PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

The Psychology Department had a busy and productive year, marked by teaching the largest numbers of students in its history. Four hundred students took Introductory Psychology in 1998-99, and the enrollments in courses such as Psychological Disorders and Social Psychology reached record levels. There are currently over 70 senior majors and 80 junior majors.

Members of the department continued their active engagement in scholarship. They wrote books, published articles, reviewed manuscripts for journals and supervised our students in ongoing research. Scholarly collaboration with undergraduates usually goes on summer, fall, winter, spring, and this year was no exception. That collaboration produced a number of publications, and eight honors theses.

We added Susan Engel to our ranks this year. Susan had been a visiting professor in years past but had worked at Bennington College from 1995-98. She was appointed Lecturer in Psychology and Director of Education Programs as if July 1, 1998. We are pleased to have her on board.

Sadly, Visiting Assistant Professors Greg Buchanan and Bob Kachelski are leaving us. They both were here for three years, and we are grateful for their contributions to the department. Greg is going to Beloit College. Bob is going to Agnes Scott College. We also say goodbye to Robert Lennartz, who has served as Senior Neuroscience Technician for the past three years. Robert is going to teach at the College of William and Mary.

This past fall Elliot Friedman was re-appointed to a second term as Assistant Professor of Psychology. Also, Kris Kirby received tenure and will be promoted to Associate Professor on July 1, 2000. This spring Betty Zimmerberg was promoted to full professor, effective July 1, 1999. In September of 1998, Betty married Dale Fink. Congratulations, Elliot, Kris, and Betty. We are pleased that good things are happening to members of the department.

During the year we hired two new Assistant Professors, Talia Ben-Zeev, a cognitive psychologist with special interest in problem solving, and Marlene Sandstrom, a clinical psychologist with special interest in childhood peer relationships. Talia has her Ph.D. from Yale and Marlene from Duke. Noah Sandstrom also joined our ranks as Lecturer in Psychology. Noah did his graduate work at Duke, under the supervision of Tina Williams, Williams College class of 1975. Marlene and Noah are wife and husband. In addition, Andrew Crider, former professor and chair of the Psychology Department here will teach a course for us, as will Cynthia McPherson Frantz, Williams College class of 1991. Andy retired in 1995. Cindy is working on her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts.

Professor Phebe Cramer attended the national meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment, New Orleans, March 1999 where she presented a paper: “Ego Functions and Ego Development”, and served as Chair and Discussant for a Symposium on Defense Mechanisms. She also attended a meeting of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Personality Assessment. In June 1999, she attended the Personality and Social Behavior section of the Invitational Nag’s Head Conference in Highland Beach, Florida where she presented a paper, “Children’s Use and Understanding of Defense Mechanisms” with Melissa A. Brilliant, ‘99.

Professor Cramer authored a chapter this year, entitled “Clinical Assessment of Defense Mechanisms” in Psychologist’s Desk Reference (G.P. Koocher, J.C. Norcorss, and SS. Hill, III, Eds.), Oxford University Press. She also served as editor, with colleague Karina Davidson, of a Special Issue of the Journal of Personality, titled “Defense Mechanisms in Current Personality Research”. In addition to being a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Personality Assessment, Professor Cramer served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Personality, Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Personality Research and Archives of General Psychiatry. Further, she served as a member of a Ph.D thesis committee for the Department of Psychology, Gaulladet University, and she conducted a research phone conference for members of the faculty, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, Palo Alto, CA.

Associate Professor Steven Fein conducted research on stereotypes and prejudice, attributional processes and suspicion across cultures, and the effects of media images on self-esteem and performance. This research was conducted in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Morocco, Canada, and the U.S. With department colleague Saul Kassin, Professor Fein co-authored Social Psychology, which was published in January. Professor Fein also co-edited, Readings in Social Psychology: The Art and Science of Research, and co-edited Social Psychology: Instructor’s Resource Manual and Social Psychology: Study Guide, which were published in January as well. He published articles in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Psychological Inquiry. Professor Fein and his students presented three papers at the 1998 Conference of the American Psychological Association, in San Francisco, in August. In October, he also delivered a talk at the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, in Lexington, KY. From December through June, Professor Fein spent his sabbatical doing research and teaching at Stanford University. He gave two colloquia for the psychology department at Stanford and one at the Stanford Business School while there, as well as one at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Professor Fein served as the secretary-treasurer of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology and as a consulting editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, as well as a reviewer for several psychology journals. Professor Fein supervised the research of two students during the summer as part of the Bronfman Summer Science program, and supervised the independent research projects of several students during the academic year.

