Updated 04/25/07
The research opportunities described here are provided by faculty and graduate students affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Florida. They are intended to provided undergraduate students with an opportunity to engage in ongoing research and to obtain course credits for this work. All work for credit must be voluntary and unpaid. Credit may be obtained for the following individual courses: Introduction to Research in Psychology (PSY3912), Introduction to Clinical Research (CLP3911 - in conjunction with Clinical and Health Psychology), Individual Work: Special Study (PSY4905), and Senior Thesis (PSY4970). For descriptions and requirements of these, please see the UF course catalog, the psychology handbook available on the Psychology web site (www.psych.ufl.edu) or visit the psychology advising office, 135 psychology building.
Students interested in any of the research projects below should contact the individual listed as the investigator. Course credits for the work should be negotiated with the investigator but is limited to 3 credits in any one semester. In general, for each credit, expect about a 45 hour per semester commitment (about 3 hours per fall or spring semester per credit).
Note that many other research projects are ongoing in the Department of Psychology. If you do not find a project here, talk with instructors of the courses you take, or visit the faculty web pages to browse for research areas of interest to you.
Affective reactions to emotional cues
Behavioral Modification to Treat Poor Sleep in the Caregivers of Elderly Dementia Patients
Biases in Perceptions of Self and Others
Cognition and Aging Laboratory at the University of Florida (several individual projects ongoing)
Desensitization of Claustrophobic Responses to CPAP
Life Story Lab: Autobiographical Memory
Mindfulness Meditation and Psychotherapy
Sleep Patterns and Psychological Correlates in Community-Dwelling Older Adults
Social Judgment Research Laboratory
Species differences in choice and self-control
The Principled versus Pragmatic Self
Theory of Mind and Inhibition Control
Use of Metacognition when Reading
Title: a) Children’s memory suggestibility for a repeatedly experienced event b) Communicating Behavioral Science
Contact: Lauren G. Fasig, Ph.D., JD 005J Department of Psychology Tel: (352) 273-2142 Email: lgfasig@ufl.edu
Credits: 1 – 2 (3 to 6 hours per week)
Requirements: a. Research assistants should have taken general psychology and either DEP 3053 or EXP 3604, and be interested in children’s memory processes. Research assistants should be reliable, organized, and self-directed. B. Research assistants should be interested in communicating science to the public, to policy makers, and/or to practitioners. Applicants should have strong organizational skills and should be self-directed. Strong communication skills (written and oral) are preferred.
Description: c. The first is a study of younger and older children’s suggestibility for information from a repeatedly experienced event. We are currently coding the tapes of the procedure and the interview responses. D. The second project involves preparing and coding surveys and interviews with state and federal policymakers and with prominent individuals in the mass media and other communications venues. Research assistants will also assist with the preparation of materials for publication.
Duties: Assistants will help with all aspects of the projects as described above
Thesis Opportunity: Students may be able to conduct a senior thesis in relation to one of the projects, to develop follow-up activities that
Title: Affective reactions to emotional cues
Contact: Dr. Margaret Bradley, bradley@ufl.edu
Credits: 1-3. Preference is given to those who prefer 2 credits rather than 1 credit.
Requirements: Interested, motivated, self-directed, energetic, with a passion for science.
Description: To study emotion in the laboratory, cues need to be developed that reliably elicit affective reactions from people. In our studies, we present emotional cues (pictures, stories, words, sounds, etc.) to participants who rate their emotional reactions or whose emotional reactions are measured (e.g., heart rate, muscle response,s brain waves, brain images). Our goal is to understand what the body and mind do in emotional situations, in order to understand both normal emotion and emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety, panic, phobias, etc.)
Duties: Students are involved in all phases of the research project, including set-up, collecting data, analyzing data and graphing results. Weekly lab meetings allow the student to present their data to other members of the lab.
Thesis Opportunity: Please indicate whether a student may pursue a senior thesis as part of the work or as a future possibility. Senior theses are a possibility.
