The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium host a series of experts from different areas of psychology and neuroscience throughout the academic year.
Talks are held in KARP 105 from 12:45 - 1:50 p.m. ~ details are listed below.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Meredith Maroney, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Counseling & School Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston
for a public lecture entitled
Across the Double Rainbow: Research at the Intersection of Autism and LGBTQ+ Identities
Thursday, October 3, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
In recent years, there has been increased attention on the intersection of Autistic and LGBTQ+ identities, and the higher likelihood of Autistic people identifying as sexual and gender minorities (see Warrier et al., 2020). Autistic-LGBTQ+ people experience barriers and stigma across multiple domains concerning their dual identities, including healthcare settings, school, and social settings (Maroney & Horne, 2022; Strang et al., 2021). This can be explained through a minority stress framework, which describes the multiple social stressors experienced by individuals with minoritized identities. Both LGBTQ+ people and Autistic people have elevated mental health concerns related to distal and proximal stressors, and emerging research indicate lower well-being, higher stress, and greater rates of depression and anxiety (George & Stokes, 2018; Strauss et al., 2021). Despite these elevated stressors and mental health concerns, there is little training for providers interested in providing culturally competent healthcare to Autistic-LGBTQ+ people, and historically, much of the research has excluded Autistic-LGBTQ+ perspectives. Informed by participatory and qualitative approaches, this talk will summarize experiences at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and Autistic identities (i.e., double rainbow), and discuss how to conduct research and clinical work in gender and neurodivergent-affirming ways.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Kathleen Corriveau, Ed.D.
Associate Dean and Professor, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, Boston University
for a public lecture
How Testimony Helps to Foster Young Children's STEM Learning
Thursday, October 17, 2024
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
How do children learn about the world? Classic research in psychology and education has emphasized how children learn from their own first-hand experience. Yet there are many domains of knowledge where it is difficult – if not impossible – for children to learn from direct experience, such as learning about scientific concepts and historical facts. My research program explores how preschool children determine whether or not an informant is a trustworthy source of information, as well as how children use that information to engage in critical thinking when learn about the world. In this talk, I focus on individual differences in children’s selective learning from adult explanations, and the role of those explanations in fostering STEM learning. I discuss implications for both formal and informal educational settings.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Harrison Schmitt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Skidmore College
for a public lecture
'The Plague of Our Time': Addressing Toxic Trauma in Environmental Justice Communities
Thursday, January 16, 2025
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Nearly 70 million people in the United States today live within three miles of a Superfund site – an EPA-monitored area of land contaminated with hazardous substances. Some scholars have called these environmental health hazards “the plague of our time.” However, Superfund sites and other environmental issues disproportionately impact low-income communities of color, making them classic environmental justice issues. While the physical health impacts of such exposures are well documented, much less is known about the psychological implications of exposure to toxic substances. I present a mixed-methods case study of the impact of chronic water contamination on a Superfund site in Tucson, Arizona’s southside, a largely low-income Latine community. Through historical and archival analysis, qualitative interviews, representative surveys, experiments, and community engagement, I document the unique nature of “toxic trauma” and explore the ways that this community has built resilience to and organized against environmental injustice.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Marlow Guerrant, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Union College
for a public lecture
“We’re people, not numbers or guinea pigs”: Participatory Approaches to Address LGBTQ+ Health Inequities
Thursday, February 13, 2025
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States in 2015 and has been associated with improved health outcomes for LGBTQ+ populations, both through improved access to care associated with marriage benefits and because it signaled an increase in LGBTQ+ acceptance. This shift highlights the impact of macro-factors such as policy and social climate on group and individual well-being. However, some within the LGBTQ+ community have critiqued same-sex marriage for diverting from much bigger structural problems which remain unaddressed. Recent headlines discussing access to gender affirming care for adolescents and mortality rates among BIPOC LGBTQ+ persons underscore these structural problems. This raises important questions – How can we best address LGBTQ+ health inequity? What voices continue to be missing in this conversation? What is the role of psychology in answering these questions? This talk will explore these questions by using examples of mixed-methods and participatory research to emphasize the ways in which traditional methods further disempower marginalized populations, and the importance of shifting research from being conducted ‘on’ queer (and other equity-seeking) populations to
research being conducted ‘with’ and ‘by’ these populations.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Angie Johnston, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, Boston College
for a public lecture
A glimpse into the canine mind: What your dog is thinking
Thursday, March 6, 2025
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
How have dogs come to be humankind's best friends? This talk will trace dogs' social cognitive abilities through domestication, covering work with wolves, dogs, and dingoes to better understand how domestication has shaped dogs' psychology. We will explore some classic work in canine cognition that has been done around the globe, answering questions such as: Can dogs understand human communication? Can dogs communicate with us? and Do dogs love us? We will end with more recent work done here in the US exploring how dogs learn from us and how that compares to human children.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Molly Maloney, Ph.D. ('15)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University School of Public Health
for a public lecture
Predicting and Preventing Alcohol-Facilitated Violence
Thursday, April 17, 2025
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Interpersonal violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV), is a significant public health concern. It is estimated that approximately 30-50% of US adults will experience interpersonal violence in their lifetimes, the effects of which are cumulative. Consequences of victimization include but are not limited to suicidality, heavy substance use, posttraumatic stress disorder, missed days of work, physical injury, chronic pain, and risk for future violence victimization. Meta-analyses demonstrate that three decades of prevention programming have not meaningfully reduced rates of interpersonal violence. Alcohol use is among the most robust predictors (and outcomes) of interpersonal violence but has been largely ignored in violence prevention programs. With a good understanding of how, for whom, and in what contexts alcohol leads to violence, alcohol use can be meaningfully targeted in violence prevention programming. This talk will provide a brief and integrative summary of work that has aimed to answer these important questions and introduce a novel approach to preventing alcohol-facilitated violence.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Tomer Ullman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University
for a public lecture
Good Enough: Approximations in Mental Simulation and Intuitive Physics
Thursday, May 1, 2025
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
From spreading mayo on toast to dodging an errant frisbee, people handle the everyday physical world with remarkable ease. Without a sense of ‘intuitive physics’, every day would be a series of small disasters. How do they do it? One current model of intuitive physics supposes that people are carrying out a kind of mental simulation, moving objects in the mind step by step. While successful in several cases, even the people who champion this idea recognize that humans can't be running a perfect simulation. In this talk, I consider several principled bounds and approximations that may underlie imperfect mental simulation in humans. These include approximate bodies in tracking, lazy evaluation in imagery, and bounds on the number of objects that can be simulated at once. I will also consider the computational models that capture these approximations, and behavioral studies that inform the arguments empirically.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Joseph Uscinski, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Miami
for a public lecture entitled
Getting Conspiracy Theories Right and Wrong
Thursday, September 28, 2023
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Conspiracy theories have a become a topic of much concern given their involvement in political violence and other recent events. But what do we know about these things we call “conspiracy theories”? Are beliefs in them increasing? Are conspiracy theories driving deleterious political and medical behaviors? Who is to blame for the salience of conspiracy theories in our politics and what should we do about it? In this talk, Professor Uscinski will draw on a decade of American and European polling data to answer these and other questions about conspiracy theories.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Stephanie Block, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UMASS Lowell
for a public lecture entitled
Kids, cases, and consequences: Child sexual abuse reported to the criminal legal system
Thursday, October 12, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
This talk will review a retrospective analysis of 500 child sexual abuse (CSA)
cases referred for prosecution in 4 counties in one state. The purpose of
the study was to examine the dynamics of the cases to explore case
trajectories and barriers to prosecution. Case attrition rates and the CSA
case characteristics associated with prosecution outcomes will be
discussed. Only a small portion of cases move forward with prosecution.
Support from non-offending caregivers was associated with cases moving
forward with prosecution. Barriers to prosecution included lack of evidence
such as medical evidence and disclosure issues. Delays in disclosure and what triggered children to tell will be reviewed. The talk will also highlight recent follow-up work including qualitative interviews with non-offending caregivers of sexually abused children and other non-prosecutorial outcomes in these cases.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jenny Fredricks, Ph.D.
Professor, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Why are Students So Disengaged in School and What Can We Do About It?
Thursday, February 1, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
In this talk, I present research that I have conducted over the past 25 years on student engagement in schools. The overarching question that has guided this work is why students are so disengaged in school and what can we do to create more engaging classroom contexts. I present research in six areas: 1) operationalization of student engagement, 2) measurement of student engagement, 3) patterns of student engagement, 4) outcomes of student engagement, 5) predictors of student engagement and disengagement, and 6) engagement interventions. The talk concludes with a discussion of recent work I have conducted in the policy and practice arenas to increase student engagement.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jonathan Peelle, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Northeastern University
for a public lecture
Cognitive consequences of acoustic challenge during spoken communication
Thursday, February 15, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Everyday communication is full of acoustic challenges, including background noise, competing talkers, or assistive devices. How do listeners understand speech in the midst of this noise? Evidence from multiple sources is consistent with a shared resource framework of speech comprehension in which domain-general cognitive processes supported by discrete regions of frontal cortex are required for successfully understanding speech. These increased cognitive demands can be captured using behavior, pupillometry, and functional brain imaging. Although frequently studied in the context of hearing loss, these principles have broader implications for our understanding of how auditory and cognitive factors interact during spoken language comprehension.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jeremy Jamieson, Ph.D.
Professor, University of Rochester
for a public lecture entitled
Biopsychosocial Approaches to Optimizing Stress Responses
Thursday, March 7, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Negative stress responses pose a major threat to learning, productivity, and mental health, and can cause people to disengage from stressful pursuits, resulting in missed opportunities to acquire valuable skills. In a set of studies presented here, I present data from our group that posits a stress optimization approach to facilitating stress responses. This approach seeks to guide individuals towards recognizing the functional benefits of stress to achieve desired goals. First, we tested effects in a community college sample, and then took stress regulation insights and synthesized findings with mindset theories. This resulted in a synergistic approach to optimizing stress responses. In a series of 6 double-blind experiments, the novel synergistic regulation approach improved stress-related cognitions and affect, cardiovascular reactivity, wellbeing, and performance. Confidence in conclusions were bolstered by our conservative, Bayesian ML statistical approach. Taken together this work seeks to refute the lay conceptualization that stress is unilaterally negative and regulation approaches should only seek stress reduction.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Janell Mensinger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Nova Southeastern University
for a public lecture entitled
New solutions for the unintended consequences of the ‘War on Obesity’: Why it is time to retire the BMI as a marker of health
Thursday, April 11, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
For the past 3 decades, billions of dollars have been spent in effort to fight the “obesity” epidemic. Consequently, we have witnessed increasing medical weight loss “solutions” during the 21st century. Yet, epidemiological data show simultaneously increasing rates of people with body mass index (BMI) considered “too high.” Eating disorders, once considered a rare diagnosis among privileged young, white women living in Western cultures, have also exploded across gender, race, age, class, and cultural lines. Our latest sample (N=1060) collected in February and March 2024 by first-year graduate students (29%) and their adult family and friends (71%) showed 46% reported clinically significant disordered eating. Perhaps we should not be shocked over these sobering rates of eating dysfunction and body distress. We live in a culture consumed with the latest methods to achieve health through reducing the “body habitus.” Nevertheless, eating disorder rates continue to climb, and they have among the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric diagnoses. This presentation will discuss the need for a weight-neutral perspective to health. I will propose a potential new metric for holistic well-being. With the advent of smartphone technology, capturing this metric is now almost as simple as stepping on your bathroom scale.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Adam Mastroianni, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
for a public lecture entitled
Things Could Be Better
Thursday, April 25, 2024
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Eight studies reveal a (possibly universal) bias in human imagination: people are always imagining how things could be better. This bias has shown up on every item we’ve ever tested, it shows up in people’s spontaneous thoughts, and it doesn’t seem to matter who we ask or how we ask them. It shows up when we ask Polish participants in English, and when we ask Chinese participants in Mandarin. We tried to write this up for a journal, but it sucked, so we just wrote it up in normal words and put it on the internet instead. We got a huge reaction and helpful feedback. Which made me wonder: what’s the whole point of scientific journals anyway? I did a deep dive into the history and evidence behind publishing and peer review, which I’ve come to believe is a failed intervention. We’ve turned science into a monoculture, when what we really need is the most diverse ecosystem possible. That’s why I’ve become a weirdo who publishes research directly to the public. In academia, as in everything else, things could be better.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Nelson Roque, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida
for a public lecture entitled
Cognitive Assessment in the Cloud:
A Word on Reproducibility, Approaches, and Lessons Learned
Thursday, October 6, 2022
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
Mobile and web-based applications on personal devices can serve as powerful tools to assess research participant and patient health, simultaneously improving patient experiences, lowering barriers to participation, and delivering key data to analyze trends and enhance patient care through earlier intervention. Cloud-based infrastructure provides a highly-scalable and available means to collect, store, and share data, and deliver seamless experiences for application end-users. Join us to learn how Dr. Nelson Roque is leveraging AWS to deliver mobile and web-based assessments to measure changes in patient cognition over time and translating results into improved research and teaching outcomes. Dr. Roque will share challenges and lessons learned in developing research infrastructure on AWS.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Christopher Chabris, Ph.D.
