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PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT


The Psychology Department enjoyed another exciting and productive year. We were grateful to see that student interest in psychology courses remained high. We now have approximately 100 junior and senior majors each year, along with a large number of non-majors who register for psychology courses. This year we were pleased to be able to add a Health Psychologist to our staff, and we believe that new courses in this exciting area will enhance our future curricular offerings.

Our faculty maintained its strong commitment to scholarship. During the past year, psychology faculty sponsored seven senior honors theses that were presented to the department on May 13. Two of our faculty members also sponsored three senior honors theses in Neuroscience and one in Biology. Each of the student authors was awarded honors, and four were subsequently elected to student membership in Sigma Xi. One other student was elected to Sigma Xi on the basis of an outstanding independent study project. In addition, a number of current and former majors co-authored papers with our faculty that were presented at professional meetings held in this country and abroad. The titles of these papers can be found in the description of the faculty's research.

We are very pleased to welcome new faculty to the department. Dr. Elliot Friedman will join our staff in July as Assistant Professor of Psychology. Dr. Friedman is a health psychologist who completed his doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego, California.

In addition to Dr. Friedman, we are fortunate next year to have the services of three visiting assistant professors. Two of these people, Dr. Maurice Levesque, a social psychologist currently on the faculty of Amherst College and Dr. Gregory Buchanan, a clinical psychologist currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, will be with us for the entire year. Dr. MaryAnne Martone, an assistant research neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, will be here during the fall term.

This year we bid farewell to Assistant Professors Carmen Arroyo and Eileen Donahue who have chosen new career options. Drs. Arroyo and Donahue have been with us for the past two years and we thank them for their contributions. Also leaving this year are Dr. Wendy Penner, who taught in our senior seminar, and Dr. Anthony Guiliano who taught two courses in clinical psychology. We also appreciate their contributions to the department during the past year.

We had another year of informative colloquia from a group of distinguished psychologists. We were fortunate to persuade Dr. Richard Reckman to make a return visit to our senior seminar where he spoke about his clinical experiences with multiple personality disorder. Our 1960 Scholars Program, designed to encourage students to consider academic careers, was very successful. The program brought four eminent psychologists to campus to present colloquia on their research. Each colloquium was followed by a discussion and dinner with senior majors who had been selected as 1960's scholars. The speakers and their topics are shown at the end of this section.

Once again our majors made substantial contributions to the governance of the department. The Psychology Students Liaison Committee (PSLC) continued to play an important role in representing majors to the department and vice versa. The PSLC was particularly helpful in meeting with and attending job talks by a large number of candidates for faculty positions in the department. We thank the following PSLC members for their invaluable work this year: Lori Chelius, Maria-Teresa Plantilla, Sam Sommers, Hallie Zollett, Kristin Edwards, Holly Hodgson, Bruce McCarthy, and Jill Vogel. We are also grateful to a number of our majors who served as teaching assistants in several of our larger courses. For example, several students each semester help Psychology 201 students master computer-based statistical programs in our department computer lab, and students assisted each term in Psychology 101.

Professor Phebe Cramer continued research work on defense mechanisms as well as a collaboration with Prof. Jack Block of the University of California, Berkeley. She attended the Nag's Head Conference on Personality and Social Psychology in Highland Beach, FL, in June 1996 where she presented a paper entitled, "Relationship of Defense Mechanisms to Personality and Ego Modes in Young Adulthood." Her book, "Story-Telling, Narrative and the Thematic Apperception Test," was published in the Spring of 1996. She continued as Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality and as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Personality Assessment, as well as a reviewer for articles submitted to other professional journals. She is a member of the Institutional Review Board at the Austen Riggs Center.

