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Minnesota Undergraduate Psychological Conference
"Does Venting Anger Feed
or Fuel the Flame?
Dr. Brad J. Bushman
Iowa State University
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38th Annual MUPC
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Bethel College
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Saturday, April 26, 2003
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9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
For more information check the webpage:
http://www.bethel.edu/Majors/Psychology/MUPC/
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Deadline for submission of abstracts:
April 11, 2003
MUPC Presentation Guidelines:
Papers: Oral presentations should be planned
to take 12 minutes. There will be a short time for questions after each
talk. Session chairpersons will strictly monitor time and permit discussion
and questions within the schedule. Participants are urged to practice
and time their presentations.
Posters: Participants will stand by their
display for one 50 minutes session. Posters should follow the guidelines
in the APA publication Manual and include a brief introduction, a method,
results, and discussion section. Use tables
and figures to describe your method and results.
You are encouraged to be creative with your poster and make it easy for
readers to understand.
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| A Quick Introduction to Consumer Psychology
-- by Kristen Fichtner
In our last adventure, I told you about the
process I was going through applying to graduate schools. I have since
been accepted and will begin my Masters degree program in Mass Communications
in the fall. When talking to my advisor and other professors about my decision
to change fields, they informed me of a field in psychology that would
allow me to combine both Mass Communications and Psychology. I have
decided to go head-on into the world of public relations and advertising.  But,
for those of you who would like to venture into the field of advertising
and mass communications, but not stray quite as far from 'Mother Psychology'
as I am, I will pass their suggestion on to you. There is a happy medium
between the two fields known as Consumer Psychology. This field is dedicated
to studying the consumer in order to help companies improve their advertising
strategies. Some topics of study in this field include:
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Reasoning tactics consumers use to choose between different
brands
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How culture, media, and family influence the consumer
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The behavior of consumers while shopping
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How can a company alter their marketing strategies
to fit the consumer
There are many different advertising messages
that fight for your attention each day. Just think of all the advertisements
you see in a day trying to get you to buy a soda or eat at a particular
restaurant. The consumer is bombarded with ads from the television, newspapers,
magazines, radio, and many other places. How can a company guarantee that
its message will be the one to stick with the consumer? In order to know
what will influence the audience the most, one has to understand the consumer.
There are four parts to consumer behavior.  The
first part is marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is what we were talking
about before, how to get the consumer to buy your fruit snacks instead
of the other guy's. The application of marketing strategy is the main focus
of this article. The second part is public policy. There is a great
deal of anti-smoking campaign efforts on the television as of late; these
advertisements fall under the public policy category.
The third part of consumer behavior is social marketing. This involves
selling an idea, rather than a specific product, to the consumer. For example,
an advertisement encouraging people to have safe sex would fall in this
category. The fourth part is really just a bonus for the people in the
field, by being able to understand the consumer, you become a better consumer
yourself. If you know the tricks advertisers use, then you will not fall
for them.
There are many factors that determine what
a consumer will buy. One of those factors is culture. Culture creates norms
and standards. It is not culturally accepted for a forty-year-old
man to play with Barbie Dolls. 
So, if a company wishes to have a successful advertising campaign,
it would not target older men in their Barbie Doll ads. Another factor
that influences the consumer is demographics. A company will not try to
sell a snowmobile to someone living in Miami, for example. Learning and
memory also influence consumers. As in most psychology fields, Good Old
Pavlov shows up in consumer psychology. It is the classic example: sexy
woman (unconditioned stimulus) creates arousal (unconditioned response).
The woman sits on the car (conditioned stimulus) repeat stimulus many times;
the car eventually generates arousal (conditioned response). Therefore,
the target audience (in this case men) buys the car.
Another similar factor is affect change.
An example of this is the Pillsbury Doughboy. The Doughboy creates a happy
and warm environment. People generally like this advertisement, and thus
buy the product because it is associated with the little giggling Doughboy.
There are a lot of other factors that
influence consumer spending, such as family decision making, self-concept/lifestyle,
attitudes, and pricing. But, I'll leave those for you to discover
on your own. If I have sparked any interest in this field, I suggest looking
at www.consumerpsychologist.com or feel free to talk with your advisor
about this or other psychology fields. |
3M Internship Opportunity
-- by Kristie Campana
Over this past J-Term, I had an opportunity to be an intern
in the HR measurement system at 3M. As a student who is planning
on going into Industrial/Organizational Psychology after graduation, I
felt this would be an excellent experience.