Professor and Co-Director, Behavioral Insights Team, Geisinger Health System
for a public lecture entitled
Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It
Thursday, October 20, 2022
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
How did Bernie Madoff get away with a $65 billion Ponzi scheme for 15 years? How did Diederik Stapel publish 58 fake social psychology studies? Is it possible for an amateur to cheat their way to a grandmaster title in chess? And why does anyone still answer emails from a “Nigerian prince?” Fraud, cheating, and scams of various kinds often seem obvious in retrospect, yet people fall for the same kinds of tricks over and over. I will discuss the psychology of how we get taken in, including some cognitive habits that render us vulnerable to deception, as well as several hooks fraudsters use to attract our interest and trust. The talk will include examples drawn from cases in a variety of fields, as well as lessons for how to spot and avoid deception—and how to apply insights from psychological science to everyday life. This talk will be a preview of the book Nobody’s Fool, by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, to be published next year by Basic Books in the U.S. and by other publishers worldwide.
The Union College Psychology and Biology Departments welcome
Thomas R. Zentall, Ph.D. (Union ’63)
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky
for a public lecture entitled
An Animal Model of Human Gambling Behavior:
It’s All About the Size of the Potential Reward, not its Probability and the Excitement of Winning
Thursday, February 2, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Olin 115
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Human gambling generally involves suboptimal choice because the expected return is usually less than the investment. Contrary to optimal foraging theory, we have found that animals, too, choose suboptimally under similar choice conditions. Pigeons, like human gamblers, show an impaired ability to objectively assess overall probabilities and amounts of reinforcement when a rare, high value outcome (analogous to a jackpot in human gambling) is presented in the context of more frequently occurring losses. Specifically, pigeons prefer a low-probability, high-reward outcome over a guaranteed low-reward outcome representing a higher overall reward. Furthermore, manipulations assumed to decrease impulsivity (pigeons maintained at lower levels of motivation for food and pigeons given enriched experience) result in decreased suboptimal choice. They do so presumably because they function to decrease attraction to the signal for the low-probability, high-reward outcomes and allow them to consider the more global probability of reinforcement associated with each alternative.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jenny Weil Malatras, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
The Scientist-Practitioner: Bridging clinical practice and research on family stability
Thursday, February 16, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The family environment is an inherent part of any discussion of psychological development, as it plays a critical role in children’s emotional and social development. Although various aspects of the family environment have been implicated in the emotional development and adjustment of youth, specific factors and mechanisms through which family context influences development continue to be explored. Pinpointing those factors that put young people at risk or that protect them from maladjustment add to our understanding of psychological development in youth and young adulthood and enhance opportunities for intervention. The present talk is intended to help describe the relationships between family contextual influences—in particular, aspects of family stability including major family life changes and the regularity of daily activities and routines—and emotion regulation and adjustment. Special attention will be given both to defining the construct of family stability and its relationship to psychosocial adjustment and to providing an example of the application of the scientist-practitioner model where psychologists, as equally well-rounded clinical scientists and practitioners, use empirical research as a basis for applied work and use the experience of clinical practice to guide research questions and advance scientific thinking. Clinical case examples will be used to help elucidate concepts.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Corinne Moss-Racusin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Skidmore College
for a public lecture entitled
Roadblocks and Roadmaps to Sustainable Occupational Gender Diversity
Thursday, March 2, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Despite efforts to promote gender diversity, women remain underrepresented within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields traditionally occupied by men. Similarly, men are underrepresented in HEED (Healthcare, Early Education, and Domestic) roles typically performed by women. This persistent occupational gender segregation can constrain individuals’ professional pathways, undermine the quality of organizational outputs, and reinforce the existing gender status quo. In response, my work: 1) Identifies the ways in which prevalent gender biases impede sustainable occupational gender diversity (i.e., the lasting, substantial presence and valued engagement of individuals from across the gender identity spectrum), and 2). Develops innovative and effective diversity interventions aimed at reducing ongoing occupational gender segregation. In this talk, I will first present experimental evidence of gender bias in both STEM and HEED, before exploring its direct consequences for women’s and men’s enthusiasm for counter-stereotypic occupations. I will then discuss a program of ongoing research (including future directions) focused on generating and testing evidence-based interventions aimed at increasing awareness of and reducing these gender biases. The broader goal of this work is to remove gendered obstacles so that individuals across the gender identity spectrum are freer to pursue their genuine goals and talents.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Christopher Niemiec, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Department of Psychology, University of Rochester
for a public lecture entitled
Self-Determination Theory:
An Approach to Enhancing Motivation and Wellness Across Life’s Domains
Thursday, April 27, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Whether we realize it or not, living well is—in large part—an issue of motivation. At times, people struggle to find energy for goal pursuits, to mobilize effort for high-quality performance, and to persist at important tasks and activities. At the same time, modern society is replete with myriad strategies to energize and direct behavior. One approach is to use external motivators—grades in the classroom, bonuses in the workplace, contingent love in the home, and so on. Yet people can be motivated from within as well, especially when afforded opportunities to regulate their own behavior, to master new skills, and to collaborate with others. An extensive corpus of empirical findings from self-determination theory has shown that tapping into autonomous motivation helps to harness individuals’ effort, persistence, and performance. An important question, then, concerns how to optimize motivation to enhance wellness across life’s domains. Join this lecture with Christopher P. Niemiec, Ph.D. for an overview of self-determination theory and application of cutting-edge research across life’s domains. All are welcome!
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Psyche Loui, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Creativity and Creative Practice, Department of Music, Northeastern University
for a public lecture entitled
Why Music Moves Us: New Directions in Music for Brain Health
Thursday, May 11, 2023
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Music is an integral part of every human society, and musical experiences have been associated with human health and well-being since antiquity. Recent use-inspired research on Music-Based Interventions (MBIs) include receptive (music listening) and active (music making) programs designed to make measurable changes to human health and well-being. Designing these interventions consistently and with measurable benefits require addressing the question of dosage, which refers to the duration and intensity (dosage) of the intervention. I argue that cognitive neuroscience can inform the question of dosage in MBIs by quantifying the effects of receptive and active music interventions on predictive coding in the central nervous system. As a ubiquitous feature of biological systems, predictive coding is posited to underlie perception, action, and reward. I will present recent work that encompasses behavioral testing, neuropsychological assessments, and neuroimaging (EEG and fMRI) studies in my lab on how and why humans across societies learn to love music, uncovering the role of different types of prediction on the activity and connectivity of the reward system. Given that music taps into a relatively domain-general reward system which in turn motivates a variety of cognitive behaviors, I will also consider how this knowledge can be translated into MBIs for those with neurological and/or psychiatric disorders, presenting preliminary results on Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Marta Mielicki, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Teaching Professor, Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University
for a public lecture entitled
Impacts of Presentation Format on Mathematical Problem Solving
Thursday, September 23, 2021
12:45 – 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Note: No food/drink due to COVID policy
The way a task or problem is presented can change how people think about it. Mathematical problems can be presented in different formats, such as with graphs, equations, figures, tables, etc. The way math problems are presented can help or hurt performance. In this talk, I will discuss three studies I conducted with participants of different ages that explore how presentation format impacts mathematical problem-solving performance by either activating different knowledge or eliciting different solution strategies. This line of work has important implications for education and for other applied domains where people use math, like health decision making.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jennifer Beer, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
for a public lecture entitled
What Makes You So Overconfident? Lessons from Brain and Behavior
Thursday, October 7, 2021
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Note: No food/drink due to COVID policy
Human judgment is notoriously imperfect. We even make mistakes when judging our favorite subject: ourselves! It is striking that flawed self-judgment most frequently takes the form of self-flattery. Decades of research show that people tend to be overconfident about themselves, that is, they exaggerate the strengths (and downplay the weaknesses) of their personality, abilities, and expertise. Scientists have rigorously debated the mystery of why people tend to be so overconfident. Whereas some researchers have described overconfidence as the result of a strong desire to protect self-esteem, others have focused on how lazy thinking gives rise to overconfidence. This talk covers a series of behavioral and brain studies aimed at reconciling the ongoing debate. Our results suggest that both camps are right. Overconfidence is typically accomplished with little mental effort. Overconfidence does not always reflect a desire to protect self-esteem. Yet when overconfidence arises to protect self-esteem, it is accomplished through a unique neural pathway. Discussion will also focus on how these results advance neuroscience, which has ignored the ways in which people see themselves in a biased fashion.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Lawrence Ian Reed, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor, New York University
for a public lecture entitled
The Communicative Functions of Facial Expressions of Emotion
Thursday, October 21, 2021 12:45 – 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Note: No food/drink due to COVID policy
Previous research suggests that some facial expressions of emotion serve a communicative function by signaling private feelings and action tendencies. Further, some expressions such as smiles and scowls affect receivers by increasing the credibility of accompanying verbal and/or written statements. Here, I will discuss the credible signaling hypothesis and the evidence in support of it. This will include a discussion of experiments using economic games to create strategic situations in which facial expressions of emotion might benefit signalers and receivers. These experiments test whether a signaler’s emotional expressions increase the credibility of promises, threats, claims of danger, and assurances of trustworthiness. The results speak to the hidden strategies behind spontaneous and deliberate expressions and their effects on receiver’s behavior.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Gregory Cox, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University at Albany
for a public lecture entitled
Salience by Competitive and Recurrent Interactions: Linking "How" and "Why" in Visual Search
Thursday, January 13, 2022
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Note: No food/drink due to COVID policy
A challenge in the study of cognition is to relate "how" cognition works at the level of individual neurons with "why" cognition takes place at the level of goal-directed whole-organism behavior. Computational modeling helps address this challenge by linking the dynamics of cognitive processes that produce behavior to the dynamics of the neurons that implement those processes. In this talk, I describe a computational model called Salience by Competitive and Recurrent Interactions (SCRI). SCRI is a theory of how neurons in the Frontal Eye Fields (FEF) integrate localization and identification information over time to form a dynamic representation of the relative salience of objects across the visual field. This representation is treated as "evidence" which is accumulated by other neurons in FEF to decide where to make saccadic eye movements during visual search. SCRI accounts for the millisecond-by-millisecond spiking activity of individual---and often idiosyncratic---FEF neurons in terms of the computational mechanisms exhibited by each neuron. Meanwhile, simulated neural activity from SCRI, coupled with a Gated Accumulator Model of FEF movement neurons, reproduces the details of saccade response times of macaques during various forms of visual search. In this way, SCRI helps to "close the loop" between neural activity and behavior, building bridges between different ways of understanding cognition.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Conor O’Dea, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
The Masculinity-based model of Aggressive Retaliation in Society (MARS)
Thursday, February 3, 2022
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Note: No food/drink due to COVID policy
I present a theoretical model, the Masculinity-based model of Aggressive Retaliation in Society (MARS). Masculine honor cultural ideologies foster a norm that young men should swiftly and decisively respond against threats to their masculinity. I contend that better understanding how these top-down expectations that are placed on young men interact with bottom-up processes such as hormones, brain area activation, and brain area connectivity will help explain the risk factors behind extreme forms of retaliatory aggression, including shootings in modern society, and why the vast majority of these heinous crimes are committed by young men. These predictors have been established in the literature individually as causes of violence and aggression, but I contend that these may function as additive risk factors and their deadly combination that may lead to retaliatory aggression as a perceived last resort for affected boys and young men.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Natasha Ludwig ('08), Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Clinical Neuropsychologist, Kennedy Krieger Institute
for a public lecture entitled
Pediatric Neuropsychology: Measurement Considerations for Special Populations
Thursday, April 14, 2022
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided!