Assistant Professor Steven Fein conducted research on stereotypes and prejudice, attributional processes and suspicion across cultures, and social influences on perceptions of political debates. This research was conducted in India (with Williams colleague Jean Bacon), Israel, and in the United States. In August 1995, Dr. Fein was the co-chair of the personality and social psychology programs and the Science Weekend program at the American Psychological Association conference in New York. Dr. Fein and his colleagues presented six papers at the conference, and he was the chair of a symposium on stereotyping, entitled, "Current Cognitive Approaches to Stereotyping: Integrating Motivated, Automatic, and Controlled Processes." The six papers included: "Self-Image Maintenance in the Activation of Implicit Stereotypes", "Effects of Analyzing Reasons on Super Bowl Prediction Accuracy", "Influence of Motivation on Implicit Stereotyping", "Effects of Pretrial Publicity and Suspicion on Verdicts" (co-authored by Allison McCloskey `94), "Sound Bites and Audience Reaction in a U.S. Presidential Debate" (co-authored by Psychology department colleagues, Saul Kassin and George Goethals, and Leigh Frost `94 and Amelia Cottrell `95), and "Self-Esteem Maintenance, Stereotype Consistency, and Men's Prejudice Toward Gays" (co-authored by Jessica Cross `94.) Dr. Fein edited books, Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, with Psychology Department colleagues Robert Kavanaugh and Betty Zimmerberg-Glick; and Readings in Social Psychology: The Art and Science of Research. Dr. Fein also published a series of ancillary materials to supplement the textbook of Psychology Department colleague Saul Kassin, including the Instructor's Resource Manual, Study Guide, Test Bank, and Transition Guide. Dr. Fein delivered talks at Dartmouth College in the Fall and at the University of Texas and at the University of Wisconsin in the Spring. At Williams, Dr. Fein presented two lectures as part of the Sigma Xi Faculty Research series, entitled, "Stereotyping and Prejudice: An Overview of the Social Psychological Approach," and "Stereotyping and Prejudice: Cognitive and Motivational Influences." Dr. Fein was appointed a consulting editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and served as a reviewer for several psychology journals.

Associate Professor Betty Zimmerberg Glick continued her research on brain and development, funded by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the NIH. In June 1995, Professor Zimmerberg Glick attended the annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Steamboat Springs, CO. At this meeting, two students presented research completed in her lab: Grace Wang `96, presenting "Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Alters the Functional Responsiveness of the SNS in Brown Adipose Tissue", and Kristin Edwards `96, presenting "The Effects of Lactational Alcohol Exposure on Neuromotor Development, Activity and Learning in Rats". In October 1995, Professor Zimmerberg Glick gave an invited presentation entitled "Brown Adipose Tissue as a Model for Teratological Studies" to the Department of Psychobiology at Columbia University, New York. In November 1995, research conducted with student Seth Mehr `96 was presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology in San Diego, CA, entitled "Brown Adipose Tissue: Studies on SNS Development in Neonatal Rats Prenatally Exposed to Alcohol." In April 1996, Professor Zimmerberg Glick presented research conducted with Lisa Blaskey `96 entitled "Behavioral Effects of Prenatal Stress are Modulated by Gestational Neurosteroid Administration" at the annual meeting of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Here at Williams, Professor Zimmerberg Glick spoke about her research at a Presidential Colloquium in October 1995, and at the Parent's Weekend in April 1996. She reviewed grants for the Behavioral Neuroscience Program of the National Science Foundation, the Behavior and Neuroscience Review Group of the National Institutes of Health, and the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation. She also reviewed journal articles for Alcohol, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, Brain Research, Physiology & Behavior, Psychopharmacology, and Behavioral Neuroscience.

Professor George R. Goethals was on sabbatical in 1995-96, but spent most of the year in Williamstown. He also spent a large amount of time at the University of Massachusetts doing research on students' perceptions of the fairness of college and university tuition charges. While there, he collaborated with a UMass graduate student, Cindy McPherson Frantz `91. He also continued his research on social influences on responses to presidential debates with colleagues Steven Fein and Saul Kassin. In September he gave a colloquium at UMass on both those lines of research. Earlier in the summer he gave a presentation on a social psychologist and provost's perspective on issues in the economics of higher education at the Mellon Conference held at Williams. Some preliminary data were presented, which formed the basis for the research with Cindy Frantz. Professor Goethals gave alumni lectures on presidential debates and negative campaigning in Rochester and Hartford, and in January he led an alumni cruise through the Panama Canal, giving lectures on the construction and his great-grandfather's role as chief engineer. He is working on revising two textbooks, one with Associate Professor Laurie Heatherington.

