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Research Opportunities
in the Psychology Department
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Why Participate in Research?
There are several reasons why you should participate in research
activities:
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To understand how knowledge is
gained in the discipline.
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To develop your ability to think
critically and creatively which will help regardless of what career you seek.
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To develop your ability to
conceptualize, organize and complete large projects, also an experience
that will help you in any career.
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To develop your laboratory
skills and gain experience sought after by graduate schools if you are
going on in psychology.
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To allow your faculty a chance to
know you better, which will improve those letters of recommendation you are
going to ask us to write.
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Participation as a subject
If you are interested in being a subject in psychological research
check on the bulletin board across from the Science Center/Goodrich
lounge in the psychology area. All studies looking for
participation of college students will post lists there.
If you need an extra credit form, pick it up here.
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Participation as a researcher
There are several ways you can participate in research as a
researcher here at Hanover:
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In the following classes you will
work in small groups (pairs or threes) to develop a research project:
PSY220, Research Design and Statistics; PSY 333, Cognitive Psychology; PSY 337, Learning. Some of these projects have been presented at
regional and national conferences. Here are two recent examples
(students' names are in italics):
Sarah Blythe and Kati Knight, (2003). The Effect of
Pre-existing Affiliation on Ingroup Bias in a State of Heightened
Competition. A poster accepted at the 4th Annual Meeting of the
Society for Personality and Social Psychologists, in L.A.
David Buck, Noelle Liwski, Connie Wolfe, Max Somers, Katie
Knight and Jennifer Crocker. (2003).
The school competency contingency of worth as a mediator between
performance-oriented achievement goals and performance outcomes.
A poster at the 4th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social
Psychologists, in L.A.
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PSY309, Research Practicum.
This is a 1/4 credit course that you can sign up for, multiple
times, to work with faculty in the department on their research.
Several of these projects have led to student having their name on
presentations. Here are a couple of recent examples (students'
names are in italics):
Patricia Callahan, Elizabeth Spievak, Amy Kerr, Kristi
Helmkamp, Jessica Thornberry, & Shannon Updike. (2003).
What We've Forgotten about the Day We Would Never Forget:
Memories of September 11th. Poster presentation at the 15th
annual convention of the American Psychological Society, in Atlanta, GA.
Connie Wolfe, Katie Knight, David Buck, Noelle Liwski, & Maxx
Somers. (2003). Dispositional rumination as a mediator
of the negative relationship between trait self-esteem and contingencies
of worth dependent on external, interpersonal feedback. A poster
presented at the 4th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and
Social Psychologists, in L.A.
Sometimes this work even leads to publications:
John Krantz & Reeshad Dalal. (2000). Validity of Web-Based
Psychological Research. In M. H. Birnbaum (Ed.), Psychological
experiments on the internet (pp. 35-60). New York: Academic Press.
If you are interested in this
opportunity, here is a list of the current faculty members' ongoing
research projects.
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Senior project. Across your senior
year you will design and conduct a full research project (usually alone)
and present it at Butler and perhaps other research conferences such as
the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA).
Here is a
page that lists the past Butler presentations with abstracts (usually)
and PowerPoint of the presentations. Here are recent students
that have presented their work at MPA:
Jessica Thornberry & Maggie Tate. (2003). The Role
of Social Interaction in the Development of an Abstract
Self-Understanding, and Sarah Blythe (2003). A
Mathematical Model of the Retina Capable of Form & Color Analysis
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