Children with medical conditions impacting brain development often benefit from neuropsychological services; however, neuropsychological measures appropriate for those who are very young and/or severely impacted are often limited. This talk will focus on measurement issues in pediatric neuropsychology from the perspective of an early career clinician and researcher. Two primary areas will be discussed including 1) measurement of early social cognition in toddlers at risk for autism spectrum disorder and 2) measurement of cognitive and functional skills in severely affected children with a history of brain injury or developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE). The utility of leveraging partnerships with patient advocacy groups within this realm will also be discussed.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology and the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, & Rehabilitation Sciences, Northeastern University
for a public lecture entitled
Childhood Physical Activity and Excess Adiposity on Brain and Cognition
Thursday, May 5, 2022
12:45 - 1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
There is a growing public health burden of unhealthy behaviors (e.g., physical inactivity, excessive energy intake) among children of industrialized nations. Children have become increasingly inactive, leading to increases in the prevalence of being overweight and unfit. Poor physical activity behaviors during childhood often track throughout life and have implications for the prevalence of several chronic diseases during adulthood. Particularly troubling is the absence of public health concern for the effect of physical inactivity on cognitive and brain health. It is curious that this has not emerged as a larger societal issue, given its clear relationship with childhood obesity and other health disorders that have captured public attention. My research program has investigated the relation of health behaviors (e.g., physical activity, exercise) and their physiological correlates (e.g., aerobic fitness, adiposity) to cognitive and brain health in preadolescent children. My techniques of investigation involve a combination of neuroimaging, behavioral assessments, and scholastic outcomes in an effort to translate basic laboratory findings into everyday life.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Chadly Stern, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
for a public lecture entitled
Is Conformity Stronger Among Conservatives, Liberals, or Neither?
Thursday, September 24, 2020 1:10 - 2:25 via Zoom
Effectively navigating daily life requires people to operate within a shared understanding of the world (e.g., calling an animal that barks a “dog”) and to follow collectively agreed upon norms (e.g., queueing in a store line). Throughout the course of history, conformity has also been used to enforce political agendas. As a result, social and behavioral scientists began to ask whether a desire for conformity varies across the political spectrum. This question has fostered generative debate for nearly a hundred years. Some perspectives have highlighted ideological asymmetries (i.e., differences) in a desire for conformity, whereas others have proposed that preferences for conformity are mostly symmetrical among liberals and conservatives. In this talk, I argue that political liberals and conservatives diverge in a basic psychological desire to affiliate and connect with like-minded others. As a result, conservatives place greater value on constructing shared attitudes and beliefs than do liberals. I outline findings supporting this perspective with regard to both perceived and actual attitude similarity in political groups. I then discuss a series of recent studies examining ideological differences in attitude conformity during real time interactions. I highlight implications of these findings for both political behavior and mundane social interaction.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Tomi-Ann Roberts, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, Colorado College
for a public lecture entitled
Objects in Mirror are Closer than They Appear
Thursday, October 8, 2020 1:10 - 2:25 pm via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
In this talk, Roberts will review over 20 years of theory, research, and advocacy on objectification, sexualization, and self-objectification, springing from her co-authored Objectification Theory, the most cited article in the 40-year history of the APA journal Psychology of Women Quarterly. In 2017 she was featured in many media sources, including the New York Times, regarding her experience as a college student and aspiring actress being sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein. Her own experiences, and bearing witness to countless examples of so many of us being diminished by the cultural attitude that women’s sexualized bodies are the most important thing about them, continue to motivate her research, applied consulting work, and advocacy efforts as a scholarly voice in the #MeToo movement to promote girls’ and women’s right to their own bodies, and to their seen and heard contributions to the world as fully-fledged human beings.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Gordon Pennycook, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Hill/Levine Schools of Business, University of Regina
for a public lecture entitled
Simple Accuracy Nudges Can Reduce Misinformation Sharing
Thursday, October 15, 2020
1:10 - 2:25 via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
Why do people share false and misleading news content on social media, and what can be done about it? Even though true headlines are rated as much more accurate than false headlines, headline veracity has little impact on sharing. Although this may seem to indicate that people share inaccurate content because, for example, they care more about furthering their political agenda than they care about truth, we propose an alternative attentional account: Most people do not want to spread misinformation, but the social media context focuses their attention on factors other than truth and accuracy. Indeed, when directly asked, most participants say it is important to only share news that is accurate. Accordingly, we find that subtly inducing people to think about accuracy increases the quality of the news they subsequently share. These results, together with recent data on why people fall for fake news, challenge the narrative that people no longer care about accuracy. Instead, the findings support an inattention-based account wherein people fail to implement their preference for accuracy due to attentional constraints – particularly on social media. Furthermore, our research provides evidence for scalable anti-misinformation interventions that are easily implementable by social media platforms.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Sa-kiera Hudson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University
for a public lecture entitled
Sexual Orientation and Race Substantially Alter the Prescriptive Nature of Gender Stereotypes
Thursday, January 28, 2021
1:10 - 2:25 pm via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
Gender stereotypes persist in society. Many of these stereotypes are prescriptive, indicating how men and women should behave in social situations. Research on the nature and impact of such prescriptive gender stereotypes usually use generic labels like “men” and “women” and implicitly assume these labels activate general representations concepts that can be easily applied to all members within those categories. However, prototypicality biases like heterocentrism and Eurocentrism makes it more likely that the prescriptive stereotypes of “men” and “women” are normative stereotypes specifically of straight and White people (in an American context). Thus, there is an open question as to whether current understandings of prescriptive gender norms apply to sexual and ethnic minorities. Across two studies (total N = 1074), we assessed gender prescriptive stereotypes for men and women of different sexual orientations (Study 1) and races (Study 2). Results show evidence of heterocentrism but not Eurocentrism, as prescriptive stereotypes of men and women most closely aligned with those of straight men and women. Furthermore, observed gender differences in prescriptive stereotypes were smaller or non-existent for sexual and ethnic minority targets compared to straight and White targets, suggesting that theories around the dyadic, synergic nature of gender stereotypes between men and women might be restricted to straight and White men and women.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium
welcome
Aidan Wright, Ph.D. Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh
for a public lecture entitled
Contemporary Reflections on the Science of Narcissism
Thursday, February 11, 2021
1:10 - 2:25 via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
Narcissism is one of the oldest concepts in psychiatry and, despite being a clinical concept, it has garnered intense lay interest. This broad interest reflects, in part, the significant and potentially serious social consequences associated with narcissism. In the latter part of the last century, the scientific study of narcissism ballooned. However, in the process, the accumulating body of research has raised questions about the definition of narcissism. Specifically, whether narcissism is only about grandiosity (e.g., entitlement, arrogance, egocentrism) or whether there is a vulnerable (e.g., contingent self-esteem, defensive withdrawal, shame proneness) at its core. In this talk, I will discuss a program of research that examines the processes associated with narcissism in the naturalistic settings of people’s daily lives. I will present results from a series of studies that highlight the interplay between grandiosity and vulnerability, but also the difficulty of studying the mechanisms underlying complex constructs.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Brent Hughes, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, UC Riverside
for a public lecture entitled
The Neuroscience of Motivated Cognition
Thursday, April 8, 2021
1:10 - 2:25 via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
This talk will focus broadly on the phenomenon of motivated cognition, under which goals and needs guide individuals’ thinking towards their desired conclusions. These motives range from the need to feel good about oneself to the desire to affiliate with others, they exert an influence across different stages of processing, and they have far-reaching consequences. In this talk, I will show how combining behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging techniques can provide insights into how motivated cognition shapes information processing.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Tim George, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Thinking, Old and New: Experimental Investigations of Creative Cognition
Thursday, April 22, 2021
1:10-2:25 via Zoom (ID: 832 634 7213)
This talk will discuss investigations of the cognitive mechanisms supporting creative thought. When prompted to generate novel ideas, mental fixation can easily arise because the information that comes to mind most readily is typically the least original. A central question of my research is how to reduce the negative influence of obvious ideas. One set of experiments investigates the conditions under which exposure to example ideas either stimulates or hinders originality. Another more recent branch of metacognitive research explores factors that inflate one’s confidence in future creative problem solving performance. This recent work includes studies demonstrating that bullshit receptivity (the tendency to misperceive meaningless statements as profound) is associated with inflated confidence, but decreased performance, on creative problem solving tasks.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Betty Lin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, University at Albany
for a public lecture TBD
Thursday, May 13, 2021
More details to follow soon.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Sarah Gaither, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University
for a public lecture entitled
Multiple Identities: Multiple Sources of Threat & Belonging
Thursday, September 19, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 005
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
We all have multiple identities—race, gender, age, sexual orientation, occupation, etc. However, psychology research has traditionally focused on the effects stemming from one identity (i.e., race OR gender), rather than trying to measure how belonging to multiple groups may actually shift our behavior or change how we react when under threat. With today’s society becoming increasingly diverse, it is important for research to examine how exposure to and interactions with diversity affects the various perspectives and experiences we have. In my talk, I will explore: 1) how belonging to multiple groups shapes how we respond to identity-relevant threats; 2) how a multifaceted sense of self may boost flexible thinking; and 3) how interactions with diverse others can shift our definitions of ingroup. In sum, this talk will push our existing notions of identity research to be more inclusive of multiple identification and the variation that exists across diverse settings.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
John Edlund, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Rochester Institute of Technology
for a public lecture entitled
Being a Responsible Scientist: Study Design, Statistics, and Communication
Thursday, October 3, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 005
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The recent crisis of confidence in psychology has caused the field to carefully evaluate our practices and encourage those that promote responsible science. Some considerations researchers should take include: anticipating how will participants experience the research (from consent to debriefing and beyond), engaging in responsible statistics (avoiding p-hacking, HARKing, and multiple waves of analysis), and embracing the importance of replication and general scientific transparency (such as open materials and data).
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Max Krasnow, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Rochester Institute of Technology
for a public lecture entitled
Human Musical Origins in Parent- Offspring Conflict: Testing the Attentional Investment Theory of Musical Evolution
Thursday, November 14, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 005
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Humans are not the only species to use music, but features of human music are unique among species in many ways. How did music evolve in our lineage? I will present a recent theory developed that accounts for the evolution of a particular form of music: infant directed song. On this theory, infant directed song evolved through arm- race coevolution between caregivers and infants over signals of attentional investment. This theory makes novel predictions about the features of infant directed song, the universality of those features across cultures, the effects of infant directed song, the universality of those effects, and about the fingerprints of intra-genomic conflict that should be found in the genetics underlying our musical psychology. I will present data testing these predictions, finding confirmatory evidence in each case.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, University at Albany
for a public lecture entitled
The Unparalleled Evils of Cannabis
Thursday, January 16, 2020
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Confusion about cannabis abounds. Data from my lab and others suggest that the plant is neither the heinous generator of all ills nor the magical panacea that many assert. Purported links to troubles, including addiction, neuropsychological deficits, respiratory illness, and mental health problems are likely smaller than media would suggest or easily sidestepped with simple interventions. In contrast, medical effects of the plant or its derivatives, especially for cannabidiol, are comparably exaggerated or easily achieved with less expensive products. I will also report recent work suggesting that demands for abstinence might prove ill-advised and an alternative approach to safe use has considerable potential.