Associate Professor Laurie Heatherington spent a fall semester sabbatical leave as a Fellow at the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, where she continued her research on family therapy and on gender and self-presentation. She presented two papers at the Oakley Center, "Assessing Individual Family Members' Constructions of Family Problems," and "Gender and Self-Presentation of Achievement in Social Interactions Contexts: Two Process-Outcome Studies," and two papers at the August 1995 American Psychological Association Convention: with Laura Brown `95, "Contextual Factors in Men's and Women's Self-Presentation of Academic Achievement," and with Elizabeth Burnett, `94, "Cognitions and Conflict: Toward an Understanding of Mother - Adolescent Daughter Relationships." She was an invited speaker at Yale University in April 1996 and a keynote speaker at an international conference, "Researching Interaction Process in Psychotherapy" at the Universidad de La Coruña, and conducted a seminar at Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Spain, in June 1996. Professor Heatherington was appointed to the editorial board of Psychotherapy Research, the International Journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and continued on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Psychotherapy, and Journal of Family Psychology, with ad-hoc reviewing for Sex Roles. In the summer of 1995, she worked with an interdisciplinary group of professors to develop a new Women's Studies practicum course, "Feminism in Theory and Practice," and in January participated in a local conference on service learning sponsored by the Gaudino Program. Professor Heatherington was a program evaluation consultant to the Berkshire Center for Families and Children (Pittsfield, MA) on a post-adoption services program, and began service on the Board of Directors of Gould Farm (Monterey, MA), a working farm/community serving those with major mental illness.

Professor Saul M. Kassin published the third edition of his textbook, Social Psychology, with Sharon Brehm, in 1996 with the Houghton Mifflin publishing company. He presented a poster at the 1995 American Psychological Association conference with Psychology Department faculty members, S. Fein and G. R. Goethals and Williams students, Leigh Frost `94 and Amelia Cottrell `95, entitled "Sound Bites and Audience Reaction in a U. S. Presidential Debate," and presented a paper with Meghan Dunn `95 at the Eastern Psychological Association 1996 conference entitled, "Effects of Computer-Animated Displays on the Jury." He was an invited speaker at the Science Weekend of the American Psychological Association in 1995 delivering an address entitled, "The Social Psychology of Criminal Confessions", and at the Annual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology in 1996 with his talk entitled, "Advances in Social Psychology." He also spoke at Montgomery Community College, Bloomsburgh University and the University of Massachusetts during this academic year. He continues to serve as consulting editor for Law and Human Behavior, reviewed manuscripts for several other journals, and reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation. He has served as an expert witness, has given numerous lectures on the psychology of juries, and has been named a Fellow of the American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41 of the American Psychological Association).

Professor Robert D. Kavanaugh completed his fourth year as department chair, and continued his research on the development of reasoning and imagination in young children. In August 1995, Professor Kavanaugh presented "Counterfactual Reasoning in Two-Year-Olds" with Tara Goodrich, special student, `93 and Paul Harris at the VIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology in Krakow, Poland. Also in August, Professor Kavanaugh presented with Paul L. Harris, "Pretense Revisited: Assessing Young Children's Understanding of Make-Believe Scenarios" at an invited symposium at the American Psychological Association meeting in New York. In April 1996, Professor Kavanaugh met in Williamstown with Paul L. Harris, University of Oxford, to work on their collaborative NATO research grant on young children's understanding of pretense. Also in April, Dr. Harris and Professor Kavanaugh presented a paper, "Causal Reasoning in Young Children" in a symposium on young children's pretend play at the meetings of the International Conference on Infant Studies in Providence. In June, Professor Kavanaugh and Paul Harris presented a paper, "Iconic Symbolism in Young Children" in a symposium on pretense and representation at the meetings of the Jean Piaget Society in Philadelphia. Professor Kavanaugh also served as an ad hoc reviewer for Cognitive Development, Developmental Psychology, and the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Assistant Professor Kris Kirby was promoted to a second term as assistant professor, with a concurrent AP leave for 1996-97. He has received a FIRST award from the National Institute of Mental Health, to begin in July 1996. This $500,000 grant will fund his research on impulsive decision making over the next five years. In addition to work on impulsiveness, he continued his work on models of conditional reasoning, and completed a study on different types of gambler's fallacy with Todd Poret `96. He continued to serve as an ad hoc reviewer for Psychological Review, the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, and Thinking & Reasoning, among others. In 1995, he was elected a member of the American Psychological Society.

