For students, extracurricular involvement in the School of Psychological Science is essential if you are thinking about graduate school. Without research experience and faculty mentorship, getting into a graduate program (in psychology or elsewhere) is very difficult.

The School of Psychological Science provides valuable opportunities for research experience in psychological science and as a student you can have the opportunity to be published or attend a national conference. This page is dedicated to the efforts of our undergraduate researchers and their collaboration with Psychological Science faculty. To get involved in research, contact the faculty member in the area you are interested in. For example: if you are interested in first impressions, you would contact Dr. Frank Bernieri. To make yourself stand out to a professor, when wanting to become involved in research, read some of their journal articles (listed below) and express your interest in their field of study.

Here are a few samples of some of the work that has gone on in SPS research labs, in subject matter ranging from cognition to nonverbal behavior, stress and coping, mood and cognition, and social cognition, to name a few.

To review the work going on in the labs, visit sites dedicated to cognition, nonverbal behavior, stress and coping, mood and cognition, and social cognition.

Faculty/Student Collaboration

Following is a listing of publications and presentations involving collaboration between our students and faculty.

  • Gurung, Regan A.R., Galardi, N.,* (2021, February). Syllabus tone, more than mental health statements, influence intentions to seek help.  Journal Teaching of Psychology
  • Fitter, N. T., *Raghunath, N., Cha, E., Sanchez, C. A., Takayama, L., & Matarić, M. J. (2020). Are We There Yet? Comparing Remote Learning Technologies in the University Classroom. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5, 2706-2713.

  • Bryson, B., Bogart, K. R., Atwood, K.,* Fraser, K.,* Locke, T.,* Pugh, K.,* & Zerrouk, M.,* (2019, February). Navigating challenges and the search for social support: Life with a rare disease. Poster presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, Portland, OR.
  • Bryson, B., Bogart, K. R., Atwood, M.,* Fraser, K.,* Locke, T.,* Pugh, K.,* & Zerrouk, M.,* (2018, April). Navigating the unknown: A content analysis of the unique challenges faced by adults with rare diseases. Poster presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference, Portland, OR.
  • *Fultz, A. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (2018). What an optimist looks like: Separating optimistic biases from social reality. Psychology, 9, 413-426. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2018.93026
  • Cservenka, A., *Lahanas, S., *Dotson-Bossert, J. (2018). Marijuana use and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning in humans. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9: 432.
  • Krieger, K., Watkins, P. L., Gerber, M. R., Pham, H., & Bauman, L. (2018). Weigh your words: An exploration of natural word use in a fat studies course. Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/21604851.2017.1361280
  • *Lahanas, S., Cservenka, A. (2018). Greater past month and lifetime marijuana use are associated with poorer cognitive flexibility in young adult college students. Poster presented at the Research Society on Marijuana Annual Meeting, Fort Collins, COBrown, J. A., & Bernieri, F. (2017). Trait perception accuracy and acquaintance within groups: Tracking accuracy development. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 716-728.
  • Estill, M.,* & Bogart, K. (2017, May). Emotion recognition, mimicry and reactions to facial paralysis: Research in facial electromyography responses. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.
  • Locke, T,* Kim, J.,* Bogart, K. Logan, S. W., & Hospodar, C.** (2017, May). Disability model partially mediates the relationship between contact and attitudes. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.
  • Zike, N.,* Bogart, K., Hemmesch, A., & Wachs, F. L. (2017, May). Understanding isn't acceptance": A Focus group of parents of people with Moebius syndrome, a rare disease. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, MA.
  • Bogart, K. R., Frandrup, E., Locke, T.,* Thompson, H.,* Weber, N.,* Yates, J.,* Zike, N.,* & Hemmesch, A. (2017). “Rare place where I feel normal”: Perceptions of a social support conference among parents of and people with Moebius syndrome. Research in Developmental Disabilities 64, 143-151. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2017.03.014. 
  • *Pham, H., & Sanchez, C.A. (in press). Text segment length can impact emotional reactions to narrative storytelling. Discourse Processes. Sanchez, C.A., & *Alley, Z.M. (2016). Advertising effectiveness and attitude change vary as a function of working memory capacity. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30, 1093-1099.
  • Sanchez, C.A., & *Khan, S. (2016). Disfluent instructor accents in online education and their effect on learning and attitudes towards instruction. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32, 494-502.
  • Rosa, N., Bogart, K. R., Bonnett, A. K., Estill, M. C.,* & Colton, C. E.* (2016). Teaching about disability in psychology: An analysis of disability curricula in U.S. undergraduate psychology programs. Teaching of Psychology, 43 (1), 59-62. doi: 10.1177/0098628315620885
  • Ross, S., & Bogart, K. R. Logan, S., Case, L.,* Fine, J., & Thompson, H.* (2016). Physical activity participation of disabled children: A systematic review of conceptual and methodological approaches in health research. Frontiers in Public Health, 4, 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2016.00187
  • Sim, S. Y-L, Saperia, J., Brown, J. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (2015). Judging attractiveness: Biases due to raters’ own attractiveness and intelligence. Cogent Psychology, 2: 996316.
  • Proctor, R. W., Lien, M.-C., & *Thompson, L. (in press). Do silhouettes and photographs produce fundamentally different object-based correspondence effects? Cognition. 
  • Lien, M.-C., *Pedersen, L., & Proctor, R. W. (2016). Stimulus-response correspondence in go-no go and choice tasks: Are reactions altered by the presence of an irrelevant salient object? Psychological Research, 80, 912-934. 
  • Krieger, K., & Bernieri, F. (2017, January). Words of well-being: Using LIWC to understand social well-being in college students. Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX.
  • Brunot, A., Krieger, K., & Bernieri, F. (2017, January). The “Physics” behind emotional understanding: How space and time may be related to emotional understanding and describing social interactions. Presented at annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX.
  • Fultz, A., Nguyen, D., & Bernieri, F. (2017, January). When empathy fails: Voice synthesizer users experienced lower rapport with high empathy partners. Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX. (“Best poster award”)
  • Lu, S., Todd, E., Brown, J., & Bernieri, F. (2017, January). What personality traits are associated with the ability to pantomime? Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX.
  • Sim, S. Y., Brown, J. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (2016, January). Predictors of Interpersonal Accuracy: MSCEIT, Empathy, Intelligence, and Sex. Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Diego, CA.
  • Brunot, A., Bernieri, F. J., Raymond, A., & Brown, J. (2016, January). The Nonverbal Communicative Power Conveyed in a Message Increases Encoding Accuracy. Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Diego, CA.
  • Lien, M.-C., *Gray, D., *Jardin, E., & Proctor, R. W. (2014). Correspondence effects are primarily modulated by object location not grasping affordance: An event-related potentials study. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26, 679-698. 
  • Lien, M.-C., Ruthruff, E., & *Naylor, J. (2014). Attention capture while switching search strategies: Evidence for a breakdown in top-down attentional control. Visual Cognition, 22, 1105-1133. 
  • Lien, M.-C., Allen, P. A., & *Martin, N. (2014). Processing visual words with numbers: Electrophysiological evidence for semantic activation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 1056-1066. 
  • Allen, P.A., Edwards, J. A., Snyder, F., Makinson, K.A., & Hamby, D. M. The Effect of Cognitive Load on Decision-Making with Graphically Displayed Uncertainty Information. Risk Analysis.