Professor George R. Goethals completed a two-year stint as chair of the department on June 30, 1999 and was pleased to see Bob Kavanaugh return to that job. This past year he continued his research on peer effects in higher education. An article on that research is “in press” in Basic and Applied Social Psychology. In addition, he wrote a chapter on social comparison theory for the new Handbook On Social Comparison Processes being edited by Jerry Suls and Ladd Wheeler. He presented papers on his research on peer influences at the Forum for the Future of Higher Education in Aspen, Colorado in September of 1998, and again at a conference at the University of Virginia in October. He also gave a paper on the implications of peer influences for student intellectual growth and values at the Macalester Forum on Diversity and Stratification in American Higher Education in June. Professor Goethals is working on a book on theories of leadership during his sabbatical in 1999-2000.

Prof. Laurie Heatherington spent the fall semester on sabbatical leave as a Fellow at the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She did research and writing on cognitive processes in psychotherapy, on gender and self-presentation, and on the interrelationships between cognition, affect and interpersonal control in marital interaction. The latter project was supported by the Radcliffe College Research Support Program. In December 1998, she was awarded a Mellon Technology Grant to support the integration of video and computer technology into several courses.

With M.L. Friedlander, she presented “What Do Clients Think and What Does It Matter?: An Integrative Approach to Studying Problem Constructions in Family Therapy” at the Society for Psychotherapy Research Conference,and with Valentin Escudero and M.L. Friedlander, “Interpersonal Behavior, Cognitions, and Emotions in Marital Discourse: A Model for Integrative Research” at the first annual meeting of the Society for Interpersonal Theory and Research, both held in Park City Utah, June 1998. In May 1999, she presented a colloquium to the Clark University Psychology Department, “Family Therapy Change Process Research: Where Angels Dare to Tread?” In the fall of 1998, her textbook, The Psychology of Adjustment, co-authored with Al Goethals and Steve Worchel, was published.

Professor Heatherington served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the Journal of Family Psychology, and Psychotherapy Research, and did ad-hoc reviewing for Sex Roles. She served on the Board of Directors and as chair of the Clinical Committee of the Gould Farm (Monterey, MA), a treatment center/working farm, serving people with major mental illness.

Prof. Kavanaugh observing children engaged in imaginative play with BSC summer student Amy Sprengelmeyer.

Professor Saul Kassin completed the fourth edition of Social Psychology, a co-authored textbook published in 1999 by Houghton Mifflin. He also wrote the articles on psychology and social psychology for the Micrsoft CD-Rom Encylopedia-Encarta 2000. Prof. Kassin wrote “Eyewitness Identification Procedures: The Fifth Rule”, in Law and Human Behavior in 1998. He and Christina Fong (‘98) wrote “I’m Innocent!: Effects of Training on Judgments of Truth and Deception in the Interrogation Room”, also published in Law and Human Behavior. Prof. Kassin presented the following invited addresses: “Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions” (Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, May 1999, Worcester, MA), “Indestructible Demonstrations in the Teaching of Social Psychology “ (American Psychological Society Institute on The Teaching of Psychology, June 1999, Denver, CO), “Social Perceptions and Influences in the Interrogation Room” (Eastern Psychological Association, March 1999, Providence, RI), “Teaching Social Psychology: Indestructible Classroom Demonstrations” (Northeastern Conference for Teachers of Psychology, October 1998, Ithaca, NY). He also gave colloquia and guest lectures at University of Michigan Law School, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Central Michigan University, Boston University, Brooklyn College, San Antonio Community College, Western Connecticut State College, Quinnipiac College, Hudson Valley Community College, and Bloomsburg University. Prof. Kassin has continued to serve as consulting editor for Law and Human Behavior and reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation and papers for numerous journals. He also appeared as a trial consultant and expert witness in a number of cases in Federal court, military court, and in the states of New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Professor Robert D. Kavanaugh continued his research on the development of imagination in young children aided, in part, by a spring term leave at the Oakley Center. Dr. Kavanaugh spent much of his leave working on the second and concluding year of his NATO Collaborative Research Grant with Dr. Paul L. Harris of the University of Oxford. In March, Professor Kavanaugh gave an invited address, “Pretense and Counterfactual Thought in Young Children” at Uppsala University (Sweden). In April, Drs. Kavanaugh and Harris met in Williamstown to plan the concluding studies for their grant. Also in April, Dr. Kavanaugh made two presentations at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development: “Preschool Children’s Understanding of Fairy Tales with Faith A. Cinquegrana, ‘97, and “Is There Going To Be A Real Fox in Here?: The Exploration of a Shared Fantasy by Young Children” with Dr. Harris. The latter presentation was part of a symposium organized to discuss “Preschool Children’s Understanding of Non-literal Statements and Actions.” Dr. Kavanaugh and Harris’s research on shared fantasies was also featured in an ABC television special ‘The Power of Belief’ which focused on magical thinking in children and adults. During the past year, Dr. Kavanaugh was an ad hoc reviewer for Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, and the Journal of Cognitive Development.