Darlingtina Esiaka, Ph.D.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Darlingtina Esiaka, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
The Dark Side of Modernity: Felt Obligation in the Context of Eurocentric Global Modernity
Thursday, February 6, 2020
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Life in Eurocentric global modernity emphasizes neoliberal individualist understandings of relationality associated with a sense of voluntary connection and freedom from obligation. Although people in their (re)productive prime may find these constructions of relationality to be liberating, their negative consequences are more evident for people—like elders—whose well-being depends on care from others. My work draws upon understandings of everyday life in Ghanaian, Nigerian, Chinese, and U.S. settings (both European American and African American), characterized by relatively less and more engagement with Eurocentric global modernity, as a foundation for examining patterns of felt obligation to parents. Using empirical research conducted across these settings, I illuminate the (typically) obscured cost of modern individualistic ways of being on human relatedness and discuss its implications for eldercare within close interpersonal networks.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Julia Strand, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Carleton College
for a public lecture entitled
The Many Faces of Listening Effort
Thursday, March 5, 2020
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
When listening to speech in noise, listeners face a tremendous perceptual challenge. They must distinguish the voice of the speaker from background noise, rapidly map the sounds they hear onto lexical representations in memory, and parse the accent and speaking style of the talker. Although listening to speech in quiet settings may feel like it occurs instantly and effortlessly, listening to speech in noise typically requires deliberate allocation of cognitive resources, referred to as "listening effort." In this talk, Dr. Strand will describe her research on listening effort, with a focus on two questions: 1) What exactly are measures of listening effort measuring? and 2) How does seeing the face of the talker affect listening effort?
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Christopher Chabris, Ph.D.
Professor, Geisinger Health System and Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
for a public lecture entitled
The Invisible Gorilla: From the
Classroom to the Real World, and Back Again
Thursday, September 20, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Inattentional blindness occurs when we fail to notice an object or event because we are paying attention to something else. We can fail to notice distinctive, lengthy, salient events that happen directly where we are looking, and people are generally unaware of this limitation on attention and perception. The “invisible gorilla” experiment reported by Simons and Chabris in 1999 has become a standard classroom demonstration of this phenomenon, and of the broader idea that people have poor intuitions about their own cognitive abilities. This talk will review the history of research on inattentional blindness, highlighting two aspects: (1) The
involvement of undergraduate students and undergraduate courses in key aspects of our work, including new studies on the question of whether inattentional blindness is a human cognitive universal; and (2) The
interplay between laboratory experiments on inattentional blindness and the application of the concept to real-world events, including criminal investigations and distracted driving.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Angie Johnston, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Yale University
for a public lecture entitled
What Can Dogs Teach Us About Human Learning?
Thursday, October 11, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Although some species transmit simple behaviors between group
members, humans have a unique ability to transfer entire domains of cultural knowledge (e.g., fire-building, fishing, and theoretical
physics) across individuals and generations. In this talk, I compare human learning to that of dogs to investigate which aspects of human learning support our uniquely complex culture. More broadly, I discuss why dogs are an ideal species for investigating unique aspects of human
learning because they are one of few species that demonstrates human-
like sensitivity to social cues, such as pointing and eye gaze.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Dominique Vuvan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Skidmore College
for a public lecture entitled
The Musical Brain
Thursday, January 17, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Music is an incredible tool for the study of human cognition. This lecture will review work from the Skidmore Music and Cognition Lab guided by three lines of inquiry. First, how does the cognitive system make predictions, and how might different musical contexts shape predictions during listening? Second, how might music serve as a model to investigate the neural substrates of consciousness? Third, how do people differ in their musical processing, and how might the study of these individual differences help us understand neurocognitive function more generally? I will discuss research that employs multiple methods including behavioral measurement, event-related potentials, and brain imaging, in order to make direct connections between the study of musical processing to more abstract questions about human nature.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Chad Rogers, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Does Age Affect Speech Perception from the Top-Down? Evidence from Brain and Behavior
Thursday, January 31, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Classical studies in perception have often emphasized the hierarchical flow of information from the “bottom-up” or from the “top-down,” where “bottom” refers to basic sensory contributions to perception and “top” refers to complex perceptual inference. In speech perception, the role of non-sensory based inference in perception in part explains how the brain so often decodes speech quickly, effortlessly, and with tremendous variation in sensory input. Older adults in particular, may be the most likely major population demographic to benefit from non-sensory based inference in their daily perception of speech. The current talk presents several behavioral and neuroimaging experiments that examine the role and caveats of non-sensory based inference in young and older adults.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium, with support from the "Our Shared Humanities" grant to Union College by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, welcome
Walter Boot, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida State University
for a public lecture entitled
Does Brain Training Work?
Thursday, February 28, 2019
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
One of the most controversial topics in cognitive science today is whether "brain training" programs work. In 2014, a consensus statement from an international group of more than 70 scientists was published claiming that brain games do NOT provide a scientifically grounded way to improve cognitive functioning or to stave off cognitive decline. Just months later, an international group of 133 scientists and practitioners published a counter-
consensus statement, stating that the literature is replete with demonstrations of the benefits of brain training for a wide variety of cognitive and everyday activities. How could two teams of scientists examine the same literature and come to conflicting “consensus” views about the effectiveness of brain training? This talk will attempt to answer this
question, critically evaluating the evidence and proposing solutions for how
consensus might be achieved.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Lisa Anderson, Ph.D.
Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota
for a public lecture entitled
Gross Food, Icky Bodies: Examining Disgust and Interoception in Eating Disorders
Thursday, April 11, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Eating disorders are some of the most deadly psychiatric illnesses that often follow a chronic course. Unfortunately, effective treatments for these disorders are limited, in part, due to a limited understanding of the factors that contribute to the risk and maintenance of eating pathology. Recent research suggests that disgust may be a particularly important emotion state that may play a role in maintaining persistent eating disorder symptoms. This talk will review the theoretical role of disgust in eating disorder psychopathology, as well as present findings from a series of research studies utilizing behavioral and ecological momentary assessment methods to evaluate the associations between both trait-level and time-varying disgust and eating disorder symptoms in both non-clinical and clinical samples.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
David Pizarro, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Cornell University
for a public lecture entitled
Disgust, Taste, and Social Judgment
Thursday, April 25, 2019
12:45-1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Over a decade of research has demonstrated a consistent relationship between disgust sensitivity (the individual difference in the tendency to experience disgust) and moral/political judgment. I will review this work, then discuss some recent cross-cultural research attempting to explain the link between disgust and political orientation, and will finally present some new findings linking political orientation to individual differences in taste sensitivity. It seems as if the relationship between disgust sensitivity and certain aspects of social/political judgment is found across the world, and that it may be explained in part by individual differences in a basic physiological difference in taste.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Patrick Markey, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Villanova University
for a public lecture entitled
Moral Combat: Why the War on
Violent Video Games is Wrong
Thursday, September 21, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
“Boom! Head Shot!” the teenager screams into his headset as he racks up his ninth virtual kill during an online deathmatch in Call of Duty. In family rooms throughout the nation millions of children and adults are playing violent video games and have adopted them as their primary form of entertainment. Many pundits and politicians have been quick to blame violent games for just about every societal ill: school shootings, homicides, carjackings, rapes, racism, obesity, narcissism, self-control problems, learning disabilities, and even the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Dozens of video game related laws have been passed, hundreds of scientific
studies have been conducted, and billions of dollars have traded hands in the sale of pixelated blood. Whether you are a gamer or not, you have likely wondered if violent games pose a serious health risk to kids. This talk discusses the colorful politicians and researchers who have linked violent video games with horrific acts of violence, as well as the new wave of young and rebellious scientists who are defending this medium. Using the latest data from school shootings and violent crime trends, new research is presented to help gamers and parents not only learn how to navigate this pixelated minefield but will illustrate that violent video games may be making our world a safer place one virtual headshot at a time.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Robert Pollard, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Dean of Research, National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Rochester School of Medicine
for a public lecture entitled
The Misguided Search for a
Psychology of the Deaf
Thursday, September 28, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
From the 4th century B.C. to today, hearing scholars have
defined the phenomenology of the deaf experience, typically through imagination, cursory observation, or other lenses of bias. This lecture critiques such attempts to stereotype a heterogeneous, sociolinguistic minority group. Psychology’s evolving perceptions of deaf people will be highlighted and current views regarding precipitants of mental health versus mental illness in the diverse deaf population explored.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Anthony Ritaccio, M.D.
J. Spencer Standish Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery and
Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurology, Albany Medical College
for a public lecture entitled
My Current Affair: Perspectives on Brain Mapping Across Three Centuries
Thursday, October 12, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” -Alfred Korzybski (1933)
The interest and fascination with mapping brain function parallel the earliest awareness of the electrical nature of neural transmission. Historically, the evolution of electrical stimulation mapping defined the electrical nature of neural transmission and pioneered the localization of brain function. Important potential successors to electrical stimulation have arisen to
challenge conventional clinical mapping strategies that have been somewhat invariant for decades. The most recent of these are novel passive techniques utilizing electrocorticographic spectral analysis of broadband
gamma frequencies, both for clinical and research purposes. With regard to functional brain mapping, it is best to remember that there is a dichotomy between the accuracy of a map and its usability. This dichotomy is commonly referred to as Bonini's paradox, and best interpreted by the French poet Paul Valéry: “Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable.”
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Nina Strohminger, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Legal Studies and Business Ethics
Wharton School of Business and Center for Neuroscience and Society University of Pennsylvania
for a public lecture entitled
Who Gets To Be Happy?
Thursday, October 26, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Recent research suggests that subjective well-being is insufficient for people to ascribe happiness to others. Instead, the folk concept of happiness appears to be eudaimonic: happiness requires not only positive affective states but also being a good person. In adults, we find that people who lack moral virtues are deemed substantially less happy than those who lack other desirable traits, including those that are thought to give meaning to life, such as love, family, and cultivated talents. This thick concept of happiness appears to drive a bias wherein moral outgroups (such as those from opposition political parties) are deemed to be less capable of happiness than those from moral ingroups. In an adaptation of this paradigm for children, we find that the conflation of happiness with moral goodness appears in children as young as four. We conclude that the folk understanding of happiness is inextricably linked with everyday judgments of moral character.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Eric Egan, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Three-Dimensional Shape Perception
Thursday, January 11, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Computational neuroscience techniques are bridging the gap
between photoreceptors and conscious visual perception. Within the realm of vision, everything from works by ‘Old Master’ painters to visual illusions provide inspirational stimuli for research. Utilizing such stimuli in psychophysical experiments is the basis of three-dimensional shape perception. The brain’s behavior can then be described and predicted with computational models. These models help inform us about how the brain functions and may allow us to understand higher levels of cognition.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Cedar Riener, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Randolph Macon College
for a public lecture entitled
Learning Styles: What they are, why they don’t exist, and why they still matter
Thursday, April 5, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
“I appreciated this class because I’m a visual learner”
Many students have said this, many teachers have heard it, but what is a learning style?
