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Psych NU ws The Newsletter of the Northeastern
Psych NUws The Newsletter of the Northeastern University Psychology Department Vol. 20, Number 1 (September 2013) 20th ANNIVERSARY ________________________________________________ From the CHAIR WELCOME TO THE 2013-2014 ACADEMIC YEAR! We have a large array of activities and opportunities for undergraduates in the coming year, and we urge you to take full advantage of them. I encourage you to visit our website (www.northeastern.edu/psychology/) throughout the semester for up-to-date information on the various programs, resources, and opportunities we have to offer. A few highlights: Directed Study Research. The faculty of the Psychology Department are strongly committed to both research and teaching, and they provide opportunities for undergraduates to become fully engaged in research projects in their laboratories. One mechanism is Directed Study Research, where a student registers for course credit to work with a professor in his/her lab, usually on ongoing research. You can count the Directed Study Research course (PSYC 4991) toward one of your two lab requirements, and you will gain valuable hands-on research experience, often working as part of a lab team. This is a great way to get to know your professors. Directed Study Research opportunities are posted on our website at http://www.northeastern.edu/psychology/un dergraduate/directed-study/ (See later in this issue of Psych NUws for some of the opportunities in Directed Study!) Psi Chi. Psi Chi is the national psychology honor society. It aims to encourage, stimulate, and maintain excellence in scholarship, and to advance the science of psychology. Membership is open to undergraduates who are making the study of psychology one of their major interests and who meet the minimum qualifications. Students become members of the national honor society by joining our local chapter. For more information, visit our website at http://www.northeastern.edu/psychology/un dergraduate/psi-chi/ Co-op. There are many great co-op jobs available to psychology majors, including jobs focused on research, education, human resources, marketing, and residential programs. You can also work 1 with your Co-op Coordinator, Charlotte Lam or Dave Merry, to set up your own co-op, work in a different part of the country, or even find a position abroad. If you have any questions, feel free to email Charlotte or Dave to set up a meeting through the MyNEU Advisor Calendar. For more information, visit our website at http://www.northeastern.edu/psychology/co op/ Co-op Coordinator assignments by last name: Charlotte Lam, [email protected] (Psych A-K and Linguistics) Dave Merry, [email protected] (Psych L-Z) We are committed to providing students with the courses, resources, and opportunities they need to pursue a productive, challenging, and rewarding undergraduate experience. We very much encourage you to play an active role in the department, to get to know the faculty, and to make your voices heard. We hope you will avail yourselves of the many opportunities we provide, and ask that you let us know how we can make your undergraduate experience even more rewarding. I am eager to work with you as we move forward and welcome your input, ideas, and suggestions – my email address is [email protected] And don’t forget to visit our website for information on additional resources and activities, announcements, updates, faculty profiles….and much more. I wish you a very productive and rewarding year. -- Prof. Miller Opportunities in Prof. Kim’s Lab! Prof. Kim’s lab studies causal and conceptual thinking, reasoning, and decision-making in clinical settings. The goal of our research is to concurrently address basic issues in cognitive science and applied issues in clinical science and practice. From the perspective of cognitive science, our research addresses how causal and explanatory beliefs are mentally represented and organized, and how this representation affects basic cognitive processes such as categorization, memory, judgments, and decision-making. From the perspective of clinical science, we simultaneously examine how people’s prior knowledge, beliefs, and expectations influence the assessment and diagnosis of medical and mental illness, memory for patients’ symptoms and medical information, judgments of psychological abnormality, decisions about treatment, and prejudice toward and stigmatization of patients. Exact projects vary by semester. We are currently recruiting energetic NU undergraduate research assistants to work on ongoing research projects for Research Directed Study credit or work-study for the Fall and Spring 2013-14 semesters. Responsibilities may include helping design, program, and run experiments, maintaining online studies, data coding, data analysis (for interested students), conducting literature searches, and writing. The time commitment is 10 hours per week for the semester, including an hour-long weekly lab meeting. Applicants must be responsible and attentive to detail. Prior or concurrent completion of Psych Stats and Cognition strongly preferred. For more information, and/or to apply, please contact Prof. Kim ([email protected]) or Erienne Weine ([email protected]). 