2007 Summer Institute in Political Psychology, Stanford University

当世界进入21世纪时，民主在世界各地的传播和运作是许多国家的政治领导人和公民的思想。 有些国家刚刚开始实行民主政府;有些国家则处于实行民主政府的早期阶段;还有一些国家几个世纪以来一直实行民主制度，现在正面临着新的挑战（例如，对公众对美国和其他国家选举进程的信心的担忧）。 为了让政府内外的领导人在管理所有这些国家的民主进程中做出明智的选择，他们必须了解公民如何看待政治，了解他们的责任，选择何时以及如何在政治领域采取行动，公民群体如何以及何时聚集在一起组织集体努力以影响历史进程等等。 从本质上讲，所有这些问题都是社会心理学的问题--它们涉及人们如何看待自己、他们与其他个体的关系以及他们与他们所处的集体的关系。 因此，为了帮助政府和私营部门的领导人了解他们的国家和选民，研究政治的社会心理学是非常有价值的，因为它将帮助领导人预测公众将如何回应他们的行动，以及世界，国家，和地区事件以及如何追求国家的最大利益。这笔赠款将通过培养和激励新的政治社会心理学来加强对政治社会心理学的研究。政府内外的一代学者致力于解决这些问题。 政治心理学暑期研究所（SIPP）是一个为期三周的暑期培训计划，汇集了来自世界各地的60人，与一些世界领先的政治思想和政治领导人和普通公民行为的心理学专家进行互动。 将在斯坦福大学举行的SIPP将包括来自斯坦福大学和其他大学的教师的全天讲座以及讨论小组会议，以详细阐述讲座中所涵盖的材料。 此外，参与者将向他们的研究员介绍自己正在进行的研究项目，以获得反馈和建议。 自1991年SIPP成立以来，它已经举办了16次，吸引了越来越多来自全国和世界各地顶尖学院和大学的申请者，每年的申请人数都超过了可以容纳的人数。 SIPP的参与者一直包括来自联邦机构的研究人员（例如，这些人包括美国中央情报局（CIA）、美国国防部情报局（DIA）、帮助美国政府开展工作的私营部门组织、非政府组织以及希望在政府开展工作时提供帮助和信息的学术界人士（本科生、研究生和教职员工）。

As the world heads into the 21st century, the spread and operation of democracy around the world is on the minds of political leaders and citizens of many nations. Some countries are just embarking on democratic government for the first time; others are in the early years of implementing such government; and still other nations that had been practicing democracy for centuries are facing new challenges (e.g., concerns about public confidence in the electoral process in the U.S. and other nations). In order for leaders in governments and outside to make wise choices in managing the democratic process in all such nations, it is vital for them to understand how citizens think about politics, understand their responsibilities, choose when and how to take action in the political sphere, how and when groups of citizens come together to organize collective efforts to influence the course of history, and much more. At their core, all of these questions are matters of social psychology - they involve issues of how people think about themselves, their relations to other individuals, and their relations to the collectivities in which they exist. So to help government and private sector leaders understand their nations and constituents, study of the social psychology of politics is terrifically valuable, because it will help leaders to anticipate how the public will respond to their actions and to world, national, and regional events and how to pursue the best interests of the nation.This grant will enhance the study of the social psychology of politics by training and energizing a new generation of scholars to work on these problems, both inside and outside of government. The Summer Institute in Political Psychology (SIPP) is a summer training program that lasts three weeks and brings together a group of 60 people from around the world to interact with some of the world's leading experts on the psychology underlying the political thinking and behavior of political leaders and ordinary citizens. To be held at Stanford University, SIPP will involve full days of lectures by faculty from Stanford and other universities and meetings of discussion groups to elaborate on the material covered in the lectures. In addition, participants will present their own ongoing research projects to their fellows to get feedback and suggestions. Additional sessions will describe job opportunities for political social psychologists in government and the private sector.Since 1991, when SIPP was founded, it has been held 16 times and has attracted growing numbers of applicants from top colleges and universities around the nation and the world, many more than can be accommodated each year. SIPP participants have always included research personnel from federal agencies (e.g., the CIA, the DIA), from private sector organizations that help the US government carry out its work, from NGOs, and from the academic world (undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty) who wish to help and inform government as it carries out its work.