I met with my supervisor, Cindy Meyer, a few weeks
before my internship started, just so I could meet everyone and get my
ID badge. My internship started right on January 2nd, and right away
they had me take part in reorganizing and updating their files, as well
as grading some skill batteries that arrived.
Early in the month, I attended a New Employee Orientation
session. I was able to see the process from both sides-I helped set
up the session and got to see the plan for the day and how orientation
would proceed, while also sitting through the session like the new employees.
The session lasted 6-8 hours over the course of two days, so I gained a
lot of information about benefits, regulations, and the history of 3M.
It was a lot of information to take in, and it really helped me to understand
how seriously 3M takes its orientation.
I also had a chance to hold informational interviews
with several employees from different departments. I was able to
speak with employees from career counseling, the Six Sigma project, staffing,
and the sexual harassment claims department. I was able to make some
really good contacts and get some good advice about other areas I could
go into with a BA in psychology.
Once I was more comfortable with additional responsibility,
Jayson Shoemaker had me help him write up reports regarding an employee
opinion survey that was given in South Africa. He gave me the numbers
and the computer files I needed, and let me figure out how to put them
together on my own. It was only after I finished them and gave the
reports to Jayson that he told me the reports would actually be read by
all the top CEOs at 3M. I thought it was pretty exciting to have
my report read by the heads of the company!
The most interesting experience was when I was
able to participate in the "Pre-MAP" program. This is an assessment
of "pre-high-potential employees"- that is, employees who have been working
at 3M only a short time, but seem to be good candidates for becoming area
managers. Over the course of a day, I took tests measuring my verbal,
spatial and graphical abilities, and a personality inventory. A few
days later, Doug Molitor, one of the PhD's in I/O psychology, went over
the results and explained what areas of strength and weakness were indicated
by the test. He also gave me examples of results he had seen on other
people's assessments, what that indicated, and what he told them to do
about it.
All in all, I would say that I received some fantastic
work experience at 3M. It helped give me a better understanding of
what field I was going into, as well as a look at what a great company
3M is to work for. I would highly recommend this internship to anyone
looking at going into I/O Psychology as a career. Also, I think it
would be useful for anyone looking at a job in HR or career counseling. |
| Did you know ?
... Dr. Mark Kruger plays hor n
in the Mankato Area Symphony Orchestra? He will perform in
the Masterworks Concert on Sunday, April 27 which will feature the
compelling and powerful Symphony No. 1 by Mahler. ( Mankato Symp hony
website: The Mankato Symphony Orchestra has performed a broad array of
concerts for Mankato audiences for 52 years. MSO musicians are talented
professionals, amateurs, and music educators from throughout central and
southern Minnesota.) For more information see their website
Mankato
Symphony Orchestra.
... Matt Carlson sings in the Gustavus choir, is
a member of Sigma Delta Pi and works with 4th graders at North Intermediate
School in St. Peter to help them with Spanish? Matt is a senior psychology
major and w ill
either enter grad school in the fall or possibly spend the next year as
a volunteer. (Also note that Matt is currently working on a research project
involving religious values...a sign up sheet is posted in the lower level
hallway of SSC.) |
| "School psychology.what is that?" "Is a school psychologist
just a fancy name for a school counselor?"
--by Melissa Haley
These are the two most common responses I get from people
when they ask me what I want to be when I "grow up." I have
considered just about every career imaginable and I have finally settled
on my dream job: a school psychologist. Contrary to popular
belief, a school psychologist is not a school counselor. Counselors
talk to a variety of different students about their daily problems or concerns,
whereas the school psychologist works with a select group of kids who have
either a learning disability or an emotional/behavioral disorder.
School psychologists give intelligence tests and ability tests to children
who potentially have a learning disability. If the student is diagnosed
with a learning disability, the psychologist then sets up a specialized
education plan for the student and consults with his or her parents and
teachers. Every school in the country is required by law to have
a school psychologist on staff. Because of recent increases in learning
disorders and social/emotional disorders, the job of the school psychologist
is becoming more needed in every school district. Although I still
have a year left at Gustavus and then grad school after that, I'm already
looking forward to the future when I can hopefully make a difference in
the lives of many kids. Before last year, I had never heard of a
school psychologist and I had no idea where my college degree would take
me. I encourage all majors to research all of the jobs available
and find something that sparks their interest. There are thousands
of options available for psychology students who want to go to grad school
or who want to find work straight out of college. Because a psychology
degree can be beneficial for almost any job, it can be daunting to choose
just one at this point. Websites, career booklets, and other materials
can help give you ideas of all the jobs that exist in your area of interest.