Professor Paul Solomon continued his research on diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Ongoing work on the 7 Minute Screen for Alzheimer’s disease included translation and validation in more than 10 languages. A research paper on the 7 Minute Screen done in collaboration with Williams students was given a First Place Award for Research by the American Association of Family Physicians. Dr. Solomon was invited to speak about the 7 Minute Screen at a number of meetings including International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Amsterdam, The Spanish Neurological Society in Barcelona, Annual Meeting of Nurse Practitioners in Phoenix, the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians in Chicago, The American Association of Family Physicians in San Francisco, SUNY Binghamton Alzheimer’s Center, Pri-Med East in Boston, The US Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in San Francisco, 7 Minute Screen International Meeting in Rome, Pri-Med South in Ft. Lauderdale, American Medical Directors Association in Orlando, Janssen Alzheimer’s Disease Advisory Board in Atlanta, and the Memory Disorders Research Society in Cambridge. Dr. Solomon also continued his work on development of new compounds to treat Alzheimer’s disease. He received a number of new grants this year to test anti-dementia compounds including a grant from the National Institute on Aging to study the effects of Aricept or Vitamin E on delaying the onset of symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. He received grants from Janssen Pharmaceutica Research to study galantamine in Alzheimer’s patients, a grant from Lilly to study Olanzapine in dementia, and a grant from Fujisawa Research Institute of America to study FK-960 in Alzheimer’s disease. He also received a grant from the National Institute on Aging to study the effects of melatonin on sleep disorders in Alzheimer’s disease. He spoke at a number of meetings on treatment of Alzheimer’s disease including the symposia on Alzheimer’s disease at the Brattleboro Retreat, the International Neuroscience Consortium in Toronto, the annual meeting of NADONA in New Orleans, the US Psychiatric Congress in Orlando. He was the Keynote speaker at the Peoria, Ill Alzheimer’s Association annual conference. Additonally, Dr. Solomon had an annual lecture series named in his honor at Sweetwood Continuing care facility.

Dr. Solomon continued as Director of the Essel Neuroscience Initiative at Williams which is now in its seventh year. He also continued on the editorial boards of Essential Psychopharmacology and Therapeutic Strategies with Older Adults. He also continues in his capacity as Co-Director of the Memory Clinic at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center where he is a member of the Department of Psychiatry (Division of Psychology).

Professor Betty Zimmerberg continued her research in developmental psychobiology, funded by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her new research centers on the role of neurosteroids in the stress response under various pre- and postnatal environmental conditions that might affect the development of anxiety-related behaviors. Research conducted with Sharon Rackow ‘98 was presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting last November in New Orleans, entitled “Interaction Between Neonatal Stress and the Neuroactive Steroid Allopregnanolone on Subsequent Emotional Behavior in Rats.” Zimmerberg also worked with students Eric Smith ‘99 and Joe Masters ‘02 to develop neuroscience-related animated and interactive multimedia teaching materials, sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Preliminary forms of these materials were presented at the Fourth Annual N.E.U.R.O.N. Meeting, at Trinity College in an invited workshop. In addition, Zimmerberg was an invited guest at the Inaugural Ceremony for the new Center for Endocrine Studies at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She also continued grant reviewing for the NIH, VA and NSF, as well as for various journals, including Brain Research, Behavioral Neuroscience, Developmental Psychobiology, and Psychopharmacology. Professor Zimmerberg, continued to serve on the steering committee of a new professional society, N.E.U.R.O.N. (Northeast Under/Graduate Research Organization for Neuroscience).