Title: Behavioral Modification to Treat Poor Sleep in the Caregivers of Elderly Dementia Patients
Contact: Christina S. McCrae, PhD Ph-265-0680 x86898 e-mail: csmccrae@ufl.edu
Credits: 2-3
Requirements: Introductory Psychology (PSY2013) or its equivalent or GEY2010
Description: Insomnia (poor sleep) is a common complaint of caregivers of dementia patients, and may interfere with their ability to care for their patient. Sleep medication is the standard of care for insomnia, but carries significant risk of side effects and is only recommended for short-term use. Behavioral modification, a treatment alternative to medication, carries no serious unwanted effects and provides effective long-term management of insomnia. Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of behavioral modification in older adults. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether such modification effectively treats insomnia in caregivers. Caregivers often experience elevated levels of depression and stress, and as a result, they have largely been excluded from research. Pilot study: Caregivers with insomnia will undergo 8 weeks of a multi-component behavioral modification program involving education on sleep and aging and instruction in sleep-promoting behaviors. This treatment is expected to improve sleep. It may also improve other sleep-related factors such as depression, anxiety, daytime sleepiness and fatigue, and memory.
Duties: May include: helping to develop treatment manuals and psychoeducational materials related to treatment, scoring questionnaires, entering data into the study database, helping to design the subject database Specific requirements will vary depending on the student’s level of training.
Thesis Opportunity: Yes
Title: Biases in Perceptions of Self and Others
Contact: Dr. James Shepperd (352) 273-2165 shepperd@ufl.edu
Credits: 1-3
Requirements: * Must have done well (B+ or better) in social psychology * 2 semesters minimum * No outside job that takes more than 8 hours a week
Description: The research examines how people are biased their perceptions of themselves and others (i.e., the tendency for people to believe they are better than average and are optimistically biased) and the relationship between these biases and behavior.
Duties: Running research participants, entering data.
Thesis Opportunity: Possible, but only students who have worked in my lab at least one semester.
Title: Cognition and Aging Laboratory at the University of Florida (several individual projects ongoing)
Contact: Lise Abrams, (352) 392-2191, abrams@ufl.edu
Credits: 2-3 credits (6-9 hours per week)
Requirements: General Psychology (PSY 2012/PSY 2013) and Cognitive Psychology (EXP 3604) are preferred. Research assistants must commit to working two semesters. Attendance and participation at a one-hour weekly lab meeting.
Description: Studies examine the relationship between memory and language processes in young and older adults, with a specific focus on language comprehension, language production, and retrieval of orthographic and phonological knowledge. Current studies are investigating: (1) the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, an experience where one has a temporary inability to recall a known word; (2) the ability to detect misspellings during reading, and the effects of perceiving misspellings on comprehension and memory; and (3) factors that influence the ability to retrieve correct spellings from long-term memory, such as aging, word frequency, and recency of exposure.
Duties: Research assistants will be exposed to multiple aspects of research, including literature review, project development, creation of stimuli, data collection from college students as well as older adults, data entry and coding, statistical analysis, and method and results write-ups.
Thesis Opportunity: Yes, research assistants may consider doing a senior thesis after the completion of their two-semester commitment.
Contact: Robin West, (352) 273-2133, west51@ufl.edu
Credits: Flexible
Requirements: Reliable, willing to learn, follows instructions well, good social skills.
Description: The research laboratory is carrying out a number of projects related to memory and aging, specifically to try and improve the memory skills of adults of all ages. Studies will examine everyday memory and methods for intervening to maximize performance of everyday and laboratory memory tasks. All of the studies also include investigation of memory self-evaluation variables such as attributions about memory, beliefs about abilities, self-efficacy, etc.
Duties: This will be a research training experience. All assignments will be preceded by training, to show you how to do the assigned tasks. Depending on your availability and the quality of your work, you will learn all or some of the following: how to prepare protocols for a memory training intervention, how to develop a coding scheme for open-ended or subjective interview responses, how to score objective responses from research participants, how to conduct a research interview with adults to collect research data, how to use standardized experimental procedures, how to enter data into a statistical program, how to work with others in a team effort, how to work with adult research participants of all ages, how to complete daily memory records.
Thesis Opportunity: Students who work in the laboratory for more than one semester may be able to identify a project to develop as a senior thesis project. Completion of a senior thesis normally requires at least two semesters of work in the laboratory.