Modern approaches to education often emphasize student-centered learning. Education is not what a teacher teaches, but what understanding is created in the mind of a student. A common hallmark of student-centered learning is that students each have a characteristic learning style. A learning style is a preferred mode of learning specific to the student and independent of the content of the class. However, despite the near universal acceptance of learning styles as a meaningful student characteristic, no research in cognitive psychology has confirmed that learning styles even exist. In this talk, I will describe first learning styles in educational practice, then as a psychological theory of how the mind works. I will close lessons for the relationship between the science of psychology and the practice of education.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Megan Sumeracki, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Rhode Island College
for a public lecture entitled
Retrieval-Based Learning Strategies from the Laboratory to the Classroom
Thursday, April 26, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Decades of cognitive research can inform classroom learning. However, the research is not always translated into practice. During the talk, Dr. Sumeracki will describe the way in which cognitive research spans the laboratory to the classroom, providing examples from her own program of
research on retrieval-based learning. She will then discuss ways that she and her colleagues have worked to bridge the gap between learning
research and classroom practice through The Learning Scientists.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Modupe Akinola, Ph.D.
Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics, Columbia Business School
for a public lecture entitled
Collective Hormonal
Profiles Predict Group Performance
Thursday, May 17, 2018
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Prior research has shown that an individual’s hormonal profile can influence the individual’s social standing within a group. We introduce a different construct—a collective hormonal profile—which describes a group’s hormonal make-up. We test whether a group’s collective hormonal profile is related to its performance. Analysis of 370 individuals randomly assigned to work in 74 groups of three to six individuals revealed that group-level concentrations of testosterone and cortisol interact to predict a group’s standing across groups. Groups with a collective hormonal profile
characterized by high testosterone and low cortisol exhibited the highest performance. These collective hormonal level results remained reliable when controlling for personality traits and group-level variability in hormones. These findings support the hypothesis that groups with a biological propensity toward status pursuit (high testosterone) coupled with reduced stress-axis activity (low cortisol) engage in profit-maximizing decision-making. The current work extends the dual-hormone hypothesis to the collective level and provides a neurobiological perspective on the factors that determine who rises to the top across, not just within, social hierarchies.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Joseph Uscinski, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Miami
for a public lecture entitled
Conspiracy Theories are for Losers
Thursday, October 13, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Polls suggest that every American believes in at least one conspiracy theory. Some people believe in many. These beliefs exist not just on the fringes of society, but have become mainstays in our political rhetoric and frequently drive public policy. For example, policy debates over genetically-modified
foods, vaccines, campaign finance, and national security are often
shaped by conspiracy theories. Why do people believe conspiracy
theories? Under what conditions do people turn to conspiratorial
explanations, and what dangers do conspiracy theories pose?
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Michael Hogan, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway
for a public lecture entitled
Facilitating Collective Intelligence
Thursday, November 3, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Michael Hogan is a Professor of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Over the past few years, Michael has worked to extend the pragmatic systems science and collective intelligence methods developed by John Warfield. This work includes basic and applied collective intelligence research and the creation of a new approach to systems science education. Michael currently works on a variety of EU projects that use collective intelligence, including projects focused on marine ecosystem sustainability, open data transparency, and e-book design for children. In his talk, Michael will describe Warfield’s method, outline a variety of recent basic and applied social science applications, and consider some key challenges associated with facilitating collective intelligence.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Emily White, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow in Health Psychology at the Cleveland Clinic
for a public lecture entitled
The Mirror Doesn’t Lie: Body Checking in Diverse College Students
Thursday, November 10, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Body checking behaviors are used to track changes in weight, shape, or body composition. Examples include measuring, pinching, or scrutinizing body parts; frequently weighing oneself; feeling for fat, bone, or muscle; or trying on clothes to gauge fit. Some checking behaviors (like regular weighing) are common and even encouraged, while others are less common and potentially aberrant. Researchers originally classified body checking as a sign of severe pathology unique to patients with eating disorders. However, recent studies show that individuals without eating disorders also body check. Unfortunately, most of these studies have only included White women. As a result, we know less about body checking in men or individuals from different ethnic backgrounds. This talk will review the literature on body checking in these understudied populations and will discuss the correlates and consequences of body checking: is it a benign behavior or a sign of serious pathology?
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Marisa M. Silveri, Ph.D. '95
Neuroscientist & Director, Neurodevelopmental Laboratory on Addictions & Mental Health
McLean Imaging Center, McLean Hospital
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
for a public lecture entitled
The Adolescent Brainiverse: Neurobiological Insights into “What Are you Thinking?!”
Thursday, January 12, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Advances in neuroimaging technology over the past decade have provided a non-invasive window into the adolescent brain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology has helped us to identify important milestones in brain development that allow for the transition from dependence to independence.
Overall brain size generally reaches a maximum by age 5 or 6. However, the significant brain changes associated with adolescence, observed into the early 20s, involve reorganization rather than growth. The last region of the brain to undergo major remodeling is the frontal lobe, which begins to come on line in later adolescence, contributing to the development of executive functions, which includes organization, planning, impulse control and decision-making. More primitive brain structures such as the amygdala develop earlier in life, which serves to provide a quick response in situations that involve danger. During adolescence, the development of the frontal lobe helps to put the brakes on the amygdala, reducing impulsive behavior and increasing the ability to make more thoughtful decisions. These essential brain changes have important relevance for understanding the vulnerabilities associated with adolescence, which includes consequences of making poor decisions, demonstrating impulsive behavior and taking dangerous risks, as well as the effects of alcohol and drug use on brain development and function.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Daniel Peterson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Skidmore College
for a public lecture entitled
Exploring a Failure to Replicate
Thursday, January 19, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Although memory retrieval often enhances subsequent memory, Peterson and Mulligan (2013) reported conditions under which retrieval produces poorer subsequent recall – the negative testing effect. Rawson, Wissman, and Vaughn (2015), in contrast, failed to replicate the negative testing effect despite repeated high-powered attempts. This talk examines the discrepant results, ruling out differences in procedures, and concludes that differences in participant population produced the varying outcome. Specifically, samples of participants from the University of North Carolina (UNC), Skidmore College, and Kent State University (KSU) completed the same version of the negative-testing paradigm and were assessed on several
measures of cognitive ability (working memory capacity, Raven’s progressive matrices, and SAT or ACT score). The original negative testing effect was replicated with both the UNC and Skidmore samples, though not with the KSU sample. As expected, measures of cognitive ability were greater for the UNC and Skidmore than KSU sample. The results indicate that the negative testing effect is replicable, but is subject to limitation related to the participant population. An analysis in terms of the relationship between cognitive ability and memory predicted this pattern of results.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Nate Kornell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Williams College
for a public lecture entitled
Productive Struggle: Using Cognitive Science to Enhance Learning
Thursday, March 2, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Doing well today is not always a good way to prepare for tomorrow; as Frederick Douglass said, “without a struggle, there can be no progress.” I will talk about struggling during learning. Evidence shows there are ways of arranging learning experiences so that students struggle, and do worse in the short term, but learn more in the long run. There are also kinds of
struggle that are not beneficial. The evidence also suggests that students
cannot always tell when they are benefiting from struggle.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Michael Inzlicht, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology and Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
for a public lecture entitled
The Replication Crisis in Social Psychology: A Personal, First Person Account
Thursday, April 6, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Replication is the hallmark of science. It is only when we demonstrate an experimental effect over and over again that we establish it as real, reliable, and robust. Replications ensure that science is self-correcting. Despite its vital importance to all the sciences, direct replications in psychology have been historically rare; at least until recently. These recent and widely publicized replications in psychology have produced sobering results: although difficult to estimate, replication rates might be 39%, perhaps as
low as 25% for social psychology. A number of the field’s cherished findings, including findings you might have read about in your undergraduate textbooks, fail to consistently replicate, suggesting they might be false positives. In short, psychology is experiencing a replication crisis. Such results have led to much hand-wringing, much discussion, and, worryingly, much denial. In this unusual talk, I will describe my own personal experience and response to the replication crisis, including questioning the robustness of my own past findings and changing the ways I conduct research. Despite my skepticism of the published literature, I am heartened by our field’s budding embrace of open science and am legitimately optimistic about our future.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Dave Hayes, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Negative Childhood Experiences Alter Aversive Brain Activity in Adults
Thursday, April 20, 2017
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Negative childhood experiences, sometimes referred to as early life stressors, are strongly associated with the emergence of mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. Our ability to detect and respond appropriately to unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli is essential to our well-being and self-preservation. We are only beginning to understand the brain-behavior correlates of such responding, and this information is necessary to identify the boundary between mental health and illness. In this talk, I will discuss my translational work in healthy humans and rodents which has helped to outline a network of brain areas involved in the response to aversive stimuli. I will also show work suggesting that negative childhood experiences may alter the structure and function of some regions within this network in healthy adults.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Ken Norman, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Princeton University
for a public lecture entitled
How Does Memory Retrieval Drive Learning? Insights From Brain Imaging and Computational Models
Thursday, October 29, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Our lab has built a neural network model of how competitive neural dynamics drive learning. This model predicts a nonmonotonic relationship between neural activation and learning, whereby strong activation causes strengthening of synaptic connections, moderate activation causes weakening of synaptic connections, and lower levels of activation result in no change to synaptic connections. To test this prediction, we have run several studies where we use pattern classifiers (applied to fMRI and EEG data) to track the activation of the competing memories, and then we relate these competitive dynamics to subsequent memory performance. If—according to the classifier—a memory activates to a moderate degree, our theory predicts that it will be weakened and thus it will subsequently become harder to retrieve. I will present evidence in support of this prediction from studies using several paradigms: negative priming, think-no think, retro-cueing in working memory, and visual statistical learning. More recently, we have started to test finer-grained model predictions about how representations change as a function of reactivation; I will present evidence from a recent study showing how competitive dynamics, coupled with interleaved learning, can result in differentiation of competing memories.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Kristian Braekkan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Economics and Management
Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota
for a public lecture entitled
Psychological Contracts in the Workplace: Why Do They Matter?
Thursday, November 12, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Psychological contracts are conceptualized as subjective perceptions about exchange agreements between employees and employers. Whereas the theoretical heritage of the construct can be traced to social exchange theory, the term “psychological contract” was first used in the 1960s when it emerged as a footnote in Argyris’s book on Organizational Behavior. Empirical research on psychological contracts, however, emerged as a major field in organizational studies and applied psychology outlets in response to the transformation of the traditional employment relationship that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. This talk will utilize examples from empirical studies to illustrate the usefulness of the psychological contract construct in organizational research, while addressing different “types” of contracts, and the impact of breach and violations upon both individual and organizational outcomes.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
D. Catherine Walker, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Reflections on Mirror Use: Addressing Critical Body Checking in the Treatment of Eating Disorders
Thursday, January 21, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
According to cognitive behavioral theory, the core underlying psychopathology that leads to the development and maintenance of eating disorders is the over-evaluation and control of one's shape or weight. Most of the clinical features associated with eating disorders stem directly from this “core psychopathology,” including extreme weight control behaviors (caloric restriction, excessive exercise, and other inappropriate compensatory behaviors such as purging and laxative use), frequent body checking or body avoidance behaviors, and preoccupation with shape, weight, and eating. I will discuss the cognitive behavioral theory of how body checking behaviors are maintained, and their role in maintaining eating disorder psychopathology, using two recent studies. The first study presents research findings examining how affect and body checking behaviors covaried in an ecological momentary assessment conducted with college-aged women. The second study assessed whether decreases in body checking and avoidance were predictive of improved body image satisfaction and self-esteem among participants in a mirror exposure study.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
David L. Pogge, Ph.D.
