My paper that was recently accepted for publication has "come to press" at Current Research in Social Psychology, and it can be read here.

A paper that I wrote with my colleagues at LVC in the History (Dr. John Hinshaw) and Political Science (Dr. Chris Dolan and Dr. Diane Johnson) Departments was accepted for publication in CUR Quartely, a publication of the Council of Undergraduate Research. It will appear in a special issue dedicated to How Undergraduate Research Supports Faculty and Student Development. 

This paper we wrote describes our work in securing a grant and developing an interdisciplinary research program with undergraduates from LVC.

A paper I wrote with my dissertation advisor, Carol Gohm, was accepted for publication at Current Research in Social Psychology (CRISP).

Below is the abstract.   

 Last month (February 20), LVC hosted an undergraduate conference. I was one of the orgnaizers of the event, along with my colleagues-Diane Johnson, Chris Dolan, and John Hinshaw. This conference was the culimination of our collaboration together. We have spent two years investigating fear and terror. The event was fantastic. I think it was great to see undergraduates get the chance to present their work in a non-threatening environment. Many of them were first time presenters. It was also nice to have multiple disciplines represented. Typically, conferences are limted to a single discipline or single sub-discipline.

Our Keynote Speaker--Sheldon Solomon--gave a energetic and engaging talk about "Man's Inhumanity to Man."

Dr. Sheldon Solomon is a leading researcher in Terror Managment Theory. It was a real treat to have him come and speak.

On a personal note, members of my lab presented two posters at the conference. These posters were on complimentary projects that are the first works to come out of my lab.

The first poster was titled "Identity vs. Regulatory Capacity: Two Explanations for Perseverance" is a 're-presentation' of a research that I did at SPSP a few weeks ago.  Here is a picture of MaryKatherine Mitchell, Mariela Horna, and Anh Tran, who were authors on the poster along with me. This poster won a "Best  Poster Award" at the conference.

pictured: Anh Tran, Mariela Horna, & MaryKatherine Mitchell

The other poster was titled "Do Self-Presentational Management Concerns Override the Consequences of Regulatory Depletions on Perseverence?". Ashley Collins, Mike Fleming, Tanisha Rine, and Kim Flanagan (not pictured) were student authors on this poster with me.

pictured: Tanisha Rine, Ashley Collins, & Mike Fleming

Overall, the conference was a big success. Congratulations and a big thanks to my students who put in the hard work on these research projects and posters.

I just returned from the 11th Annual Meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology Conference. I presented a poster. Included on this poster was two LVC students that are invovled in the SOCIAL EMOTION LAB.

This is particularly exciting for me because this study is the first research project that came out of our lab.  

For students, an important part of a liberal arts education is learning to integrate material from different disciplines, and a unique advantage to teaching at a liberal arts college is the interaction I get to have with colleagues from different disciplines. These aspects have been particularly evident to me in the last couple of years.

My colleauges (from the History and Political Science Department) and I have been working together on research projects that investigate fear and terror. We have been using these projects to (a) take an interdisciplinary approach to a complex topic and (b) facilitate faculty-student collaboration. As the cullminating event in this collaboration, we put together a conference that focuses on 'Challenges of the 21st Century'.

Be sure to check our website for more details, including submission and registration information. Also, join us for our keynote address by Sheldon Solomon.

The Social-Emotion Lab (SEL) has been working on several research projects addressing perseverance. Preliminary data of our first study in this area was presented at the Eastern Psychological Association last March. This data was presented by myself, and had three student co-authors (and SEL members) --Ashley Orndorff, Michael Fleming, and Kim Weinreich.

We collected a little more data on this project after this presentation, and will be presenting this data set at the 2010 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference in Las Vegas, NV in late January 2010. The title of this presentation is "Identity vs. Regulatory Capacity: Examining Two Explanations of Perseverance."  This poster presentation will have two student co-authors (and SEL members)--Michael Fleming and Ashley Orndorff.

This work attempts to untangle the reason people persevere.

Previous research seems to suggest that people persevere because people want to either (1) maintain a consistent self-image (e.g., everyone thinks I am supposed to work hard or be good at this task) or (2) because they have the capacity to self-regulate (i.e., will-power). In this study, we found that the will-power explanation explained perseverance better under the circumstances we set up. However, the pattern of data suggests that the motivation for self-consistency had some influence. The pattern of data made us wonder under which conditions self-consistency may provide a more powerful explanation/motivation. Therefore, this is what the research team is currently examining.