Title: Desensitization of Claustrophobic Responses to CPAP
Contact: Christina S. McCrae, PhD Ph-265-0680 x86898 e-mail: csmccrae@ufl.edu
Credits: 1-3
Requirements: Introductory Psychology (PSY2013) or its equivalent experience interviewing patients and experience working in a medical setting would be helpful but not required
Description: Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) represents a common, nonsurgical treatment for Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Unfortunately, compliance rates are low (30-40%) [e.g., Rauscher et al., 1991]. One commonly reported reason for noncompliance is a claustrophobic response to the nasal mask. Although “in vivo” desensitization therapy is a well-documented and effective behavioral treatment for phobic reactions, a literature review revealed only one study documenting the use of desensitization to treat a claustrophobic response to CPAP (Edinger & Radtke, 1993). That study reported on the results of a single case study. The proposed study is intended to replicate and extend those results through a series of case studies. Patients with OSAS who are unable to use CPAP due to a claustrophobic response will undergo individualized desensitization treatment.
Duties: May include: administering questionnaires to subjects, scheduling subjects for treatment, preparing treatment materials, scoring questionnaires, entering data into the study database, helping to design the subject database Specific requirements will vary depending on the students level of training.
Thesis Opportunity: Yes
Contact: Dr. Laura Curry Institute for Child Health Policy Phone: 265-7220 ext. 86297 Email: lac@ichp.ufl.edu
Credits: We are looking for individuals who will dedicate 1-3 credit hours per semester to the lab project (3-9 hours per week).
Requirements: Research assistants must be responsible, have good interpersonal skills, and be on time for all appointments. Ability to speak Spanish is a plus.
Description: The current research project aims to determine whether the generally accepted components of medical home coincide with Latinos’ concept of medical home as it applies to their children’s health care. Medical home is defined as primary care that is accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. This concept is used to measure the quality of health care. Whether or not this concept is applicable cross-culturally has significant implications in how we deliver and measure quality health care.
Duties: Students will conduct 30 minute structured interviews with adults in designated community locations.
Thesis Opportunity: No.
Title: Life Story Lab: Autobiographical Memory
Contact: Dr. Susan Bluck Center for Gerontological Studies/ Department of Psychology Phone: (352) 392-7059 Email: bluck@ufl.edu Website: www.psych.ufl.edu/lifestorylab Jacqueline Baron (Graduate Student) Department of Psychology Email: pappybar@ufl.edu
Credits: We are looking for individuals who will sign up for 2-3 credit hours (i.e., 6-9 hours per week in the lab). You can sign up for PSY 3912, 4905, and for students interested in Gerontology, GEY 4905. Credit is also available through the university Honors program.
Requirements: Anyone can apply. We prefer applicants with previous research experience, or who have taken research methods and statistics, particularly sophomores or juniors. Applicants should be interested in autobiographical memory and/or adult development and aging. Be prepared to commit to 2 semesters in our lab. This length of commitment allows you to learn more about research and develop better research skills.
Description: Our research examines how and why people remember the events of their own lives across the adult lifespan. Research questions include: Are there age differences in how, and how well, people remember the personal past? What are the benefits of sharing personal stories and talking about the past with others? How do people develop and maintain a life story? For more on our research agenda and current projects, visit www.psych.ufl.edu/lifestorylab
Duties: Research assistant's responsibilities may include recruiting participants from the community; conducting memory interviews with young, middle-aged and older adults individually or in small groups; conducting literature searches; transcribing interviews; data entry and checking; learning content coding techniques and achieving reliability in specialized coding schemes for narrative data; basic statistical analyses; help with presentations for professional conferences and submitted journal articles. Students will be part of a team and attend weekly lab meetings.
Thesis Opportunity: Qualified research assistants are encouraged to do a senior thesis, and/or to apply for the University Scholars Program. Dr. Bluck works closely with such students.
Title: Mindfulness Meditation and Psychotherapy
Contact: Dr. Michael Murphy 392-1575 murphy@counsel.ufl.edu
Credits: 1
Requirements: interest in meditation good literature search skills
Description: This study is looking at the use of mindfulness meditation in counseling and psychotherapy: methods of application, outcome studies, etc.
