healthcare Utilization?

Rachel Davenport 

 Using the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global to Evaluate the Impact of Parental Divorce on College Students' Interpersonal Functioning
Emily Leonard  An Examination of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3) Profiles of International Saudi Arabian College Students
Kadie Lambardo   Exploring Personality Characteristics and Recidivism Risk Among Adult Male Sexual Offenders
Ilene Perez-Palen The Influence of Native Language on Thematic Apperception Test Assessment of Defenses in International Spanish-Speaking College Students
Courtney Saunders Differences in Socio-Cognitive Processes Among Individuals Exhibiting Characteristics of Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism: A Multimethod Approach
Ethan Xiong Personality, Acculturation, and Religious Beliefs and Practices: A Comparative Study of Characteristics Associated to Barriers to Seeking Mental Health Services Among Hmong Americans and Non-Hmong Populations

2021 Dissertation Grant Winners
Christine Anerella Humor Use During Conflict in Close Relationships

Paula Floyd

Personality and Psychopathology Correlates of Institutional Misconduct among Juvenile Offenders 
Alana Fondren Assessing LGBTQ+ Community Connectedness, Postive Identity, and Mental Health Outcomes in Sexual Minority Emerging Adults
Savannah Grier Capturing the Interpersonal and Momentary Dynamics of Codependency in Dyadic Conflict
Emily O'Gorman Developmental Cascades from Early Childhood Attachment Security to Adolescent Level of Personality Functioning in a High-Risk Sample 
John Rucker Development and Evaluation of an Object Relations Measures for the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)


Student Research Grant 

July 25, 2024 - October 15, 2024
The Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) will be making grants to support all types of student research in the area of personality assessment. These awards of up to $500 dollars are open to undergraduate or graduate students in psychology or related fields. Although not required at time of application, to receive the grant, the student must hold an active student membership for the 2025 calendar year. It is expected that the findings of this research will be presented at a forthcoming Annual Convention of SPA.
   
      
 
2024 Student Research Grant Winners
Shakur Dennis  Relationships between Openness to Experience, Health Behaviors, Chronic Disease Management, and Change Tendencies
Megan Keen  Assessing Psychopathology Overreporting in Adolescents using the MMPI-A-RF
Abigail Kowalski  Comparing the Effects of the DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders and the Section II Model on Mock Juror Reactions to Women Defendants
Morgan Maples Examining the Impact of Pain Relief Interventions on Self-Harm Behaviors in Individuals with Borderline Personality Features
Chloe O'Dell  Integrating Multiple Methods for the Assessment of Aggression in Young Adults 
 
2023 Student Research Grant Winners
Lauren Allen Roles of Informants' Well-Being in Evaluative Bias: Effects on Informant Ratings
Jen Ying Zhen Ang & Aakriti Prasai Understanding Counselor Trainee Experiences with the Wright-Constantine Structured Cultural Interview 
Matthew Chapman  A Qualitative Examination on Adult Male Sex Offenders and Their Adverse Childhood Experiences
Christine Hujing Interpersonal Projection of Right-Wing Authoritarianism 
Casey Lee Use of Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with Diverse Populations: Exploring Trainee Psychologists' Experiences
Paige MacQueen Associations between Preceiver Bias on Informant-Report Personality Measures and the Informant's Personal Attitudes toward Mental Illness
Courtney Phillips Examining the Predictive Power of Criterion A of the Alternative Model for Personality
Benjamin Poag The Invasive Workplace: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Traits and Work-Related Technology Use
Tabea Springstein Measuring Emotion Regulation Success in Daily Life and Evaluating Nomothetic and Idiographic Associations with Strategies and Situations
  
2022 Student Research Grant Winners
Rachel Chavin Understanding How Different Personality Models Can Predict NSSI Tendencies 
Colette Delawalla  Assessing the UPPS-P Facets of Impulsivity Using the MMPI-3
Katherine Hein Negative Affect Changes, Emptiness, and Interpersonal Conflict Related to Binge Eating and Borderline Personality Traits
Callie Jowers Using the Rorschach to Assess Though Disorder: The Effect of the Examiner's Questions on Test Validity
Karen Kelley  Investigating the Transdiagnostic Potential of Rumination in Relation to Cluster B Personality Disorder Symptoms 
Whitney Ringwald  Identifying Risk Pathways between Multi-Rater Assessments of Big Five Personality Traits and Binge Drinking with Passive Sensing Technology 
Shannon Thomson  Differentiating Schizoid and Avoidant Personality Styles: The Role of the Self-Concept 
 
2021 Student Research Grant Winners
Mark Blanchard Health, Happiness, and Doctor-Patient Relationships: A Primary Care Study
Bailey Crittenden Experimental Validation of R-PAS Distorted Form Quality Variable
Kelci Davis Psychopathy Testing Bias in Sexual Orientation Minorities: A Slope-Intercept Bias Approach
Callie Jowers The Role of Conscious and Unconscious Coping within the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders 
Cory Knight Pscyhological Flexibility, the Alternative Model of Personality Disorder in the DSM-5, and the Five Factor Model: A Quantitative Analysis
Madeline Lenhausen Reference Group Processes in Personlity Assessment
Courtney Mason Facets of the Five Factor Model and Negative Thoughts Predicting Non-Suicidal Self-Injury
Jiwon Min Development of a Bried Personalized Mobile Intervention for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury
Giulia Pascarella Evaluation of COVID-19 Emergency and Related Lockdown Policies Effects on the Normative Expectations for the Rorschach and Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) 
Armahn Rassuli  The Effects of COVID-19 on the Mental Health of Gamers
Silas Sheridan Interpersonal Dependency from a Narrative Perspective
Tingyun Tseng Impact of Culture on Interpersonal Dependency Scored: A Comparsion of Second-Generation Taiwanese Immigrants and American Adults

EISJ Grant

Opening in September 2024!

SPA is proud to announce the creation of the Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Research Grants. Although we welcome applications from all professional levels, we, in particular, welcome applications from students and early-career professionals. These grants, ranging anywhere from $500 to a maximum of $10,000, are meant to support research that advances equity, inclusion, and social justice research, as defined by our Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (EISJ) track and key terminology for our convention. Although not required at time of application, to receive the grant, the applicant must hold an active SPA membership for the 2024 calendar year. It is expected that the findings of the research will be presented at a forthcoming Annual Convention of SPA.

Materials to be submitted on the application include: 

  • Project Proposal
  • Itemized Budget
  • Projected Timeline
  • Resume or CV