Amber Gaffney, Humboldt State University alumna ('06), was awarded the Western Psychological Association’s 2007 Christina Maslach-Philip Zimbardo Research Award in Social Psychology. Ms. Gaffney, a doctoral student in Social Psychology at the Claremont Graduate University, was recognized for research conducted in a Senior Honor’s Thesis under the direction of Dr. Gregg Gold (HSU Psychology).

Ms. Gaffney’s research focused on a timely and important question: Given the considerable amount of opinion that appears in televised news, are news viewers unintentionally persuaded by unsupported opinions in the same way they are persuaded by facts from an expert? Previous research found people distinguished between expert views and unsupported, non-expert opinions. However, this effect had not previously been examined in the context of television news. Ms. Gaffney’s research generated the surprising finding that television reporters are equally persuasive regardless of whether the information is presented as the views of a credible expert or as a non-expert’s opinion. These findings have implications for psychological theory, and the ethics of TV news presentations.

The Maslach-Zimbardo award is funded by an endowment created by Dr. Christina Maslach and Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Dr. Maslach, Professor of Psychology and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education at UC Berkeley, is considered a pioneering researcher on job burnout and stress. Dr. Zimbardo, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Stanford, is an internationally recognized scholar, educator, researcher, and media personality. He is best known for his groundbreaking Stanford Prison Experiment, and his PBS series, Discovering Psychology.

This year marks the second in a row where HSU psychology has been recognized by the Western Psychological Association. In 2006, graduate student Alyssa Nguyen received the organization’s student scholarship award.