Psychology

Student Research

One of the real strengths of our program is the opportunity for students to work closely with faculty on scholarly research. All of our full-time faculty are active researchers and provide opportunities for students to work on faculty-directed projects or to develop their own ideas.

Research oriented courses are an integral part of our curriculum and there are ample opportunities for students to pursue independent research.  As you can see by the long list of presentations and publications, these collaborative endeavors are quite successful in producing quality research.  Our students have presented at professional conferences and at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research.  Another presentation opportunity for Psychology students is the MCLA Undergraduate Research Conference in which many Psychology majors present their work every year.

Don't hesitate to contact a faculty member to learn more about their research or to ask about getting involved in a lab!

Conference Presentations (2006-Present)

Ober, R., & Claffey, S.T. (2011) In God We Trust: Stress and Well-Being in Parents of Children with Mitochondrial Disease.  Poster presented at National Conferences on Undergraduate Research, Ithaca, New York.

Caucci, G., Fusini, A., & Jay, T.B. (2006, July). Slower reading times but poorer recognition rates for romantic sentences. 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Text & Discourse, Minneapolis, MN.

Jay, T.B. & Janschewitz, K. (2006, July 3-4). Swearing with friends and enemies in high and low places. Invited address. Conference on Impoliteness. University of Huddersfield, UK.

Gaesser, B., Tovani, A., & Jay, T. (2006, April). Semantic priming effects with taboo words. Poster presented at National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). University of North Carolina Asheville.

Gaesser, B., Tovani, A., & Jay, T. (2006, March). Semantic Priming Effects of Taboo Words. Poster presented at Eastern Psychological Association, Baltimore.

Erica Gaizetis, School Bullying: Effects of School Climate on Teachersí Perceptions of Efficacy.  (2011). 25th Annual NCUR, Ithaca, NY.

Lynne Vanderpot and Nicole Mace, Predictive Factors of Relational Aggression in College Students:  Friendship Quality and Personality Traits.  (2009). 23rd Annual NCUR, La Crosse, WI.

Jon Cavanaugh and Devin Bryant-Bosshold,  The Adaptive Nature of Social Aggression.  (2009). 23rd Annual NCUR, La Crosse, WI.

Jennifer Hug, Adults' Perceptions of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders.  (2008). 22nd Annual NCUR, Salisbury, MD

Scott Greenberg, Brendan Gaesser, Sigourney Wendt, and Marina Berman, Implicit Attitudes and the Perception of Morality and Stability of Aggression.  (2006). 20th Annual NCUR, Asheville, NC.

Bartini, M., Cavanaugh, J., Bryant-Bosshold, D., Mace, N., Vanderpot, L., Johnson, B., & Boody, J.  (2010, March).  Relational aggression in structured laboratory tasks:  An examination of college students and their friends.  Poster presented at the 2010 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Philadelphia, PA.

Girgenti, A. & Bartini, M. (2007, March).  Differences in support and opposition of capital punishment.  Poster presented at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia, PA.

Tirrell, S. A. & Bartini, M.  (2005, April).  Aggression and dating popularity:  A dominance theory approach.  Poster presented at the 2005 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

Publications (2006-Present)

Claffey, S. T., & Manning, K. R. (2010). Equity but not equality: Commentary on Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard. Sex Roles, 63, 781-785.