2 Stand Up If You Are a Procrastinator (and Hear the Bad News) Many students (okay, many professors too) procrastinate. Many who do argue that it works well for them: the intensity of the lastminute experience is stimulating and produces good results. In the meantime, they enjoyed life! What could be better? Alas, research pricks a hole in that reasoning. Much evidence now reveals that procrastination is bad for people. So why do people do it, even when they don’t even think the final product, when it finally gets done, will be good? One reason is self-handicapping: doing something at the last minute provides a good excuse for its being not very good, while if it turns out well one can be proud of the natural genius that produces good results even when barely trying. Selfhandicappers would rather fail with a good excuse than do their best and fail. Social psychologists Tice and Ferrari showed in a laboratory study that chronic procrastinators avoided preparing to perform well on a math puzzle (by amusing themselves with computer games) when they were told the math puzzle was a cognitive evaluation, but not when it was described as just a fun puzzle. The threat of evaluation triggered a maladaptive behavior pattern. Thus, the procrastinator is someone who would rather be thought of as lazy than incompetent. Another cause of procrastination is perfectionism. A perfectionist would rather not do something when it needs to be done than risk doing something that is not perfect. The fear of being less than perfect is paralyzing. Baumeister studied it over a semester in two different courses. Students filled in a self-report of their own procrastination tendencies and then the researchers tracked their academic performance and their health and stress. Initially there seemed to be a benefit to procrastination, as the procrastinators had lower levels of stress compared to others, presumably because of putting off their work to pursue more pleasurable activities. In the end, however, procrastinators earned lower grades and reported higher cumulative amounts of stress and illness. Researchers are not completely sure about the root causes of procrastination. Probably there are several reasons for this complicated failure of self-regulation. It could be a failure of time management, a problem of impulsivity and low selfdiscipline, the inability to regulate moods and emotions, or a disguised manifestation of anxiety or insecurity. One thing is clear: procrastinators are not just happy-go-lucky people with weak time management skills. They are often beset with feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety about deferring tasks they need to do. Even the procrastinator who finds pleasure in doing more fun things than the thing that is postponed still—often— feels stress, guilt, and dread. Psychologist Timothy Pychyl argues that procrastinators recognize the harm in what they are doing, yet can’t overcome the emotional urge toward a diversion. Naturally, clinical psychologists are developing interventions to help procrastinators. But that is a story for another time! --Prof. Hall, with material adapted from APS Observer, April 2013 The downside of procrastination has been shown in much recent research. Social psychologists Dianne Tice and Roy 3 News of Our Grads Alumni of the DeSteno Lab are currently off doing a variety of great things! Mabel Ubiera is currently enrolled in Northeastern University’s online direct-entry Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing (BSN) program. In 16 months, she will have the qualifications to be an RN, which she is very excited about! Elyse Skenderian graduated and took a job as a Biotech Recruiter/Account Manager, before deciding to pursue a career as a Clinical Research Associate. She has taken some extra Life Sciences courses since graduating, and is looking to have an impact on the future of psychiatric and neurological therapy. Until the right job comes along, she is staying positive and working as a full-time nanny. Nicole Casey is beginning her second (and final) year in Northeastern’s Masters of Science in Counseling Psychology (MSCP) program. She is doing a full course-load, along with an internship with North Suffolk Mental Health Association. She also works full-time as a Case Manager for NSMHA, in a transitional/high-intensity living environment for individuals with chronic mental illness. Ideally she’ll pursue a career working as part of a clinical team in a hospital, serving a severely mentally ill population. Tara Gallo has graduated and is currently attending MSPP (Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology), where she just finished her first year in the PsyD program. She’s still living in Boston, and working at the Lowell Treatment Center Adult Partial Hospitalization Program for the summer. More News of Our Grads! Dan Paulus, ‘11 After completing my B.S. in psychology, I worked for six months as a research technician in the Causal Cognition Lab at Northeastern, where I had previously completed two Co-op cycles. I wanted to apply my research experience in cognitive psychology to a clinical setting, so I moved on to the University of Massachusetts Boston, as a research coordinator for an anxiety research lab. There, I was able to get my foot in the door of the clinical psychology realm, while still being in a research setting. I spent two years coordinating an NIMH-funded treatment research study on Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder. This position challenged me in new ways and provided me with life experiences that were more rewarding than I ever could have anticipated. Despite social anxiety being a disorder characterized by ‘fear’, I met some of the most courageous individuals imaginable. Working with these amazing people and helping them along their paths to reclaiming their lives inspired me and filled me with immense optimism about the work that clinical psychologists do, both in the lab and in the therapy room. Without my undergraduate research experiences, I would not have been qualified to work as a clinical research coordinator, and without those experiences, I would not have discovered my life’s passion. This upcoming fall, I will begin my first semester as a doctoral student at the University of Houston, where I will study transdiagnostic treatments for anxiety disorders. --Leah Dickens (doctoral student) 4 Christian Hagedorn, ‘13 Christian has just arrived in Korea, as a teacher of English. Here is what he writes: I arrived last Monday and was taken on a bus to Jeonju University. I had a 9 day intensive orientation involving classes on classroom management, teaching styles, Korean culture and language. The classes lasted from 9AM through 8:30PM with breaks for lunch and dinner. On the last day we had to present a lesson plan. My group was assigned a high school level lesson on hobbies and suggestions. We then found out