Professor Paul R. Solomon concluded his five-year term as Chair of the Neuroscience Program. He continues to direct the Essel foundation grant to the Neuroscience Program. He also continues to be Principle Investigator on a number of research grants including a $400,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging that was renewed through 1999 and funds the Memory Disorders Treatment and Diagnostic Center at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center where he serves as Co-director. He received three new grants this year including a grant from Bayer Pharmaceuticals to study the anti-dementia compound metrifinate ($200,000) and two grants from Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, one to study the anti-dementia compound milamiline ($200,000) and a second to study sustained release tacrine ($200,000). He also continued work on two other ongoing grants, also examining the efficacy of anti-dementia compounds. He reviewed manuscripts for numerous journals and was named to the editorial board of Directions in Psychopharmacology. He also continued on the editorial board of Therapeutic Strategies with Older Adults. He was reappointed to the medical staff at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center and received board certification from the American Board of Forensic Examiners. He also continues to serve on the board of the Western Massachusetts Alzheimer's Association.

Dr. Solomon was an invited speaker at a number of meetings including The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory meeting in Park City, Utah where he organized a symposia entitled "Evaluation of Drug Effects on Humans and Animals;" The Zachary and Elizabeth M. Fisher Annual Mayoral Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in New York where he spoke on "The Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease;" and The Alzheimer's Disease Meeting in Nice, France, where he spoke on "Toward a Seven Minute Screening Battery for Dementia." He also gave more than 40 invited colloquia at medical centers, universities, and hospitals. He presented several papers at scientific meetings including two papers, "Long-Term Tacrine Treatment in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease" and "Nimodipine Facilitates Memory Over Long Retention Intervals" at a conference on "Alzheimer's Disease: The Promise of New Therapies," and a paper entitled "Toward a 7-Minute Screening Sensitive to Alzheimer's Disease" at the Twentieth Annual Scientific Meeting of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Assistant Professor Anjali Thapar continued her research on implicit and explicit memory, the false memory syndrome, and the development of memory ability and cognitive functioning over the life span. Over this past year, she served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. She attended the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Los Angeles, CA, in November of 1995 and the Midwestern Psychological Association conference in Chicago, IL in May of 1996. In June of 1996, she presented a paper with Lori Chelius `97 entitled, "The Role of the Central Executive Function in Cognitive Aging" at the 8th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society, San Francisco, CA. She was invited to speak at Brandeis University in November of 1995 and gave a talk entitled, "The Distinction Between Implicit and Explicit Memory: 25 Years of Bias?"

PSYCHOLOGY COLLOQUIAClass of 1960s Scholar Series

Richard Petty, Ph.D., Ohio State University
"Individual Differences in the Motivation to Think and Evaluate: Implications for Social Judgments and Attitudes"
Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., Stanford University
"Stress, Neurodegeneration, and Strategies for Saving the Endangered Neuron"
David Buss, Ph.D., University of Michigan
"Sex, Desire and Status"
Howard Rachlin, Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook
"Self-Control and Patterns of Behavior"

Bronfman Lunch Series

Betty Zimmerberg Glick, Associate Professor of Psychology
"Your Brain is a Sex Organ"
Robert D. Kavanaugh, Hales Professor of Psychology
"Causal Reasoning in Young Children"

Other Colloquia and Guest Speakers

John Bargh, Ph.D., New York University
"The Automatic Basis of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Effects"
Alex N. Sabo, M.D., Chief of Psychiatry, Berkshire Medical Center
Jennifer Michael, M. D., Staff Psychiatrist, Berkshire Medical Center
F. Alexander Blount, Ed.D., Family Center of the Berkshires
Linda Whitacre, Women's Services, Pittsfield MA
Joseph Pereira, LICSW, Green Street Lodging Program, Cambridge MA