Thousands of opportunities and jobs exist for the psychology major; it's
up to you to find that perfect fit. |
| Only in America do drug stores make sick people walk
all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy
people can buy cigarettes at the front.
Only in America do we have drive-up ATM machines with
Braille lettering. |
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Psi Chi Sponsored Event
For all Psych Majors:
"How to Get into Psychology
Graduate School"
Banquet Room B
All Psychology Students
7:00 p.m.
March 10, 2003
Presented by: Jeff Stocco, Career Center
Cookies and refreshments will be provided!!
-- Sponsored by Psi Chi
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Psych shirt 2003
There will soon be a price sheet and sign up area in the
lower level of SSC for the Spring 2003 Psychology t-shirt. You'll
have to sign up soon (with payment) to receive a t-shirt later this spring.
[Cost is estimated to be between $10.00 - 15.00] |
J-Term Experiences 2003
So many choices....
-- by Jennifer Wood
J-term can be a time to explore careers and get out
and experience working in the "real world." Career explorations give
students a chance to experiment with different careers. Here are
some stories from Psychology majors relaying their experiences during J-term.
Elise Getter -- Elise observed and taught
at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, NC. She observed different
teaching styles and was able to develop lesson plans and teach the Developme ntal
Psychology unit to four AP Psychology classes. She was able to learn
about teacher/teacher interactions, student/teacher interactions and many
politics that come in a school setting. She loved teaching and thought
that it was a fun and useful experience. She said that it felt good
being able to teach kids and answer their questions.
Lindsey Price -- Lindsey had an internship
with Minnesota Valley Action Council in LeSeuer,
Sibley and Brown counties. She was working with
vocational counselors in each office. They worked with low-income
families to make employment plans and worked w ith
other social service organizations to improve living situations.
Her experience was helpful to her to determine where her interests were.
She became more aware of her strengths and weaknesses through this experience.
She would recommend an internship to anyone because it is a good learning
experience and provides an opportunity to meet wonderful people.
Jason Schram -- Jason followed a school psychologist
around for J-term. He enjoyed almost every aspect of the job and
hopes that he can endure Grad School and become a school psychologist.
If given the choice to do another career exploration he would do one again.
One memory he has is when he went to his car to go out for lunch he had
to walk through the playground and could not make it to his car without
kids tackling him and hanging on his legs.
Jennifer Wood -- I worked at Meadowbrook
Collaborative in St. Louis Park with the kids who live there. I helped
the kids with their homework after school on some days and on other days
I was involved in their after school activities. I would recommend
a career exploration because it is a great opportunity to find what you
like in a career. One of the most memorable nights of my experience
was being able to go on a ride-a-long with a police officer on a Saturday
night. I was also left in charge of the kids on two days when they
didn't have school... talk about responsibility! |
Gustavus Student Involvement
Did you know that....
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Feb -- Lindsey Weis earned first place finishes at the MSU-Mankato
Indoor Track and Field Open. Weis placed first in the high jump with
a mark of 1.65 meters
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Feb -- Nicole Guimond registered four goals and one assist
in the women's hockey team's sweep over Hamline. She scored two goals in
each of the victories. Guimond is co-captain of the squad.
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Feb 15 - Gustavus beats Winona State 7-2. Rhiannon
Fermoyle beat her opponent in two sets, 6-1, 6-0
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Feb 14 - Gusties fall to UW-La Crosse 180.025-179.125.
Molly McIntyre came in sixth place in the bars and 8th place in the beam
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Feb 15 - The men's track and field team places third out
of four teams at the Minnesota State University-Mankato Invitational.
Jerry Washington -- first in 55 meter dash --Jerry Washington --
third in 200 meter dash
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Feb 15 -- Eric Butorac won his singles and double matches
to help the Gusties beat Carlton 8-1
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Feb 15 -- Rhiannon Fermoyle helped the Gusties beat Winona
State by winning her singles match
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Feb 22 -- Eric Nelson helped the men's basketball team beat
Carleton to gain sole possession of second place in the MIAC. The MIAC
playoffs will begin this Thursday February 27th.
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Feb 22 -- The Gustavus women's hockey team beat St. Kate's
by a score of 2-0. Molly O'Donnell was perfect in the nets for Gustavus
turning away 15 shots and recording her second shutout of the season.
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| An Internship Experience...
--- by Ria Lindor
I am participating in the internship program
at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation  located
on the Abbot Northwestern Campus in Minneapolis. I am working in
the public or community health field as a health educator. In other
words I am presenting various educational displays on heart health, heart
functioning and preventative care such as nutritional displays etc.
I am also assisting in the developement and construction of the Be Active
Minnesota database. Be Active Minnesota is a new non profit organization
that promotes physical activity among Minnesotans. The database is
a comprehensive resource activity guide for all individuals who are interested
in activities, events or programs at different locations in
Minnesota such as parks, community centers and recreational
centers. I am enjoying my internship experience and I am able to
travel all around Minnesota to promote heart healthy choices and activities
which is very exciting and rewarding. |
Kim Morri, senior psych major, was recently a science
fair judge at St. Rose of Lima grade school in Roseville. "I know the science
teacher and she needed unbiased judges to evaluate the projects.
When judging the projects and experiments I actually used many of the aspects
I learned from my statistics classes in determining whether the experiments
were valid, precise, repeatable, relevant and original. There were
many interesting experiments, but only a few met those requirements and
ironically enough Clark's (Ohnesorge) nephew was a part of one of those
groups."
[Kim plans to graduate this spring and is currently
in the process of applying to the University of St. Thomas Professional
school of Psychology for counseling.]
Career Center Resources
Contemplating grad school? Check out these reference
books in the Career Center:
Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and
Counseling Psychology
Gourman Report on Graduate Programs (Princeton
Review)
Perfect Personal Statements and Graduate School Essays
(Arco)
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Department Resources Available
Several printed resources are available for you to browse
in the department's resource center (SSC 26). You will find information
about graduate schools and career paths. Graduate School bulletins are
also available.See Lee (SSC15) or email lsande@gustavus.edu
for more information.
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The APA Graduate Study in Psychology 2002 - and is
available for checkout.
NEW:
"Get Psyched! Successful Strategies for Getting
Into Graduate School In Psychology"is a new audio tape training series
available for checkout in the department. Dr. Greg Neimeyer,
Professor of Psychology and Graduate Coordinator at the University of Florida
has put together these six topics:
1) A Vital Overview
2) 10 Critical Things You need to Know
3) Distinguing Clinical and Counseling
4) Personal Statements, Resumes
5) Effective Interviewing
6) Expert Advice: Questions and Answers |
| Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins
Lottery"?
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a
broker? |
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Research Interests:
Dr. Janine Wotton
How does the brain distinguish a signal from noise?
How do we locate sounds? How can we distinguish one voice from another?
The brain acquires and processes an enormous quantity of auditory information
that needs to be analyzed and organized. My research focuses on understanding
the way the auditory system extracts cues and codes information to enable
animals and humans to perform everyday tasks. My work includes computational
modeling of the auditory system and behavioral studies of auditory perception.
Currently I am involved in three projects:
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1) Bats process information contained in the echoes reflected
by their sonar emissions with a phenomenal degree of accuracy. Behavioral
experiments show that bats can discriminate between targets that differ
by 10-20 nanoseconds! The nerve cells that encode the information
operate with much less precision, with a response variation of a few milliseconds.
How can poor temporal markers be combined to produce this acuity?
To address this question I am working on a mathematical
model of coding by populations of cells and intend to test the predictions
with behaving bats. This work is done in collaboration with colleagues
at Brown University and Mike Ferragamo, Biology Department at Gustavus.
2) The ability to localize sound sources simplifies many
tasks in everyday life because it allows listeners to separate simultaneous
sounds from different origins. For example, people are able to listen
to one spoken voice and ignore other sounds by focusing attention on the
direction of the voice. Hearing aids are not designed to optimize spatial
hearing abilities and as a consequence people with hearing disabilities
do not always have access to some of the  information
needed to directionally separate sounds. I am modeling the way in
which humans process directional information with a view to improving the
design of hearing aids. This project involves neural modeling and
human psychophysical experiments that will be conducted at Gustavus and
at Boston University.
3) Ponds at night can be very loud places, how do frogs
discriminate a mating call and then find the caller? How do they
shut out the noise and attend to the signal? An interesting property
of perceptual systems is that cells respond more vigorously to new information
and adapt to ongoing signals with a diminished response. Frog auditory
systems code temporal information in the calls and seem to adapt to ongoing
signals at different levels of the brain. In collaboration  with
Mike Ferragamo (Biology Department; Gustavus), I am involved in modeling
this process of adaptation and would like to conduct experiments to determine
how frogs selectively attend to signals.
[Dr. Wotton recently received a $10,000 award from
the National Organization for Hearing
Research Foundation for a project titled "Auditory
Processing of Spatial Information in Reverberant Conditions: Implications
for Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Listeners." Wotton
will conduct research to gain insight into the computational mechanisms
underlying sound localization. - Gustavus Yellowsheet 01/23/03] |
| Institutional Research at Gustavus
-- by Kristie Campana
Throughout the past semester, I had the opportunity
to work with David Menk in the Department of Institutional Research here
at Gustavus. I was really surprised to find out that such a department
existed, not to mention that the director was someone with a PhD in I/O
Psychology-exactly what I was planning to do after graduation.
I worked about 8-10 hours a week with David, and I was
amazed at how much I accomplished in that time. I started looking
at several of the surveys given out (like the Freshman survey we all had
to take in the chapel the first week, if you remember that!) I also
helped him create a few surveys that were handed out to the faculty.
After working with David for a few weeks, he delegated
a survey on the Lund Center and its usage to me. Since I was in charge
of this project, I had to do research on what the different areas of the
Lund Center were, how they were used and by whom. Then, I had to
determine questions to ask the student body about their usage of and opinions
about different areas of the Lund Center. Once I had a rough draft
of the questions, I had to organize them, and use Pagemaker Pro to start
making them into a survey, and try to fit everything onto two pages so
it wouldn't scare anyone away from filling it out. We brought the
survey to a few of the administrators at the Lund Center to look over.
The Lund Survey was supposed to go out over J-Term.
However, because we would be handling all of the data from the Febuary
14th Community Conversation, the survey was postponed. I will be
helping David look at the results of the Conversation and find the underlying
themes that must be reported back to the administration. I'm very
excited to see what we will find out this semester as I continue my internship.
Although I really enjoyed my internship with David, it's
not for everyone. You have to work with a lot of raw data and figure
out how to organize and present it. I think it would be useful to
anyone who is looking at a career in I/O psychology, or other psychology
or HR-related departments where you will have to deal with surveys and
their results. If you don't enjoy analyzing data, this job could
get tedious. However, it's a lot of fun when you start getting results
and getting to the bottom of what the results are saying. I would
also recommend spreading out the internship over two semesters if possible.
If I had only participated in the internship for fall semester, I would
have gotten lots of experience in writing surveys, but not as much experience
in analyzing the results, which I will get during this semester.
|
 Oh,
the Places We've Been
--by Nicki Shay
This J-term I traveled to Italy with the Gustavus
Choir. It was the first time I've traveled to a foreign country where
I could not speak the
language. It was a scary and uncomfortable because
I felt very uncultured and rude. However, I learned that no matter
what language you speak there is a sign language that crosses culture and
language barriers. There was one time when a few of us were on a
train to Pisa.
None of us knew when we were going to have to get off
the train. I, naturally, was really worried that we wouldn't get
off in time and that we would end up who-knows-where. So, one guy
in the group was bound and determined to get us off the train in time.
He spoke two of the only
Italian words he knew to a couple of Italian ladies on
the train, "Scusi, Pisa?" Through a lot of pointing and motioning
we were able to figure
out that Pisa was two stops away. That was not
the only time sign language was used. It was used everyday to order
food, buy things in
stores, and locate things and places. It was a
good experience to find out that I can get around a country where I don't
speak the language,
merely by pointing and motioning. If I learned
something important besides that, it was the most essential Italian word:
gelato.
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Membership Opportunities
APA
(American Psychological Association)
Information/Membership
If you are interested in APA
or becoming a member,
pick up a brochure from the
Psychology Department Office.
APA Website: http://members.apa.org/access
MPA
(Minnesota Psychological Association)
http://mnpsych.org/
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| Only in America... do we use anwering machines to
screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone
we didn't want to talk to in the first place. |
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