our assignment schools and grade levels. I will be teaching high school for four days a week and an elementary school once a week. This is my second day on the job and I am just "deskwarming" (I have no teaching until Monday). I have a nice apartment with kitchenette, bed, desk, dresser, A/C, TV, and a bathroom with a washing machine. I am slowly and painfully learning some Korean but I definitely don't know nearly enough to even get by yet. I have been relying on my co-teacher who has studied in the states for 1 year (Chicago + Omaha) to help me with my necessities. Koreans as a culture are extremely accommodating and I must make an effort to not over-extend their hospitality, as they will be overly generous with it. As I am in a small town, I do get stares from older inhabitants as I walk down the street. I am average height and have Asian features so I can imagine that "foreigners" that are tall, Caucasian or otherwise non-Asian would get even more stares. These kinds of things may be a bit off-putting but you have to have a positive mentality or all the "little things" will get to you and you will be miserable. I am trying to keep an open mind and positive attitude. Opportunities in the Isaacowitz LED Lab! As a graduate student at Northeastern, I conduct research in the Lifespan Emotional Development (LED) Laboratory with Professor Isaacowitz. The majority of my days are spent in the lab conducting studies and working with Directed Study students. Each semester we have about 25 Directed Study students who work directly with a graduate student or full time lab member. The studies we conduct in the lab are about emotion and aging. The type of research we do involves collecting a variety of measures: self-report mood data, behavioral data, eyetracking, and psychophysiology. Students in the lab learn to run participants through experimental paradigms and to use the equipment we have in the lab. We use two types of eye-trackers. A mobile eyetracker, which is a pair of glasses with a small camera on it, tracks gaze while participants move around the room, and a stationary eye-tracker, which is a camera under the computer monitor, tracks where on the screen participants are looking using the pupil and reflections on the cornea. We also collect physiological signals which inform us about what is happening in the body as people do studies about emotions. Since we use lots of different measures we collect a massive amount of data and so directed students are also an integral part of the data processing procedure. We also have lab meetings in which we discuss empirical articles, graduate school, and other relevant topics. There are also some great opportunities once you are involved in a lab through the university. The Provost offers undergraduate research awards of up to $1,000 for students to conduct research projects sponsored by a faculty member. There is also the RISE exposition each 5 spring at Northeastern where students can present posters with research findings from the lab they work in. All of these things are great preparation for research and clinical jobs and graduate programs, and Directed Study is a great way to have these experiences. --Molly Sanders-Cannon (doctoral student) How Waiting for the Walk Light Could Save a Life That’s Not Your Own Eugenia Coleman and Tanya Schillawski designed and conducted a great experiment in Social Psychology Lab (PSYC 4614) last spring. It showed the power of role modeling between strangers in a public safety situation. And it shows how a very simple behavioral act influences other people—for their own good. Two crosswalks near Northeastern were selected as the research setting for their experiment. Without their knowing it, pedestrians were assigned to three different experimental conditions. One was a control condition in which they were simply observed to see if they waited for the “walk light.” In a second condition, a confederate waited for the light and the pedestrian’s walking behavior was observed. And in the third condition, three or four confederates all waited for the light and the pedestrian’s walking behavior was observed. The confederates’ behavior had a dramatic and highly significant effect on whether the pedestrians waited for the light themselves. In the control condition 24% of pedestrians waited for the light, while in the 1 confederate condition 50% did, and in the 34 confederate condition, a full 75% did. So, next time you are tempted to walk against the light, remember that your behavior has a bigger influence on the people around you than you ever imagined. --Prof. Hall Don’t Know What InterAxon Is? Then You Must Read On Do you like kids? Do you want to help others? Are you interested in sharing your unique knowledge of neuroscience to the young minds of Boston? Well, an awesome opportunity has landed itself amongst the NEURONS community! InterAxon is a national neuroscience outreach organization (http://interaxonoutreach.org/). The NEURONS InterAxon chapter is joining forces with other InterAxon chapters across the nation in creating and fostering interest, excitement, and curiosity about the brain. We will go to nearby underprivileged elementary schools, middle schools and high schools to teach neuroscience. This learning experience will encompass an assortment of presentations, brain games, trivia, fun facts, and more. We need your creative mind to come up with fun and interesting ways to teach neuroscience to different age groups. The students involved may not otherwise have an opportunity to learn about the brain, so it is in our hands to expose them to and excite them about the field of neuroscience! InterAxon will be part of the NEURONS club (http://www.northeastern.edu/neurons/). So, if you aren’t already a member of NEURONS then come to our first meeting where we will be recruiting interested members to kick off the InterAxon chapter! More information will be posted at 6 http://www.northeastern.edu/bns/interaxonoutreach/ shortly. --Chloe Holland [email protected] --Tedi Rosenstein [email protected] (BNS majors) Department of Research Nuggets