Sigma XI Research Lecture

Steven Fein, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Part I: Stereotyping and Prejudice: An Overview of the Social Psychological Approach
Part II: Stereotyping and Prejudice: Cognitive and Motivational Influences

POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF PSYCHOLOGY MAJORS

David S Allan
Work for a year with future plans to attend medical school
Kirsten R Anderson
Gregory A Behling Jr.
Lisa G Blaskey
Attending Michigan State to obtain a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with an emphasis in neuropsychology. Future plans are to be a clinical neuropsychologist
Katherine Boies
Amy L Bradfield
Attending Iowa State University for a Ph.D. in social psychology
Mary Liz Brenninkmeyer
Work as a paralegal for one year, with plans to attend Boston College Law School
Ethan B Brooks
Playing football with the Atlanta Falcons NFL club
Julia E Chentsova
Moving to San Diego to do psychology-related work with plans to apply to grad school
Rachel D Clark
Moving to the Boston area to work
John A Davenport
Moving to Charlottesville, VA, with plans to attend medical school
Elizabeth H DeOreo
Emily H Donavan
Kristin E Edwards
Spending a year as a volunteer in an orphanage in South America, then attending UCLA School of Medicine
Eric W Fish
Pursuing a Ph.D. in physiological psychology at Tufts University with an emphasis on sexual and aggressive behavior
Matthew D Fleming
Interning in clinical psychology setting this summer then moving to Vietnam with family
Kathryn A Ginevan
Working for Coopers & Lybrand in Boston
Julie A Greenwood
Jennifer R Hallett
Hopes to settle in the Boston area working in the pharmaceutical or medical supplies field
Porter A Harris
Lisa C Hauser
Traveling for one year, then settling in Venezuela working for the oil industry for the following five years
Sarah J Heidel
Kimberly A Henry
Holly L Hodgson
Moving to the Seattle area to pursue a career in radio
Mitchell E Howell
Dina A Jasic
Lisa K Libby
Attending Simmon's College for a masters in Children's Literature with future plans to attend grad school and for Social-Developmental psychology
Lisa R Matus
Working as special ed staff support for the summer with future plans to work in the New York area and attend grad school
Kelli Martin
Bruce G McCarthy
Working for Chubb & Co., as an underwriter in the executive protection dept. in their New York City downtown office
Seth T Mehr
Attending Emory Medical School in Atlanta
Wendy L Morris
Taking time off before pursuing graduate school
Kami Neumann
Working in Seattle in research with future plans to go to grad school in Psych and possibly law.
Sonia Ocasio
Kathleen L Pearson
Hopes to work this summer with the U.S. Olympics with future plans for a Ph.D. in psychology.
Jeremie J Perry
Training next year with the US Olympic Development team for Modern Pentathlon, then to Vanderbilt Medical School the following year
Alison H Poett
Working at Kenan Systems, a software development company in Boston
Todd M Poret
Plans to attend medical school to become a psychiatrist
Doris A Quintanilla
Working the summer at a camp in Maine with plans to work afterward in Boston at a home for emotionally disturbed and handicapped children for a few years until grad school
MaryAnn Rekuc
Consulting with KPMG Peat Marwick in New York City with future plans for law school at NYU
Sarah R Seliger
Will be working for a year in France as an au pair with plans to return to the U.S. to attend grad school in either education or women's studies
Tiffany L Steinwert
Teaching in Central America.
Siobhan M Toohey
Attending Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City
Jill L Vogel
Trading in Latin American Equities on Wall Street for Smith Barney
Melissa H Warlow
Tracy Weir
Plans to attend law school this fall
Heather A Westergren
Working at The Walker Home and School for emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children in Needham MA
Justin B Williams
Work for a few years with future plans to attend medical school
Krystal D Williams
Working with the Peace Corps in South America with future plans to attend grad school
Vanessa L Wruble
Carrying out grant to make videos and a web site dealing with constructions of masculinity/femininity in the US pop culture, possibly in the New York City area


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