Director of Psychology, Four Winds Hospital, Katonah, NY
Lecturer, School of Psychology, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ
for a public lecture entitled
Psychological Assessment in the Clinical Setting
Tuesday February 23, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
For clinical psychologists trained in the Boulder Model, the goal is to bring science to clinical care, and to make clinical care the object of scientific study. This means providing scientifically-based psychological services to clinical populations. It also means conducting scientific research on those populations and services in order to inform and enhance practice. Assessment through the use of psychometric tests was the first major role for clinical psychologists in mental health settings and continues to be the one unique role for psychologists in that environment. By its very nature, this combines the use of a scientifically-based technology (i.e., testing) with
scientifically derived knowledge and clinical experience to provide an understanding of patients and an empirical basis for their treatment. This talk will describe the role and purposes of psychological assessment in mental health settings in the 21st century, explain the differences among kinds of instruments used in those applications, and show how they can be used in
diagnosis, formulation, and treatment planning. An example will be provided to illustrate how the clinical practice of assessment supports research that adds to the general scientific literature and improves the quality of care in the setting where it is conducted. It is hoped that by the end of this talk the audience will have a better understanding of psychological assessment in mental health settings and how it supports clinical care and scientific research.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Dennis McFarland, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health
for a public lecture entitled
Brain-Computer Interfaces for Communication, Control, and Rehabilitation
Thursday, April 7, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
A brain-computer interface (BCI) uses signals recorded from the brain to convey the user’s intent. BCIs can be used for communication or can provide control signals for robotic and prosthetic devices. In studies to date, both invasive and non-invasive recording methods have proved equally effective and have reached comparable levels of performance. The major challenge for both invasive and non-invasive BCI control is to achieve the speed, accuracy, and reliability necessary for real-world applications. These requirements vary with the specific application and with the control strategy employed. However, this technology has yet to be used by a significant number of individuals whom it might actually benefit. Brain-computer interface technology might also contribute to rehabilitation of motor function. This speculation is based on the premise that modifying the EEG will modify behavior, a proposition for which there is limited empirical data. This talk will survey the history, current status, and future potential of brain-computer interfaces.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Amy C. Moors, Ph.D.
National Center for Institutional Diversity & Department of Women’s Studies University of Michigan
for a public lecture entitled
Rethinking the Gold Standard of Romantic Relationships: Is Monogamy A Safe Haven for Health and Security?
Thursday, April 7, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
Finding romance, love, and sexual intimacy is a central part of our life experience. People engage in romance in a variety of ways: some of us form a couple, casually date, or have more than one romantic and/or sexual partner. In Western society, there is a well-defended ideology of the committed relationship: People prioritize monogamy as the most important relationship and stigmatize people who do not conform to this ideal. The general public is not alone in the belief that monogamy is “the best way” to have a relationship; this ideology also influences how researchers construct and test theories of love and intimacy. I will discuss how biases surrounding monogamy as the gold standard for romantic relationships can jeopardize people’s sexual health. Moreover, I will argue that sexual exclusivity may not be a necessary component to secure, happy, and healthy relationships. I will demonstrate the utility of studying consensual departures from monogamy (e.g., people with multiple romantic/sexual partners, including polyamory and open relationships) to extend and test the boundaries of contemporary models of intimacy within relationship science. These areas of inquiry challenge our current understanding of modern love by critically examining how perceiving one relationship style as optimal can lead to a host of negative outcomes.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Evan Apfelbaum, Ph.D.
Graduate of the Union College Class of 2002
Assistant Professor of Organization Studies, MIT Sloan School of Management
for a public lecture entitled
Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Tailoring Diversity Approaches to Underrepresented Social Groups
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
12:45–1:50 PM • Karp 105
We develop theory regarding when and why the approaches organizations utilize for responding to social group differences help underrepresented groups succeed. We evaluate the benefits of tailoring these diversity approaches to the different concerns that emerge due to social groups’ representation. We posit that, whereas moderately underrepresented groups (i.e., White women) will respond most positively to a focus on the importance of differences, highly underrepresented groups (i.e., racial minorities) will respond most positively to a focus on the importance of equality. Study 1 demonstrates that Black participants’ concerns with “standing out” because of their social group membership were significantly greater than corresponding concerns among White women. Studies 2 and 3 find that
exposure to diversity approaches congruent with these concerns yields greater performance and persistence. In Study 4, we find that across social groups, a focus on differences is more effective when individuals are moderately than highly underrepresented, but value in equality shows the opposite pattern. In Study 5, we evaluated the diversity statements of 151 major U.S. law firms. We find that whereas emphasis on the value of differences predicts reduced turnover among women, value in equality is associated with reduced turnover among racial minorities.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Coren Apicella, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology University of Pennsylvania
for a public lecture entitled
Origins of Social, Economic and Attractiveness Preferences: Lessons from Hunter-Gatherers
Thursday, September 24, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
This talk reports the results of three empirical studies on the evolutionary origins of human behavior. Human preferences are usually studied in people in industrialized contexts (often undergraduate students). However, these well-studied people may not be representative of the wider breadth of contemporary and historic humanity. I explore behavior within an isolated
and evolutionarily relevant population of hunter-gatherers living in remote regions of Tanzania—the Hadza. The first study considers the evolution of cooperation and how social structure may have supported cooperation in our ancestors. Second, I show that the endowment effect bias is not a human universal—a result that points to the importance of culture in generating differences in economic behavior. The last study concerns averageness in judgments of attractiveness in faces and suggests that experience is
important in shaping standards of beauty.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Corinne Moss-Racusin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Skidmore College
for a public lecture entitled
The Myth of Meritocracy? Gender Bias in Academic Science, and the Influence of Diversity Interventions
Thursday, October 2, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity remains within academic science, and gender bias may be a contributing factor. This persistent underrepresentation speaks to the importance of developing innovative and effective diversity interventions aimed at increasing awareness of and ultimately reducing bias. In this talk, I will first present evidence of science faculty members' gender biases against female students. I will then discuss a program of ongoing research testing theoretically grounded novel interventions aimed at increasing awareness of and reducing this gender bias. Throughout, I will highlight implications for academic meritocracy, diversity, and gender parity across science fields.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Shane Frederick, Ph.D.
Professor of Marketing Yale School of Management
for a public lecture entitled
Counterintuition
Thursday, October 23, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Reamer Auditorium
I discuss “counterintuition”—the process of getting beyond intuitive
impressions. I examine several famous (and some not so famous) reasoning
problems, with special attention to the so called “Bat and Ball” problem, which I have upheld as a thin slice measure of the disposition or ability to engage in reflective thought. Typically as part of a three item “cognitive reflection test,” this problem is now included as a covariate in many studies of judgment and decision making. Performance on it has been shown to correlate with intertemporal choice, risky choice, moral reasoning, and belief in God. However, there is still no good account of why people miss the bat
and ball problem at such high rates—why people conclude that the titular objects cost $1.00 and 10 cents respectively, even though the problem clearly states that their prices differ by $1.00. Here I examine three accounts: (1) failure to check answers against the problem’s constraints; (2) checking answers against a distorted version of the problem’s constraints; and (3)
endorsement of the proposition that a $1.00 object costs $1.00 more than a $0.10 object.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Matt Motyl, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology University of Illinois at Chicago
for a public lecture entitled
How We Created Red and Blue America
Thursday, November 6, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
Americans are living in increasingly polarized and segregated ideological enclaves. The theory of moral enclave construction proposes that these enclaves develop as people strive to satisfy their basic psychological needs, like the need to belong. These communities differ in their ideological ecologies and vary along many characteristics such as the ratio of bookstores to gun stores and hybrid cars to sport utility vehicles. Liberals and conservatives tend to live in communities with ideological ecologies
congruent with their own ideologies. When people live in communities with ecological cues incongruent with their own ideology, they feel that they do not belong and they are more likely to migrate to a new community. Moreover, when people live in communities where their ideologies are the minority viewpoint, they exhibit poorer physical and psychological well-being, increased ideological stigma consciousness, and impaired cognitive flexibility. In contrast, when people live in communities where their
ideologies are the majority viewpoint, they exhibit better physical and psychological well-being, decreased stigma consciousness, and greater cognitive flexibility. This research suggests that segregated ideological enclaves emerge, in part, out of people’s desire to satisfy their need
to belong.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Samuel Moulton, Ph.D.
Director of Educational Research and Assessment
Harvard Initiative for Learning & Teaching
for a public lecture entitled
Toward Better Measurement of Learning and Teaching
Thursday, January 15, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
The biggest obstacle to improving undergraduate learning and teaching is our failure to adequately measure the educational behaviors and outcomes that we most value. Instead, we measure variables of secondary value (e.g., student ratings of courses and instructors) or we problematically measure
variables of primary value (e.g., in typical course grading). To better align our metrics with our values, we should adopt a more psychologically-informed and methodologically rigorous approach to educational assessment. In the near term, this includes using technology to measure objective student and instructor behaviors (e.g., lecture attendance) that correlate highly with learning; in the longer term, it requires an empirically-derived framework for defining learning goals.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Lindsay Morton, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Eating Restraint or Indulgence: How Ego Depletion and Mindset Interact to Predict Snack Intake
Thursday, February 5, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
Over two-thirds of Americans are classified as overweight and obese, and although there are many reasons for these high (and rising) numbers,
one causal factor is eating behavior. Overeating and consumption of unhealthy food items contribute to weight gain and an inability to adhere to normal, healthy weight limits. In this talk, I will examine how state self-control and the mindset that a person brings to an eating situation interact to influence the amount of high-fat, processed snack food that is consumed. Such findings point to the need to consider both self-control capacity
and the cognitive accessibility of weight control and maintenance goals when designing interventions to change eating behaviors.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Aaron C. Kay, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University
Associate Professor of Management, Duke University
for a public lecture entitled
Understanding Scientific Skepticism: Solution Aversion, Ideology, and Motivated Disbelief
Thursday, March 5, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
There is often a curious distinction between what the scientific community and the general population believe to be true of dire scientific issues, and this skepticism tends to vary markedly across groups. For instance, in the case of climate change, Republicans (conservatives) are especially skeptical of the relevant science, particularly when they are compared with Democrats (liberals). What causes such radical group differences? I suggest in this talk, as have previous accounts, that this phenomenon is often motivated.
However, departing from previous accounts, I suggest the source of this motivation is not necessarily an aversion to the problem, per se, but an aversion to the solutions associated with the problem. This difference in underlying process holds important implications for understanding, predicting, and influencing motivated skepticism. Across several experimental and correlational studies, and focusing on climate change science beliefs (but also touching on others, like crime statistics), I will provide evidence for this solution aversion explanation for why people are often so divided over scientific evidence and why this divide often occurs so
saliently across political party lines.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Stephanie D. Block ‘03, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology University of Massachusetts at Lowell
for a public lecture entitled
Children in the Legal System: Eyewitness Memory, Suggestibility, and Disclosures of Sexual Abuse
Thursday, May 7, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
When children are victims of child sexual abuse their eyewitness memory and perceived credibility typically determine whether or not the case is prosecuted. This talk will discuss children's experiences in the legal system, their eyewitness memory abilities, and disclosures of child sexual abuse. Case examples will illustrate children's susceptibility to false memory and the conditions under which their statements are more accurate. Research related to how accurately adults discern children's true from false memory reports will be reviewed. Implications for law-related situations in which adults are called upon to evaluate children's statements will be discussed. Professor Block will describe her work as an expert witness in cases of child sexual abuse with an emphasis on why children delay disclosures and the generalizability of lab research to the courtroom. She will also discuss ongoing research with District Attorney offices about the trajectories and prosecution of child sexual abuse cases.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Malia Mason, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Management, Columbia University Business School Visiting Scholar, University of Toronto
for a public lecture entitled
Wandering Mind.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
A discrepancy often exists between what people are doing and what they are thinking about. The mind wanders from where it is tasked. Despite being a common experience, mindwandering has largely been ignored by psychologists. The existing research implicitly assumes the bulk of our mental resources are directed at furthering a current goal and that misappropriation —moments of distraction— involve intrusions by information in the current sensory environment. My research challenges this account of mental life, considers why the mind distracts itself with information it produces, and generates prescriptions for managing our mental meandering.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Amie Hane, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Williams College
for a public lecture entitled
Beyond Licking and Grooming: Maternal Regulation of Infant Biobehavioral Stress Responding
Thursday, September 26, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Early life stress is associated with elevated risk for physical and behavioral health problems across the lifespan. The quality of early rearing environments influences the development of healthy biobehavioral reactions to stress, including cardiac, neuroendocrine, and behavioral responding.
