Announcing the 4th Annual SPSP Sexuality Pre-Conference!

I am pleased to announce that, for the fourth year in a row, there will be a Sexuality Pre-Conference prior to the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)! Our last three Pre-Conferences were hugely successful, with incredible talks and great attendance. It is our great pleasure to continue building on this tradition.

The next SPSP Sexuality Pre-Conference will be held on Thursday, January 19th, 2017 at the Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. The theme of our upcoming pre-conference is “a new look.” As such, all of our invited talks are designed to offer a fresh take on important issues in sex and sexuality research. We have also intentionally sought out speakers who will include a social justice perspective in their talks.

This pre-conference will address a diverse range of topics that we hope will challenge attendees to think differently about a range of complex and controversial sexuality issues. Below are our invited speakers, along with their talk titles (for abstracts of each talk, see here):

Kathryn Klement, Brad Sagarin, and Ellen Lee (Northern Illinois University): “The New Science of BDSM: Moving Beyond Pathologization toward Destigmatization”

John K. Sakaluk (University of Victoria): “What The Replication Crisis Means for Sexual Science—And Why Sexual Scientists Should Care”

Stephen T. Russell (University of Texas at Austin): “Sexuality, Research, and Social Justice: A New Look”

Zoe Peterson (University of Missouri, St. Louis): “A New Look at Campus Sexual Assault: New Policies and New Challenges”

Amy C. Moors (Purdue University): “Re-thinking the Gold Standard of Romantic Relationships: Insight from Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Diverse Methods”

As in previous years, there will be a sex data blitz in which a selected group of pre-conference attendees (advanced graduate students and faculty) will present some of their latest research findings in brief. This is always one of the major highlights of the day.

To learn more about this exciting pre-conference, including information on registering and/or submitting to the data blitz, please visit this site. Registration fees include breakfast, lunch, and two coffee breaks.

Please note that registration for this pre-conference is limited and available on a first-come-first-serve basis, so please register early to guarantee yourself a spot and also to take advantage of the earlybird discount (available until December 2, 2016)!

If you’re already planning to attend SPSP, this is a great way to add more sex to your program. And if you’re a sex educator, researcher, or therapist who doesn’t normally attend SPSP, this pre-conference is a great excuse to come check it out or, at the very least, to visit a warmer climate and fun city in the middle of winter! Although you do not need to register for the main SPSP conference in order to come to our pre-conference, we encourage you to consider attending both because your pre-conference attendance entitles you to a discount on registration for the main conference.

Hope to see you in San Antonio for a fantastic day of cutting-edge sex research! #SexAtSPSP

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates.