Heritage Dissertation Research Award for Jana Berkessel

Jana Berkessel will be the first German early-stage researcher to receive the “Heritage Dissertation Research Award”. The international award of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) is awarded to doctoral students in the last phase of their dissertation project to support them in their research.

This year, Jana Berkessel will be one of four researchers and the first researcher of a German university to win the “Heritage Dissertation Research Award”. Jana Berkessel will be officially awarded the Research Award, which is endowed with EUR 2000, on the annual SPSP conference in February 2023. The three other researchers who will be honored with the award come from Rutgers University, Stanford University, and Yale University. In the application for the award, the scientists were required to propose a research project for the final phase of their doctorate, which refers to scientists who have made significant contributions in the field of social or personality psychology. Berkessel is a researcher at the Chair of Cross-Cultural Social and Personality Psychology, headed by Professor Jochen E. Gebauer, at the University of Mannheim. Berkessel proposed studies on the socio-economic and socio-cultural causes of psychological wellbeing, with a special focus on the role of religion. Her suggestion is based, inter alia, on the research of Ed Diener, who was one of the first to scientifically analyze psychological well-being.

Each year, the “Heritage Dissertation Research Award” is awarded to up to six doctoral students, of which at least two are researchers in the field of personality psychology and two in the field of social psychology. In addition to being honored, the early-stage researchers receive 2000 US dollar as financial support for their research.

More information on the award

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