Executive Officer's Report: The Inside Scoop
M. Lynne Cooper
This is a short update on some of the exciting developments and opportunities on the horizon for ARP and its members in the coming months.
Social Psychological and Personality Science (SPPS)
SPPS was established in 2009 as a quarterly journal sponsored by ARP in conjunction with the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP), and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). Similar to Psychological Science, SPPS is a short reports journal in social and personality psychology, which seeks to publish cutting-edge brief reports of single studies, or very succinct reports of multiple studies. It is geared toward a speedy review and publication process in order to make groundbreaking research quickly available to the field.
The good news is that the journal has been so successful that it has already turned a profit, which Sage, its publisher, tells us is quite unusual for such a young journal. It also has expanded from a quarterly publication to six issues per year. Due to its success, Sage also believes that SPPS will be listed in the Citation Impact Index—a crucial milestone for any successful journal—as early as 2014.
Finally, SPSS is currently in the process of winnowing nominations to select a new editor. It is important that personality psychology is well-represented on the editorial board of this journal. So we encourage you to consider getting involved in this process under the new editor. If you are interested, let us know and we will pass your name along.
The ARP Website
Several updates of interest to members were made to the website over the past year. A list of past officers (presidents, secretary/treasurers, and executive officers) from 2001 forward were compiled and added to the website, along with current officers and Executive Committee members. A list of all Tanaka award winners, from 1994 forward, was added as well as information about the current nomination process and committee composition. Also posted was a ‘white paper’ written by the ARP Executive Committee on personality psychology’s contributions to the grand challenges facing the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Finally, information about upcoming conferences, including the European Personality Conference to be held in Trieste, Italy, this summer can also be found on our website.
The Executive Committee wishes to thank David Funder for his work on the website and to welcome aboard Len Simms, who has generously agreed to serve as our new webmaster beginning January 1.
Visit the website at http://www.personality-arp.org/. If you have suggestions for useful content that might be added, e-mail Len at ljsimms@buffalo.edu.
Putting Our House in Order
ARP’s bylaws were originally written to be consistent with our mission as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. However, the processes for incorporating it as an organization and for obtaining tax-exempt status are completely different. Incorporation is straightforward and was accomplished at the time the organization was formed in 2001, whereas the process for obtaining tax-exempt status is complex and time-consuming, and was never completed. Now that the organization is growing, the Executive Committee has re-doubled its efforts to complete this process and anticipates actually filing the paperwork in early 2012.
Our bylaws were also reviewed as part of the process of preparing our tax-exempt application. Based on this review and a careful consideration of how the organization actually operates, a revised set of bylaws has been drafted. However, changes to the bylaws require a vote of the membership. So be on the lookout for further information about revising our bylaws.