Duties: Do literature search Plan and conduct study
Thesis Opportunity: Possible
Contact: Jacquie Ye, jacqueye@ufl.edu
Credits: 1-3. Preference is given to those who prefer 2-3 credits rather than 1 credit.
Requirements: Interested, motivated, self-directed with a strong sense of responsibility, and clear willingness to work well with others
Description: Perfectionism is fairly common, sometimes significantly problematic, and sometimes helpful for student development and adjustment. In ongoing research, we are investigating the multiple dimensions and correlates of perfectionism. Some of this research involves experiments in which certain variables thought to be affected by perfectionism are manipulated and their effects tested. In other correlational research, several variables are measured at the same time and the strengths of association between perfectionism and other mental health indicators are assessed.
Duties: Students can be involved in many phases of the research, including data collection, data coding and entry, analyzing data, and assisting with report writing and presentations. Bi-weekly lab meetings allow the student to learn about current topics in perfectionism research.
Thesis Opportunity: Please indicate whether a student may pursue a senior thesis as part of the work or as a future possibility. Senior theses are a possibility.
Title: Sleep Patterns and Psychological Correlates in Community-Dwelling Older Adults
Contact: Christina S. McCrae, PhD Ph-265-0680 x86898 e-mail: csmccrae@ufl.edu
Credits: 2-3
Requirements: Introductory Psychology (PSY2013) or its equivalent or GEY2010
Description: Poor sleep is a common problem for older adults and is associated with a variety of illnesses, increased healthcare costs, and morbidity. Unfortunately, polysomnography, the traditional sleep assessment method, may not be practical for older adults who are unable to spend several nights away from home at a sleep lab. Sleep diaries and actigraphy offer alternatives to PSG. Sleep diaries provide a daily record of an individual’s sleep habits, such as bed and wake times and are widely used in research and clinical settings. Actigraphy measures body movements and provides an objective estimate of sleep. Actigraphy is not as widely used as sleep diaries or PSG, but may be particularly useful in research with older adults. It has been suggested that sleep diaries and actigraphy may complement each other by providing subjective and objective data, respectively. Unfortunately, there has been no published normative data for actigraphy in older adults. The proposed study will attempt to fill this gap in the literature by collecting two weeks of actigraphic and sleep diary data on the sleep patterns of relatively healthy, community-dwelling older adults. The proposed study will also examine the relationship between sleep and sleep-related factors, including psychological and daytime functioning in older adults. Previous research has found a negative relationship between sleep and health, psychological adjustment, and daytime functioning. The proposed study will attempt to replicate those results.
Duties: May include: administering questionnaires to subjects, teaching subjects how to complete home questionnaires and to use actigraphy, traveling to subjects’ homes to collect data and retrieve equipment, scoring questionnaires, entering data into the study database, helping to design the subject database Specific requirements will vary depending on the student’s level of training.
Thesis Opportunity: Yes
Title: Social Judgment Research Laboratory
Contact: Dr. John Chambers (office: PSY 259; e-mail: jrchamb@ufl.edu) Ms. Darya Melnyk (e-mail: dariya@ufl.edu)
Credits: 2-3 credits.
Requirements: Applicants must have taken Social Psychology (SOP 3004). Minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.4 is required. Applicants must be dependable, highly motivated, and conscientious.
Description: Research in this lab addresses a broad range of social psychological issues and topics, including group conflict (stereotyping, prejudice), perceptions of risk and vulnerability, our impressions of ourselves and how others see us, how we compare ourselves with others and how these comparisons shape our self-views, etc.
Duties: The primary responsibility of lab members is to act as experimenters. Other duties include attending a weekly lab meeting, helping construct study materials, and occasionally entering and coding data.
Thesis Opportunity: Senior theses are a possibility.
Title: Social psychology; Communication, Persuasion and Attitude Change; applications to health and HIV prevention
Contact: Josh Leeper jleeper81@yahoo.com
Credits: How many credits they could sign up for: In all cases, preference is given to people signing up for 3 credits (9 hours a week) and who will work in the lab for 2 semesters (one semester of 3912 and another of 4905 work). (This structure allows the students to learn to do research over an extended period of time, and to acquire subsequently greater lab responsibilities; it also allows the supervisors to get to know the research assistants well and to assess their potential for graduate school confidently.)