Assistant Professor Elliot Friedman’s laboratory work this past year focused on the issue of impaired immune function associated with clinical depression. To be able to probe the immune system in depth, he uses a rat model of depression, the Flinders Sensitive Line (FSL) rat. The behavior and physiology of these animals resemble clinically depressed human beings in a number of important ways, and these abnormalities can be “normalized” by treatment with standard antidepressant drugs like Zoloft. This past year, a Psychology thesis student, Kelly Becker ‘99, and Dr. Friedman measured the ability of the FSL rats and control FRL rats to mount an antibody response. In several sets of experiments, they found that the FSL rats were much less able to produce several types of antibodies than the control animals. They went on to examine more specific aspects of their immune function, specifically whether the activity of T-helper lymphocytes was different in the two rats strains. They found evidence that one type of T-helper cell, the type I cell (Th1), was less active in the FSL rats than in controls. Th1 and type-2 T-helper (Th2) cells produce different types of immune response modifiers and are implicated in immunological diseases that can result from an overactive immune system. For example, if unchecked a Th1-type immune response can produce arthritic disease while a Th2-type response can result in allergies and asthma. The FSL rats have been shown to be more susceptible to asthma than control animals. In their work, Kelly and Dr. Friedman found evidence that the production of the Th2-type immune response modifier interleukin-10 (IL-10) is elevated in the FSL rats compared to controls. These results were particularly exciting because this exaggerated cytokine production may underlie asthma susceptibility in these rats and may also help explain increased incidence of allergies and asthma among clinically depressed human beings. Kelly and Dr. Friedman attended the annual meeting of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society in April to present their data, and the abstract was published in Neuroimmunomodulation. They are currently preparing a full manuscript for publication.

Last fall Dr. Friedman organized his seminar course, Psychoneuroimmunology, around a single topic: the role of leptin in suppressed immune function during stress. This was an issue that had never been examined, in spite of evidence that leptin participates in the stress response and that can it is an important regulator of immune function. Students became familiar with basic ideas and language in the field, planned experiments that addressed specific questions related to the general topic, conducted the experiments in the laboratory, analyzed all of the data, and presented the results of their work at a semester-end gathering. This approach to the course – the integration of classroom learning and laboratory work on a new topic – worked very well, and the students enjoyed the excitement and frustration of being research pioneers.

Dr. Friedman was invited to give a colloquium at the University of California at Berkeley in March on “Immune Function in a Genetic Animal Model of Depression.” He also published a chapter called “Does Psychological Depression Cause Immune Suppression in Humans?” in a new book, Psychoneuroimmunology: An Interdisciplinary Introduction.

Assistant Professor Kris Kirby continued his research on impulsiveness in decision making, funded by a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. He published an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General titled “Heroin Addicts Have Higher Discount Rates for Delayed Rewards than Non-Drug Using Controls.” He continued on the editorial board of the Journal of Experimental Psychology; Learning, Memory, and Cognition; served as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of other journals; and reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation.

Assistant Professor Kenneth Savitsky conducted research on social judgment, including work on superstition and the psychology of overconfidence. The main focus of his research, however, was on people’s appraisals of how they appear to others. He had papers published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and in Skeptical Inquirer, a chapter published in the volume The Social Psychology of Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Interfaces of Social and Clinical Psychology (APA Books), and a previous publication reprinted in Annual Editions: Social Psychology 99/00 (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill). Dr. Savitsky and his colleagues presented their research at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Savitsky reviewed manuscripts for several psychology journals, supervised the independent research projects of five students, and served as a secondary advisor for a senior honors thesis.

Since rejoining the psychology department in July 1998, Lecturer Susan Engel has spent a great deal of her time getting the new program in teaching started. This has included advising approximately 40 students about how to pursue their interest in education; hosting weekly lunches for all community members to talk about teaching; speaking on a panel on public education (part of fall convocation); and teaching a new course this spring on the psychology of education. She also gave a lunch time talk to the math department titled “The Math Curse: What Should Children Learn about Math, and How?” Susan supervised four independent studies in specific teaching topics (math, community and art, literacy), and supervised students’ practice teaching in area schools.

