Lauren RubensteinAssistant Professor of Psychology Patricia Rodriguez Mosquera, together with Tasmiha Khan '12 and post-doc Arielle Selya, recently published an article in Cognition & Emotion titled, "Coping with the 10th anniversary of 9/11: Muslim Americans' sadness, fear, and anger.' A decade after the events of Sept. 11, 2001—which prompted an increase in prejudice, discrimination and other forms of unfair treatment toward Muslim Americans—the researchers examined the emotions of Muslim Americans in the days preceding the 10-year anniversary. They found that the anniversary precipitated intense concerns with loss and discrimination, and feelings of fear, anger and, most intensely, sadness. They also measured three coping…
Olivia DrakeA collaborative study by four professors in the Psychology Department was published in the January 2013 issue of Developmental Science. "Minimal-group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members," was written by lead author Mariah Schug, visiting assistant professor of psychology, together with Hilary Barth, associate professor of psychology; Andrea Patalano, associate professor of psychology, chair of psychology; and Anna Shusterman, assistant professor of psychology. The study examined how children's preference for members of their "ingroup" over those in an "outgroup" affects their processing of information. Children participating in the study observed ingroup and outgroup members acting in…
Assistant Professor of Psychology Charles "Chuck" Sanislow, Liz Reagan '13 and Katie da Cruz '11 the co-authors of a chapter titled "Avoidant Personality Disorder, Traits, and Type," published in The Oxford Handbook for Personality Disorders, Oxford University Press, pages 549-565, in 2012. May Gianoli, formerly a postdoc in psychology and now at Yale, also was a co-author. Katie da Cruz is currently working on her Ph.D in school psychology at Michigan State. Read the abstract online here.
Read the following words in your head: Incense Lemon Kick Though it may be happening on a subconscious level, all these words share an important feature: They all evoke a sensation or perceptual experience in the mind of the reader. Incense brings to mind a particular scent; lemon, a tart taste in the mouth; and kick activates a part of the brain responsible for motor behavior. Research suggests that these mental reactions occur very quickly—within fractions of a second—after reading a word. In the Eye Movement and Reading Lab at Wesleyan, Barbara Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor…
Assistant Professor of Psychology Patricia Rodriguez Mosquera has become Associate Editor of The European Journal of Social Psychology. The journal is an international forum for original, high-quality, peer-reviewed research in all areas of social psychology. The international editorial team encourages submissions based on empirical, meta-analytical, and theoretical research. Topics covered include, among others, intergroup relations, social cognition, attitudes, social influence and persuasion, self and identity, verbal and nonverbal communication, language and thought, affect and emotion, embodied and situated cognition and individual differences of social-psychological relevance. The European Journal of Social Psychology is sponsored by the European Association of Social Psychology.…
Barbara Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, is the author of an article titled, "Sensory experience ratings for over 5,000 mono- and disyllabic words." The article was published online on Aug. 31 in the Behavior Research Methods journal, a publication of The Psychonomic Society. It was co-authored with Melvin Yap of the National University of Singapore. The study provides sensory experience ratings (SERs)--which reflect the extent to which a word evokes a sensory and/or perceptual experience in the mind of the reader—for 2,857 monosyllabic words used in a 2011 study, as well as 3,000 new disyllabic words.…
Benjamin TraversMatt Donahue '14 is a double major in psychology and neuroscience and behavior, works in several departments on campus, and is the chapter president of Brighter Dawns, a student run non-profit that aims to improve health conditions in the slums of Bangladesh. Learn more about Donahue in the video below: [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-xjE8Zsv2U[/youtube]
Professor of Psychology Scott Plous is working to spread the word about a model of teaching that enhances learning while directly contributing to a more just, compassionate, and peaceful world. Back in 2000, Plous coined the term "action teaching" to describe this model. He was inspired by the work of psychologist Kurt Lewin, who in the wake of World War II, developed the concept of "action research," or research aimed at solving social problems. Lewin's action research primarily focused on addressing prejudice due to race or religion. The first action teaching lesson Plous developed, which he published in the journal…
This summer, Mariah Schug, visiting assistant professor of psychology, traveled to the Faroe Islands where she produced a gallery exhibit on animal sexual diversity. The exhibit, titled, "What is Natural? Diversity of the North," combined Schug's scientific research and the work of Nordic artists. It was organized by LGBT Faroe Islands and funded by the Nordic Culture Fund, and ran from July 27 through Aug. 30. According to Schug, the LGBT movement in the Faroe Islands is relatively new. While supported by much of the public, it faces serious criticisms from religious conservatives. Politicians and public figures who are opposed to equal rights for the Faroese LGBT community…
Ruth Striegel, the Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, professor of psychology, received a grant worth $492,300 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases on Aug. 21. The grant will support her research titled "Targeting Binge Eating to Prevent Weight Gain in College Students" through Aug. 31, 2014.
“We’ve moved the meeting/truck forward.” “That was a long wait/ hotdog.” "We’re rapidly approaching the deadline/guardrail.” English speakers use a shared vocabulary to talk about space and time. And though it’s not something we’re necessarily conscious of, psychologists have found that the identical words we use to describe our wait in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles and the length of an especially impressive hotdog are not a fluke, but rather are telling of the cognitive processes involved in thinking about time. Past studies have shown that priming people with spatial information actually influences their perceptions of time. For example, people primed to imagine…
Inspired by her students' passion for education reform, Assistant Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman and several of her students launched an innovative five-week pilot program this summer to prepare children entering kindergarten at Macdonough School in Middletown. Fifteen children participated in this research-based program, with a curriculum designed by Shusterman, her students and a Macdonough teacher. According to Shusterman, children in low-income neighborhoods start kindergarten with academic skills up to two years behind their peers. Research shows that quality early childhood education makes a huge difference in helping to shrink this achievement gap. In fact, economists estimate a $7 return…