Some Interesting Recent Findings in Psychology! Fat and happy? Over a 4-year period, spouses filled in surveys about marital happiness, health, stress, and weight. Happier couples gained more weight than unhappy couples. The researchers speculated that happy couples are no longer concerned about attracting a mate, while unhappy couples are thinking ahead to attracting their next partner (Health Psychology, 2013, Vol. 32). Smiling and sunshine. A well established finding is that people will predictably return the smile of a stranger when passing on the street. A recent study in France also confirmed another effect, based on the link between good weather and good mood (yes, there really is a link!). In the French study, passersby were more likely to return the stranger’s smile when it was a sunny versus cloudy day (Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2013, Vol. 37). Who has an “entrepreneurial personality profile” and where do they live? The entrepreneurial personality is high on extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience and low on agreeableness and neuroticism, according to research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013, Vol. 105). Research with over a half-million Americans showed that the District of Columbia, California, and Utah have the highest fit with this profile and Mississippi, Louisiana, and West Virginia have the lowest. The distribution of entrepreneurial personality types correlated significantly with empirical measures of actual entrepreneurial activity across the 50 states and D.C. I like what you see. People evaluate an object more favorably if the object is getting others’ attention, even if it is just visual attention—in other words, just seeing someone looking at something makes you evaluate the object more highly. (Don’t think advertisers don’t already know this!) New research shows that this effect depends in part, however, on whom you see doing the looking. Previous research has shown that some people have faces that look more “trustworthy” than others. Trustworthy and untrustworthy faces were experimentally shown looking at a painting. Observers were more attracted to the painting if it had been briefly looked at by the more trustworthy face (Cognition, 2012, Vol. 122). Crowded counseling centers! Ninety-five percent of college counseling center directors said the number of students with significant psychological problems is a growing concern on their campuses, according to an article in Monitor on Psychology, June 2013. The chief concern is anxiety, followed by depression and relationship problems. Also, they report not having sufficient resources to adequately serve students needing help. How quickly can emotional expressions be detected? It has long been known that not much information is needed in order to recognize a standard set of emotions in the face. But now that time window has been shortened even more. Researchers showed happy, angry, or fearful faces for 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 milliseconds, either right side up or upside down. Accuracy of emotion recognition increased from 10 to 50 ms but 7 it was better than guessing even at 10 ms, for both orientations of the face. Some researchers argue that humans are hardwired to recognize “basic” emotions. Perhaps it is true. But perhaps we just learn the cues really well. (From Emotion, 2013, Vol. 13). Need to Know Something About Psychology, or Statistics, or……? Try the Wikipedia But even tree shrews recognize affect intensity! Researchers have already shown that social-living species including carnivores and rodents respond to affective information in conspecifics’ vocalizations. However, it was not clear whether this would be seen in animals with non-complex social systems. Now, researchers from Germany played recordings of two different kinds of calls to tree shrews (a relatively primitive, solitary foraging primate), while experimentally varying the acoustic intensity of the call. The shrews responded to the difference with changes in attentional behavior, indicating that responding to vocal affect has very deep-reaching phylogenetic roots. (From Emotion, 2012, Vol. 12). There are many ways to get information these days, on and off the Web. One is the Wikipedia. Of course, one has to be cautious about everything one reads on the Web. But, still, you will be amazed at how much valuable information for psychology students and professionals is waiting to be read on the Wikipedia! In fact there is a page called WikiProject Psychology that tells you how to find things on psychology and what initiatives are in progress to expand and improve the coverage of psychology in the Wikipedia. The Association for Psychological Science (APS) even has a task force with this goal. Gender and anxiety. Everyone is anxious these days, but women are more plagued by anxiety than men are. Researchers are trying to figure out why. A team at the University of Pennsylvania looked at the psychological traits of instrumentality (for example, self-confidence, independence, and competitiveness) and mastery (the belief one has control over one’s life). These two variables were significant mediators between gender and anxiety, meaning that gender predicted instrumentality and mastery feelings (women being lower on both than men), and these two traits in turn predicted anxiety. The conclusion is that if women could develop stronger feelings of instrumentality and mastery, their anxiety levels relative to men would improve. (From Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2012, Vol. 36.) Write Something for Psych NUws!! UNDERGRADS! Write something about your psychology-related activities on or off campus. Or interview someone on a psychology topic. Or summarize an article you enjoyed reading. If you like writing and networking, become a contributor to Psych NUws. --Prof. Hall Psych NUws is a joint effort of the members and grads of the Northeastern University Psychology Department. Direct your inquiries and contributions to the Editor, Prof. Judith Hall ([email protected]). 8