The Greater Good Science Center offers annual fellowships to UC Berkeley Undergraduate and Graduate students whose work relates to our mission. The fellowship program aims to attract scholars from across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines, with a particular focus on the social-behavioral sciences.
2008-2009 Graduate and Undergraduate Fellowship Applications DUE April 7th, 2008 at 5pm.
We generally support research that responds to one or more of the following themes:
- The biological underpinnings of prosocial emotion. Examples of research in this arena would address questions such as: Is there a reward system in the brain that is involved with the experience of pro-social emotion, distinct from reward systems involved in sensory pleasure? What physiological processes are involved in attachment-related processes, such as caregiving, altruism, monogamy, and friendship?
- The context and cultivation of social well-being. For example, how do children and young adults learn to be compassionate and caring individuals÷in school, at home, and in other social contexts? What qualities of human institutions (e.g., families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, laws) foster social well-being? What are the childhood trends in social well-being over the last 35 to 40 years? How do people with different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, different social perspectives, different cultural values or different mental health histories peacefully co-exist?
Our goal is to gather knowledge that will be directly useful to teachers, parents, employers, social service and mental health workers, and communities at large. We are especially interested in proposals that include an application or communication of research findings to the wider community. In addition to pursuing their chosen research, GGSC Fellows are expected to ćcontribute to the greater goodä by working approximately 5 hours per week as a research assistant or otherwise sharing their
talents through contributing to the Centerās website,
Greater Good magazine, or one of the Centerās other initiatives.
We are now accepting applications for 2008-2009 fellowships.
Graduate Research Fellowship application and coversheet (PDF)
Undergraduate Research Fellowship application and coversheet (PDF)
Only hard copies of applications will be accepted. Please do not email us applications. Don't forget to include both the application and cover page.
Applications DUE on April 7th, 2008 at 5pm. Fellowship awardees will be announced in May.
Mario Aceves
Annaliese Beery
Sarah Garrett
2006-07 Hornaday Graduate Fellow ö Project Description
Mario Aceves, Psychology
The Development of Mental Illness Stigma During Childhood
The stigma of mental illness continues to burden our society, affecting victims of mental disorders and their family members and close friends. An overall misunderstanding and endorsement of stereotypes by members of the general public contributes heavily to the perpetuation of mental illness stigma. Although a great deal of interest has been taken into the nature of stigmatizing attitudes among adults, little is known regarding how negative views towards people with mental illness originate and develop across childhood and adolescence.
This project intends to form a better understanding of the development of stigmatizing attitudes by investigating socializing factors contributing to a childās understanding and attitudes towards mental illness. Children and their families will be observed in a laboratory setting to determine how media exposure, personal contact, and parental socialization influence the childās attitudes and understanding of mental illness. Anticipated results will provide necessary insight into the development of stigmatizing attitudes, and potentially can be applied to mental illness stigma intervention during early childhood.
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2006 Summer Fellows – Project Descriptions
Naazneen Barma, Political Science
Shared Sovereignty: Building Democracy and Reconstructing State Capacity in Post-Conflict Nation-States
For countries that have undergone violent civil conflict, the transitional post-conflict period is a critical juncture in the journey to putting mutual hostility behind warring groups and achieving peaceful coexistence and stability among them. My dissertation project examines how international and national factors interact in externally-supported post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Cambodia, East Timor, and Afghanistan to design precisely those state and political institutions that can ensure successful transition, lasting peace, and stable and effective governance outcomes. Relying on over one hundred elite interviews carried out through field work, I compare cases in terms of sequences of processes and events that lead to outcomes, and thereby support a cross-case argument that illustrates that the political inclusion puzzle is resolved in different ways across countries.
Mark Massoud, Jurisprudence & Social Policy
Law in a Failed State: Grassroots Legal Groups and the Development of Peace in Sudan
The rule of law – essential for maintaining a peaceful, democratic state – requires that laws are applied equally and fairly, that judges are independent, and that civil society is politically engaged. This dissertation analyzes how societies institutionalize the rule of law after civil war. Sudan offers an extreme case of an ethnically plural society rooted in physical, economic and legal insecurity. Research there is vital to ensuring improved international cooperation and to research on the rule of law in transitional societies. This project employs a methodology that combines a legal institutional analysis with archival research in three countries and ethnographic interviews.
Erendira Rueda, Sociology
Navigating School Transitions: Trajectories of Academic Engagement among Children from Low-Income Mexican Immigrant Families
Much of what occurs in schools - such as learning and the development of attitudes and behaviors toward schooling – occurs in relation to other individuals and groups within school settings and is often shaped by local contexts and demographics. Students develop a sense of belonging to school (or not) and make decisions about how much to invest in school based in large part on their experiences and social interactions with peers and teachers. It is through these interactions that students’ achievement trajectories and pathways of academic engagement are created, challenged, diverted and transformed. This project provides a close look at the varying contexts in which student behavior is displayed, given meaning, interpreted and labeled, and the consequences that has for students’ trajectories of engagement. As I shadowed a group of Mexican-origin students in their elementary and middle school classrooms over the course of two years, it became increasingly clear that some of the most important factors shaping their trajectories of engagement were intricately tied to the racial/ethnic demographics of their schools and classrooms. Racial/ethnic stereotypes and group reputations that fell along racial/ethnic lines heavily shaped the ways in which student behaviors were perceived, labeled, and sanctioned by school personnel.
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Donna Howe
2006-07 Goldberg Undergraduate Fellow
Tanya Vacharkulksemsuk, Psychology
Breaking Down Barriers: The Effect of Power Differences on Closeness in Cross-Race Friendships
Despite much progress that has been made, negative racial attitudes and discrimination are still prevalent in America (Devine, 1989). Few studies have considered race within the context of friendships, more specifically the quality and closeness in same- and cross-race friendships. Preliminary analyses of the UC Berkeley Interracial Friendship Interactions Project indicate that cross-race friends engage in similar activities (e.g. telling secrets, helping each other, borrowing) as same-race friends, yet they feel less close to one another. What, then, are cross-race friendships missing that would make them feel closer? While some may argue that this lack of closeness is due to race itself, I hope to discover whether an individual’s sense of power (both overall and in the friendship) may function to limit the sense of closeness she feels with her friend. According to Keltner, Anderson, & Gruenfeld (2001), elevated power involves more freedom, which leads to approach-related positive affect and uninhibited behavior. In my study’s context, power impacts closeness indirectly via self-disclosure and expressivity. Using the Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978) to examine facial expressivity and observe self-disclosure, we will see how well power correlates with positive affect and uninhibited behavior—and how each contributes to closeness in the friendship.
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FELLOWSHIPS
