Research

Research In Psychology

ddddddddddddddddd

It is not unusual for Lawrence Psychology majors to collaborate on research with faculty, sometimes leading to co-authored publications. Psychology majors do research in required classes but are also encouraged to get involved in research though independent study with faculty whose interests they share. To get involved, look at the research interests of the faculty and contact those whose interests you find most intriguing.

Why should I get involved in research?

To truly understand Psychology, it is necessary to engage in empirical research. Close collaboration on research with a faculty member is the most effective way in which students learn to think critically and to write effectively. In our experience, it is through close collaboration on extended research projects (in independent studies, in a senior capstone, or in an honors project) that students blossom intellectually. In addition, some research projects done with faculty members lead to publications with student co-authors.

Research Experience and Your Future Goals

In addition to the learning experience that independent research provides, engaging in research is extremely valuable whatever your future career plans might be. For graduate work in Psychology or related fields, research experience is viewed as a strong asset and the lack of it can seriously hurt your application. This can be true even in applied areas, such as Clinical Psychology, where research is more important than volunteer work or experience in clinical settings when applying to a PhD program. Research experience is often a crucial ingredient to a successful graduate school application.

For those who seek careers in business or government, research experience provides skills that employers value. For example, market research is based upon research paradigms derived from Psychology. Experience in designing and conducting research projects, analyzing data, interpreting and reporting results will give you a competitive edge.

Research Within the Curriculum

The Psychology curriculum has been structured to encourage independent student projects by allowing students in advanced courses (such as Topics courses and the Senior Seminar) to fulfill the large paper and presentation requirements in these courses by submitting work that is part of on-going Independent Studies projects.

There are myriad opportunities for research in collaboration with faculty members. There are no minimum GPA requirements or other formal restrictions; rather, Independent Studies are arranged by mutual agreement with the faculty sponsor. To take advantage of these opportunities, however, you must actively pursue them. If you are interested in research in a particular area (even if your ideas about it are vague) or if you are interested in the work that is currently being conducted by faculty members, we strongly encourage you to seek out the appropriate faculty member(s).

Faculty research interests

Altogether, the department’s full-time faculty members have published well over 100 scholarly articles. And articles produced at Lawrence typically have students listed as co-authors. The paragraphs that follow describe selected aspects of the research programs of each of our full-time faculty members:	What are the origins of sexism? What makes sexism different from other forms of prejudice? Peter Glick has developed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory to examine both the hostile and “benevolent” (e.g., protective attitudes toward women) aspects of sexist beliefs. He and his students are continuing to explore how ambivalent sexism relates to stereotypes about and discrimination against women.

Imagine that you are trying to get lukewarm water by mixing water from an extremely hot water tap and a slightly cold water tap. Now imagine the problem of creating 5 units of 60? water by mixing different proportions of 110? and 40? water. Most people intuitively grasp the former problem, but have difficulty with the latter, despite their conceptual similarity. Beth Haines researches how children develop intuitive and formal problem-solving abilities. She is particularly interested in teaching children to apply their intuitive strategies to aid comprehension of the more formal problems they learn in school.	The stream of speech is a continuous jumble of sounds, yet we perceive it as separate, meaningful words. Terry Gottfried studies speech perception, particularly with people learning a second language. He has been studying how people learn to recognize unfamiliar speech sounds, including French vowels and Mandarin Chinese tones. He has also been investigating the relation between musical ear training and speech sound learning. Students have access to equipment that performs real-time acoustical analysis of speech (and musical sounds) and automated presentation of speech for conducting research.

Why do people sometimes smile or even laugh when they are scared or under stress? Matt Ansfield researches these seemingly paradoxical emotional expressions in an attempt to understand the functions such paradoxical expressions serve. For example, are these expressions self-presentational (an attempt to influence others’ perceptions of your own emotional state) or do they help to regulate your own emotional state (e.g., laughing away your fear)?	Because of its frequency, depression has been called the “common cold” of psychopathology. Why do people become depressed? How can depression be prevented and treated? Gerald Metalsky and his colleagues have proposed an integrative theory of depression that not only identifies risk factors for depression, but specifies how depressive episodes are actually triggered, and how people can avoid getting depressed. kjhg

We all know that alcohol and other drugs affect the brain, but exactly how do they do so? Bruce Hetzler explores the effects of alcohol and other psychoactive agents on the functioning of the nervous system. Using laboratory animals, Hetzler and his students have paid particular attention to the influence of these drugs on the electrical activity of the visual system, behavior, and body temperature. A wide variety of drugs have been studied, including central nervous system depressants (such as pentobarbital), dissociate anesthetics (such as ketamine), and newer compounds that work on specific neurotransmitter receptors (e.g., naltrexone, THIP, MK-801).