Associations between biobehavioral markers of stress reactivity and quality of early care environments in institutionalized, maltreated, and impoverished children are well-documented. More recent evidence, drawn from animal models, suggests that less extreme, more ordinary variations in early care environments have profound effects on the development of stress responding in offspring. Rodent epigenetic models of early maternal care have demonstrated that natural variations in maternal nursing and grooming behavior shape the development of stress reactivity and social behavior in offspring. My research has extended this ‘postnatal programming’ model of early care to the study of biobehavioral stress responding in human infants. We have found that high quality maternal care in infancy is associated with more optimal physiological and behavioral responding to stress in infancy and early childhood, including emotional, social, and physiological
differences. As in rodents, early maternal care serves to regulate infant stress responding by preventing infant distress and discomfort. This body of research highlights the developmental significance of high-quality early
caregiving, and suggests that prevention/intervention programs that focus on teaching sensitive caregiving behavior may be a critical first step in the prevention of stress-related illness across the lifespan.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Barry X. Kuhle, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Scranton
for a public lecture entitled
The Evolution of Jealousy (with clips from Cheaters,) Closer, and Chris Rock)
Thursday, October 10, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Olin Auditorium
Abundant research suggests that there are differences between the sexes in the degree to which cues to sexual and emotional infidelity trigger jealousy. A common criticism of this research is that this commonly found sex difference is a consequence of the hypothetical scenario and forced-choice methodology that is commonly employed. I will discuss two recent papers on sex differences in the nature of jealousy-fueled interrogations and mitigations that address this criticism (Kuhle, PAID, 2011; Kuhle, Smedley, & Schmitt, PAID, 2009). These papers show that men and women differ in the ways they inquire about a partner's infidelity and they differ in the ways they respond to inquiries about their own infidelities. I will infuse this talk with illustrative examples from popular culture, including a scene from the motion picture Closer, segments from the reality program Cheaters, and a bit from Chris Rock s HBO special Bigger & Blacker (which is discussed in Kuhle, “It's Funny Because It's True,” 2012).
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jamie B. Luguri ‘10
Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology, Yale University
for a public lecture entitled
The Psychology of Political Ideology and Gridlock
Thursday, October 24, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Given the current political gridlock facing our country, it seems more important than ever to understand the psychological factors that influence political attitudes. In this talk, I will explore the situational and motivational factors underlying political ideology, and potential avenues to reduced political polarization. Specifically, I will focus on how mindset level abstract vs. concrete thinking) and threats to personal control influence political attitudes. I have found that subtle shifts in mindset level abstract vs. concrete thinking) can have important downstream consequences on political attitudes and moral values. Additionally, my current work has focused how perceptions of a personal lack of control motivate economic liberalism and decrease belief in meritocracy. Taken together, these lines of research add to a growing body of work seeking to understand the psychological profiles of liberals and conservatives, and suggest avenues to reduce partisan differences.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Wayne D. Gray, Ph.D.
Professor of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, and Industrial & Systems Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
for a public lecture entitled
Elements of Extreme Expertise in Cognitive Skill: Studies of Video Gamers
Thursday, January 16, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
We study the acquisition and deployment of extreme expertise in tasks involving the real-time interaction of a single human with a complex, dynamic decision environment. Our dilemma is that the skills that we wish to generalize to (such as helicopter piloting, laparoscopic surgery, and air traffic control) require hundreds or thousands of hours to achieve expertise and the people who already possess such skills are very rare in the college population and too expensive to bring into our laboratory. Our solution is to study expert and novice video game players. This talk will provide a broad overview of three lines of research on three different video games and then focus on some data we have collected from competitors during Tetris Tournaments and in the laboratory. We maintain that cognitive science has for too long been fixated on isolating small components of individual cognition, that such an approach has the danger of overfitting our theories to our paradigms, and that the way out of this dilemma is by bringing (a) powerful computational modeling, (b) machine learning techniques, and (c)
human performance from extreme performers to test and extend cognitive theory.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Adam Waytz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
for a public lecture entitled
Three Concerns About Love
Thursday, January 30, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Psychological aspects of love such as social connection, affiliation, and bonding are paramount to human survival, providing benefits for mental health (i.e., happiness, meaning, and cognitive functioning) as well as
physical well-being. However, social connection has its downsides as well, three of which I will document here: (1) Social connection can lead us to overlook the mental states of people outside of our social circles. (2) Recognizing the importance of love within one’s ingroup corresponds to underestimating the importance of love within a competitive outgroup. (3)
Affiliation promotes the moral value of loyalty, which can hinder people’s willingness to report unethical behavior. I will discuss these phenomena in the context of dehumanization and torture, intergroup conflict amongst
Palestinians and Israelis, and whistleblowing.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Heather A. Berlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City
for a public lecture entitled
The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious
Thursday, March 6, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
A great deal of complex cognitive processing occurs at the unconscious level and affects how we behave, think and feel. Understanding the neural basis of consciousness requires an account of the neural mechanisms that underlie both conscious and unconscious thought, and their dynamic interaction. How do conscious impulses, thoughts, or desires become unconscious (e.g. repression) or, conversely, how do unconscious impulses, desires, or motives become conscious (e.g. Freudian slips)? How can our decisions and behaviors be influenced by stimuli processed outside of awareness, and how are people able to their override unconscious drives by force of will (e.g. quitting smoking, regulating emotions)? Research taking
advantage of advances in technologies like neuroimaging has led to a revival and reconceptualization of some of the key concepts of psychoanalytic theory, and progress at understanding their neural basis. According to
psychoanalytic theory, unconscious dynamic processes defensively remove anxiety-provoking thoughts and impulses from consciousness in response to one’s conflicting attitudes. Within this classical framework, the processes that keep unwanted thoughts from entering consciousness include repression, suppression and dissociation. I will discuss studies from psychology and cognitive neuroscience in healthy people as well as in neurologic and psychiatric patients that are elucidating the neurocircuitry of repression, suppression, and dissociation.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Wendy F. Sternberg, Ph.D.
Dean of Academic Departments and Programs & Professor of Psychology Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Psychobiology of Pain
Thursday, April 10, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
This talk will examine the relationships among environmental, experiential, and organismal factors in pain sensitivity, starting with an overview of basic neuroscientific principles of the sensory/perceptual phenomenon of pain. We will then review research data that demonstrate the factors, both internal and external to the organism, that affect activity in the pain pathway and expression of pain behaviors (in laboratory mice and college students). We will also discuss how the display of pain affects the social behavior of those that witness it.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jonathon P. Schuldt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Cornell University
for a public lecture entitled
Thought for Food: How Nutritional Judgments Are Shaped by Contextual Cues
Thursday, May 15, 2014
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Despite notable advances in nutrition science and dietary understanding, people commonly report feeling confused about which foods constitute healthy choices. The task of judging a food's healthfulness can be ambiguous and cognitively complex, which may lead consumers to rely on cues that are only superficially relevant but highly salient when forming their judgments. This talk describes a series of experiments testing this proposition. Results suggest that various cues, from ethical food labels (“organic,” “fair trade”) to the body weight of food bloggers, cast undue influence on everyday nutritional judgments—even when more nutritionally diagnostic information is provided (calories and fat content). Findings are discussed in terms of motivated reasoning and the biasing role of perceivers cognitive predispositions more broadly.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Robert Kurzban, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Author of the book Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite
for a public lecture entitled
Strategic Morality
Thursday, September 27, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Reamer Auditorium
Many facets of moral condemnation remain unexplained. For instance,
experimental evidence shows that moral judgment is particularly attuned to
perpetrators’ actions rather than intended consequences. Similarly puzzling, the ideal of impartiality sets morality opposed to loyalty, despite processes such as kin selection that favor partiality. In this talk, I will propose a model to explain these and other empirical observations. The proposal is that the evolved function of moral condemnation is not, as others have suggested, to facilitate cooperation in groups, but rather to guide bystanders to choose sides in disputes while coordinating their decisions with other bystanders. Three lines of evidence are presented, including research using moral dilemmas, methods drawn from behavioral economics, and surveys on individual differences in moral views. The evidence from these research
programs supports the view that morality serves a strategic function.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jessica L. Tracy, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia
for a public lecture entitled
The Nature of Pride: From Self-Conscious Emotion to Social Status
Thursday, October 18, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
The discovery that a small set of “basic” emotions have distinct, universally recognized, nonverbal expressions promoted widespread acceptance of Darwin’s claim that emotions are an evolved part of human nature, but also diverted attention away from emotions assumed to lack universal expressions, such as the unique class of “self-conscious” emotions. I will present a series of studies demonstrating that at least one self-conscious
emotion—pride—has a distinct nonverbal expression that is automatically recognized by adults and children across cultures, and spontaneously
displayed in response to success by both sighted and blind individuals. These findings suggest that the pride expression may have evolved to serve a social function. New research suggests that the pride expression may function as a status signal. This functionalist account is further supported by
research suggesting two distinct pride facets, “authentic” and “hubristic” pride, each linked to a distinct status-attainment and maintenance strategy
(i.e., “dominance” vs. “prestige”). Overall, our work suggests that pride is a complex emotion closely linked to self-esteem, narcissism, achievement, and status, and may be an evolved—and certainly a fundamental—part of human nature.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Erika Wells, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Determinants of Perceptual Awareness: Clues from Motion-Induced Blindness
Thursday, November 1, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
The visual system must process and organize incoming information quickly
and efficiently for the goal of forming a perceptual image. One way the brain
accomplishes the task is to devote more resources to important information,
thereby disregarding or erasing irrelevant information. We are typically not aware of any loss of visual information, but under certain laboratory conditions, particularly while viewing visual illusions, we can bring these
processes to light. In this talk, I will describe my research using the visual
illusion known as motion-induced blindness and detail some of the factors
that lead to a loss of visual information.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Carin Perilloux, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Union College
for a public lecture entitled
Sexual Misperception: She’s Just Not That Into You
Thursday, January 24, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
Have you ever felt sure someone was attracted to you, only to find out that you were wrong? This phenomenon is known as “sexual misperception.” Various theories attempt to explain sexual misperception, but I approach it
from an evolutionary perspective. Through two studies I reveal interesting predictors of who misperceives interest from others, and who tends to be misperceived by others. One study utilized a speed-meeting procedure for access to a large sample of first impressions—and misperceptions. Another study focused on men’s misperception and whether it may be related to
their testosterone levels. These very different methods both point to the conclusion that sexual misperception is not “just a male thing,” but rather that certain men are more likely to exhibit this bias and that certain women are more likely to unknowingly elicit it.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University
Author of “Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined”
for a public lecture entitled
Opening Up Openness to Experience
Thursday, February 7, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House), Union College
Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional richness, and unconventionality. Likewise, creative achievement is a broad construct, comprising creativity across the arts and sciences. In this talk, I
will try to clarify the relationship between openness to experience and creative achievement. The latest research suggests that the intellectual and experiential aspects of openness are related to different modes of information processing and predict different forms of creative achievement. I
will discuss these important implications for intelligence, creativity, and understanding the “mad genius” stereotype. I will conclude with a call to
appreciate many different kinds of minds and ways of achieving creative greatness.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Melanie C. Green, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
for a public lecture entitled
Stories, Stories, Everywhere: The Effects of Narratives on Attitudes and Decisions
Thursday, April 11, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Individuals’ attitudes and beliefs can be changed by narratives, particularly when individuals are transported into them. I will discuss research on transportation into narrative worlds, and then describe new research examining how individuals respond to reading two narratives with opposing
conclusions. Specifically, participants learn about a (fictitious) medical condition, and then read two testimonials which each endorse a different course of treatment. Results suggest that individuals are generally attentive to the relevance of the stories to the target patient, but that their decisions
can be disrupted by irrelevant details. I will discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome Union alumnus
Glenn T. Konopaske ‘95, M.D.
