Psychology Dept. students and faculty presented 17 posters and an invited workshop at the Annual Western Psychological Association (WPA) Conference in Vancouver, BC, May 3-7, 2007. The WPA meeting is the nation’s largest regional psychology conference with 1500-2000 attendees each year.

Students presented research posters on a range of topics. Graduate student presenters included Alyssa Nguyen on Galvanic skin response, Michael Porter on environmental and racial attitudes (2 presentations), Breanne Porter on commons dilemma and violence prevention (2 presentations), Nate Weinstein on attitudes toward seeking psychological help, and Amelia Coulter on sexual risk taking.

Undergraduate presentations were delivered by Christina Eichar on fluoridation attitudes and reactions to affirmative action (two), Kacy Pula on heat, pollution, and hate crimes, and Samantha Stephenson on skin conductance.

Gregg Gold, Assoc. Prof. of Psychology, along with student Alyssa Nguyen presented a poster titled “Is Everybody Stoned but Me? Freshmen Perceptions of Drug Use.”

Bettye Elmore, Prof. of Psychology, presented posters titled “Body Image, Self-efficacy, Social Distance and Appearance,” “Addressing the Concerns of Heterosexual Adolescents as a Means of Deconstructing Stereotypes of LGB Adolescents,” and “Social Distance and Loneliness as they Relate to Headphone Use” along with students Socorro Valdez, Brittaini Graham, and Robert Crane.

Chris Aberson, Assoc. Prof. of Psychology, presented a two-hour talk on Applied Power Analysis as part of the 6th Annual Statistical Workshop Series and chaired another workshop. Each year, the statistics workshop series is among the conference’s most popular events, with 80-100 attendees at each daily session.

This year’s presentations continue the Psychology Dept.’s tradition of faculty-student research collaboration. This year, 35 HSU students earned authorship on presentations. Since 2000, HSU students and faculty have collaborated on over 100 conference presentations.

By Barb Duca , from the CNRS Weekly newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 29, May 7, 2007.