Requirements: High motivation and conscientiousness. Good GPA.
Description: Social psychology; communication and attitude change; applications to AIDS and health prevention, including alcohol in college. For more information, go to: http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~albarrac/lab/assistant.htm
Duties: Running fun persuasion experiments on how to change people’s attitudes (ideology, intentions to perform a given behavior, attitudes towards drinking, etc.), developing research stimuli and other materials, participating in a field study on AIDS prevention, entering data, conducting library research, selecting and scheduling research participants, interviewing participants in the field, playing confederate roles.
Thesis Opportunity: Yes, there is a possibility.
Title: Species differences in choice and self-control
Contact: Dr. Hackenberg, (352) 273-2185, hack1@ufl.edu
Credits: 1-2
Requirements: Previous coursework in Behavior Analysis
Description: The research concerns choice/decision making in humans and pigeons. Of particular interest are choices with contrasting short-term and longer-term consequences, such as those studied within the rubric of self-control/delay of gratification in psychology, optimal foraging theory in behavioral ecology, and maximization theory in economics. (For more info, see Research link on my webpage: http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~hack/)
Duties: Analyzing data, preparing graphs, setting up and monitoring experimental sessions with human subjects.
Thesis Opportunity: Future possibility of senior thesis.
Title: The Principled versus Pragmatic Self
Contact: Dr. Barry Schlenker (office: PSY 269; e-mail: schlenkr@ufl.edu ) Ms. Marisa Miller (office: PSY 231E; e-mail: marisalm@ufl.edu) Mr. Ryan Johnson (office: PSY 231C; e-mail: orbit@ufl.edu)
Credits: 1-3. Most students enroll for 2 credits; preference is given to those who prefer 2 credits rather than 1 credit.
Requirements: We are looking for highly motivated, responsible students who are eager to learn and who have a proven record of accomplishment in the form of an excellent GPA. Applicants are expected to have taken Social Psychology (SOP 3004).
Description: People differ in the extent to which they view themselves as being principled versus pragmatic. People who see themselves as principled endorse the ideas that it is important to stand by one=s principles, fulfill commitments, and have personal integrity regardless of the consequences. In contrast, those who see themselves as pragmatic argue that principles should be flexible and it is important to capitalize on opportunities. We are exploring how these different sets of beliefs are related to personality differences and social behavior in a variety of situations. Research is focused on how these differences are related to personality characteristics, friendship choices, satisfaction in relationships, conformity and persuasion, lying and cheating, excuse-making, tendencies to justify transgressions, and even mental health.
Duties: Students have the opportunity to work as experimenters who run participants through the research sessions. They become involved with all facets of the studies, including running and debriefing participants as well as coding data. Several studies are run each semester, so students can often gain experience in more than one type of procedure.
Thesis Opportunity: Senior theses are a possibility.
Title: Theory of Mind and Inhibition Control
Contact: Dr. Scott Miller: samiller@ufl.edu Sunghee Ahn : sahn@ufl.edu
Credits: Flexible
Requirements: Anyone can apply, but we prefer applicants who have completed at least one developmental psychology related class. Applicants should be interested in child development as well as available for testing children during this Summer and Fall.
Description: Our research examines the possible relationships between children’s theory of mind understanding and inhibition control ability.
Duties: Research assistants will experience multiple aspects of child research including 1) learning the procedures to do child research, 2) acquiring knowledge of well-known cognitive tasks, and 3) applying this knowledge to an actual testing session.
Thesis Opportunity:
Title: Use of Metacognition when Reading
Contact: Dr. Tracy Linderholm, linderholm@coe.ufl.edu, 392-0723 ext. 241
Credits: 1-2
Requirements: A 2-semester commitment
Description: The purpose of this research is to understand why college student readers are not entirely accurate at assessing how well they understand what they are reading. That is, we hope to discover under what circumstances college-aged readers can accurately predict how well they will perform on tests over texts they have read.
Duties: Collecting data, entering data, analyzing and interpreting data.
Thesis Opportunity: Future possibility of senior thesis.