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Research Psychiatrist, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts
for a public lecture entitled
The Neurobiology of Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia
Thursday, April 25, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental illness which affects 1% of the population worldwide. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder, most likely the result of the interaction between a genetic predisposition and environmental exposure(s) occurring in utero. Cognitive impairment is one of the best predictors of long term functional outcome in patients with schizophrenia. The most replicated cognitive deficit in patients with schizophrenia is impaired working memory. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is intricately involved in working memory, and multiple lines of research have implicated this region to be affected in the illness. This presentation will review data from genetic, neuropsychological, imaging, post-mortem, and animal studies exploring the neurobiology of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. The presentation will conclude with an overview of novel therapeutic approaches, based on these data, which are currently being explored. These approaches are important because current antipsychotic medications produce minimal, if any, improvement in the cognitive impairments seen in patients with schizophrenia.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Lisa M. Shin, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
for a public lecture entitled
Brain Abnormalities in PTSD: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging Studies
Thursday, May 2, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Over the past two decades, researchers in psychiatric neuroscience have used neuroimaging to study brain structure and function in anxiety disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The goal of this research is to elucidate the pathophysiology of PTSD and hence to improve targeted treatments and prediction of treatment response. This presentation will review findings of functional abnormalities in the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in PTSD. It will also explore whether abnormalities at baseline can help to predict treatment response, and whether such abnormalities resolve with treatment. We are now trying to determine the origin of functional brain abnormalities in PTSD, i.e., whether they are acquired signs of the disorder or familial vulnerability factors that increase the risk of PTSD following trauma. Future studies will help to determine how these biological markers are related to genetic polymorphisms.
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Alan G. Sanfey, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior
Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
for a public lecture entitled
Fairness, Trust, and Reciprocity: Insights from Decision Neuroscience
Thursday, May 9, 2013
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge (Hale House)
Our lives consist of a constant stream of decisions and choices, from the mundane to the highly consequential. To date, the standard approach to experimentally study decision-making has been to examine choices with clearly defined probabilities and outcomes. It is an open question whether models describing these situations can be extended to choices that must be
made by assessing the intentions and preferences of both oneself and another social partner. This class of social decision-making may in fact better
approximate many of our complex real-life choices. I will present behavioral, neural, and pharmacological data from several experiments using economic
games to observe how players decide in real, consequential, social contexts, and will discuss how we can use these brain insights to build better models of human social preferences.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Michael Silverman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Psychiatry Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York, NY
for a public lecture entitled
“In Turmoil Thou Shalt Bear Forth Children”
Thursday, September 15, 2011
12:50–1:50 PM Reamer Auditorium
Postpartum Depression (PPD), the most common complication of childbearing, is a prevalent, cross-cultural disorder in the spectrum of affective illness associated with significant morbidity. Traditionally viewed as a time of emotional wellbeing, the weeks following childbirth are more often marked by psychic vulnerability with psychiatric hospital admissions increasing 7-fold for women in the first 3 months after childbirth. Over the past decade neuroimaging research has revealed much about the functional organization of the brain in depression. While still inadequately understood, among the brain regions consistently showing abnormalities of function in depressed patients are those involving the fronto-limbic-subcortical circuitry, regions recognized as critical in the processing of in both normal and pathological emotional responses. The pathogenesis of PPD however remains unclear and the status of depressive episodes specific to the period surrounding birth remains controversial. While behaviorally similar in presentation to Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in many ways, specific differences in the clinical presentation of PPD have been identified. As a result, its classification as a specifier of MDD continues to be questioned. Preliminary work in our lab provides the first neuro-functional evidence that unmedicated postpartum women expressing significant depressive symptoms, without a prior history of depression, reveal a pattern distinct from the cerebral responsivity generally associated with MDD and may represent the possibility of a unique phenotype of depression.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Jeremy R. Gray, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology Yale University New Haven, CT
for a public lecture entitled
Self-control and intelligence: What’s the relation?
Thursday, October 6, 2011
12:50–1:50 PM Everest Lounge
In this talk, I will discuss several experiments that relate two very broad psychological constructs: self-control and intelligence. They are often related, suggesting that work on self-regulation might be “reinventing the wheel” and rediscovering intelligence. However, several lines of evidence show that they are not identical, suggesting that efforts to enhance intelligence might benefit from enhancing self-control.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Peter Glick
Professor of Psychology and Henry Merritt Wriston Professor in the Social Sciences Lawrence University • Appleton, WI
for a public lecture entitled
Damned if She Does, Damned if She Doesn’t: Social Consequences of Accepting Versus Rejecting Benevolently Sexist Help at Work
Thursday, October 20, 2011
12:50-1:50 PM • Everest Lounge, Hale House
For women, sexist acts may come in the guise of “help” rather than harm. Benevolent sexism refers to subjectively affectionate but condescending (i.e., paternalistic) attitudes and behavior toward women that reinforce traditional gender roles and power relations. In three scenario studies, a male coworker offered to take over a task, telling a female target that she should not have to grapple with a difficult computer program “as a woman” (thereby making the offer explicitly patronizing and benevolently sexist). Depending on random assignment, the woman either politely rejected or accepted his help. We found that women face a dilemma when confronted with patronizing offers of help at work. If a woman accepts the offer, she gains warmth, but loses perceived competence. If she rejects the offer, she gains perceived competence, but loses perceived warmth in the eyes of benevolently sexist perceivers. When the tables were turned and a woman offered patronizing help to a male coworker, men who accepted help suffered the same perceived competence penalty, but did not lose perceived warmth for refusing help. Thus, only women face a double-bind in which they are both damned if they do (competence penalty for accepting help) and damned if they don’t (warmth penalty for declining help).
The Union College Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Adam M. Brickman, Ph.D.
Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology
Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain
Department of Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
for a public lecture entitled
Not All That Matter Is Grey: The Importance of White Matter in Cognitive Aging and Dementia
Thursday, November 3, 2011
12:50-1:50 PM • Everest Lounge, Hale House
The prevailing hypothesis about the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggests a cascade of biological events that leads to dementia. According to the model, abnormal β-amyloid processing leads to brain amyloidosis, precipitating tau-related neuronal and synaptic dysfunction, and neurodegeneration, which manifest ultimately as cognitive decline and dementia. However, despite fairly consistent observations showing a relationship between vascular disease and AD, vascular factors have not been incorporated formally into the proposed theoretical model for AD pathogenesis or newly proposed research criteria for AD and its antecedent conditions, although most of the major identified risk factors for later development of AD have been vascular in nature. The gradual accumulation of vascular risk factors manifest in the brain as small vessel cerebrovascular disease, visualized as hyperintense signal, or white matter hyperintensities (WMH), on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imagery (MRI). In the current presentation I will discuss the role of WMH in cognitive aging and dementia, reviewing recent cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from our community-based study of aging and dementia, which systematically collected high resolution MRI-scans on over 750 participants. I will also discuss research that seeks to understand the pathology underlying WMH in an attempt to highlight the heterogeneous pathways that lead to AD and to link traditional AD pathological features to cerebrovascular disease.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Sheldon Solomon, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology and Ross Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
for a public lecture entitled
Teach These Souls to Fly: The Psychological Functions of Supernatural Beliefs
Thursday, January 12, 2012
12:50–1:50 PM Reamer Auditorium
All cultures have supernatural beliefs, which evolutionary psychologists generally argue have no adaptive significance because they are “an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry” (Paul Bloom, “Is God An Accident?”). In this presentation, I will propose— on theoretical and empirical grounds—that, regardless of their origin, supernatural beliefs serve both a social function (i.e., they foster reciprocal altruism among large groups of genetically unrelated individuals) and a psychological function (i.e., they mitigate potential terror engendered by the uniquely human awareness of death).
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Hassan López, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Neuroscience Program Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
for a public lecture entitled
Neurological and Hormonal Correlates of Female Sexual Interest
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM Reamer Auditorium
Our laboratory explores the neurobiological basis of female sexual desire,
through both animal models and human research. In this talk, I will summarize some of the recent work we have done looking at: (1) the detrimental effects of adolescent cannabinoid exposure on adult female sexual motivation in rats, and (2) the rapid hormone responses that women exhibit when exposed to attractive individuals. I will discuss hypotheses of how the brain reacts to desirable mates, and how such neuroendocrine responses might guide psychological processes and adaptive behavior.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Temple University
for a public lecture entitled
Imagination and Moral Reasoning in Child Development
Thursday, February 16, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM Reamer Auditorium
One of the most fascinating aspects of human cognition is that we can think not only about what’s actual, but also about what’s possible and even about
what’s impossible; that is, we can imagine. Young children can do this as
well, and their imaginative abilities play many important roles in development. In particular, their ability to visualize alternative outcomes to a situation has close ties to their budding moral reasoning abilities. In this talk, I will explore this connection as well as the connections between the imagination and other aspects of cognitive development, such as causal and scientific reasoning.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome Union alumna
Kerry E. Evers ‘94, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President of Research and Product Development
Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc. • Providence, RI
for a public lecture entitled
The Science of Health Behavior Change and a Non-Traditional Psychology Career
Thursday, April 5, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Reamer Auditorium
The Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM) is a model that explains the process of how individuals attempt to modify health risk behaviors. It is based on 30 years of research, and has been successfully applied to a variety of health behavior areas, including tobacco cessation, stress management, weight management, substance abuse, binge drinking, and depression prevention; as well as areas like financial management, well-being, and organizational change. Within this model are sets of common principles that explain why people succeed and fail in these attempts. With an understanding of the core constructs and their relationships, researchers and program developers have been able to increase the impact of their
programs. This can be done in a variety of ways, from population assessment and program evaluation to the development of communication campaigns and individualized interventions. This presentation will begin with an overview of the TTM, the research that supports it, and the effectiveness of interventions. The discussion will then focus on the ways in which the TTM can be used as a framework in a variety of different situations. In addition, we will discuss the unique opportunities for psychology research in the health behavior change field.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Howard R. Moskowitz, Ph.D.
CEO, Moskowitz Jacobs, Inc. • White Plains, NY
for a public lecture entitled
From Decoration Pieces to World Peace: Experimental Psychology, Mind Genomics, and Visions of a New Science
Thursday, April 12, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Everest Lounge
The presentation will show how the principles of experimental psychology and consumer research, respectively, reveal the “algebra of the mind.” The talk begins with the presentation of principles, and then provides some details/results from a study on flowers in the new science of Mind Genomics (the experimental analysis of the everyday). The talk then proceeds informally to what is being done today—using the approach to understand conflict (e.g., the Palestinian-Israeli conflict), and how one might settle it using experimental design of ideas.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Art Kramer, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois
Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
for a public lecture entitled
Take a Walk: Aging, Activity, and Brain Health
Thursday, May 3, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Reamer Auditorium
Over the past several decades our society has become increasingly
sedentary. Whether this change is due, in part, to rapid technological development, economic challenges to our society, or a host of other factors,
decreases in physical activity have been associated with diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and a number of different cancers. In
my presentation I will cover what we currently know about physical activity and exercise and their influence on healthy minds and brains. I will
briefly cover animal research that has elucidated the molecular and cellular mechanisms that relate physical activity to brain function and cognition.
My main focus will be on human exercise research across the lifespan, covering both epidemiological and intervention studies. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of our knowledge gaps and how we might fill them with future research.
The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Honors Colloquium welcome
Daniel Simons, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois Co-author of New York Times bestseller The Invisible Gorilla
for a public lecture entitled
The Trouble With Intuition
Thursday, May 17, 2012
12:45–1:50 PM • Reamer Auditorium
We all are amateur psychologists. We form intuitive theories to explain our own behavior and that of others, and our theories are firmly grounded in our daily experiences. Those experiences, along with our ability to introspect about the reasons for our beliefs and behavior, give us privileged access into the workings of our own minds. After all, who can know us better than we know ourselves? We see the world as it is, we know what we know, and we know why we hold the beliefs we do. Or do we?