Professor Engel has continued to advise an experimental school, which has provided her students with a wealth of information and stories to think about as they encounter educational theory. Her new book, Context Is Everything: The Nature of Memory, was published in April by W.H. Freeman. She presented two new pieces of research at the Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, held this year in Albuquerque NM. One paper was titled “Rethinking Developmental Stages: Teaching Mixed Age Classrooms” and the other, “Children’s First Autobiographies”. Amy Sprengelmeyer, ‘00 collaborated with Professor Engel on this second study. In addition, Amy Sprengelmeyer, Kathryn Dingman and Beth Friedman are all working on a study with Robert Kavanaugh and Susan Engel in which they are looking at young children’s understanding of mental states described in fairy tales. In May, Susan gave a talk on Ethics and Education for the Berkshire Institute for Life Time Learning, in Pittsfield, MA. Her paper, “Looking Backwards: Representations of Childhood in Literary Work”, appeared in The Journal of Aesthetic Education.

Dr. James W. Pennebaker

University of Texas at Austin

“Language and Health: Putting Stress into Words”

Dr. Daniel Hart

Rutgers University

“The Good, the Sad, and the Mad: How Personality Shapes Children’s Development

Dr. Alan Baddeley

University of Bristol

“Working Memory and the Acquisition of Language”

Dr. Alex Sabo

Berkshire Medical Center

“Attachment, Stress and Reward: Three Systems at the Core of Health and Illness”

Dr. Sandra J. Kelly

University of South Carolina

“Social Dysfunction as a Core Characteristic of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Brain and Behavioral Mechanisms”

Dr. Patrica Devine

University of Wisconsin

“Motivations to Respond without Prejudice: Revisiting the Fading and Faking of Racial Prejudice””

Dr. Jennifer Crocker

University of Michigan

“Social Stigma and Self-Esteem”

Dr. Pamela Regan

California State University, L.A.

“The Dynamics of Desire: Lust, Love and Mating”

Michael D. Alcee Unknown

Lindsay H. Beach Travel the world, then to grad school for psychology

Kelly A. Becker Unknown

Laurie C. Bennett Research Coordinator for the Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education and getting married in September

Jennifer Berson Housing Works Day Treatment Center in Brooklyn, NY

Melissa A. Brilliant Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at American University, Washington DC

Christine J. Caveney Pursuing a Masters degree in Social Work at University of Michigan

Michael S. Cleary Unknown

Kristen N. Curtis Working with Autistic individuals at New England Center for Children, Southboro, MA

Stephen G. Danbusky

Mark R. Darrigo Attending law school

Amanda M. DiMauro Research in pediatric psychopharmacology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

Andrea C. Frohmader Unknown

Alison W. Furey Working in Boston in marketing or advertising fields

Naima F. Glover Unknown

Jessica N. Green Unknown

Brooke A. Harnisch Unknown

Jennifer M. Hendi Unknown

Jennifer A. Hurley Paralegal with Jesuit Volunteer Corps, then to law school

Neelam Jain Research Assistant in the Neurology Department at University of Michigan

Phillipa M. Johnson Unknown

Danielle L. Kunian Project Analyst at Wellington Management Company in Boston

Katherine T. Lewis Unknown

Rebecca Logue Unknown

Kathleen R. Mason Unknown

Linda A. Mboya Unknown

Pranjal H. Mehta Unknown

Jill A. Metzger Unknown

Kevin P. Montee Cornell Law School

Edward T. Murphy Unknown

Jill M. Murray Unknown

Hannah C. Nesbeda Unknown

Kate G. Niederhoffer Ph.D. program in social psychology at the University of Texas at Austin

Daniel M. Niedzwiecki Law school

Katherine M. Nolan Unknown

Courtney O’Connor Actuarial Development Program, John Hancock Insurance Company, Boston

Richard K. Ota Unknown

Jesica A. Owen Unknown

Georgina Parra Unknown

Robin D. Paul Unknown

Kelley J. Powell Unknown

Lindsay Renner Research on schizophrenia and alcoholism at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston

Jessica L. Richman Law school at the University of Pennsylvania

Andrina Rossi Unknown

Heather A. Rutherford Unknown

Adam Schreiber Legal Assistant, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meager & Flom, New York

Lindsay R. Sellers Unknown

Kelly Shinn Summer internship at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, then to California.

Roxann Smerechniak Unknown

Arlene M. Spooner Unknown

Evin W. Steed Unknown

Tom E. Steiner Financial Representative for New England Financial in New York

Nicole L. Strauss Applying to medical schools

Vivian E. Wang Paralegal at Davis, Polk & Wardwell, New York, then law school

Jason M. Webster Unknown

Alexander C. Wong Unknown

Sunshine Wu Unknown

Scott W. Zinober Unknown