Lee Psychology Students Present At SEPA Convention

  • Friday, April 17, 2015
  • Jacqueline Campbell, Lee University

Lee University psychology student-researchers presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association’s 61st Annual Convention in Hilton Head, S.C. Lee psychology professors Drs. Bryan Poole, Heather Quagliana and Susan Carter attended as faculty research mentors. 

“The overall conference experience—from attending symposia to presenting their own posters—visibly excited these students and encouraged them to continue pursuing research in their areas of interest,” said Dr. Poole. “By seeing others’ research being presented, students were able to see how their work at Lee impacts the psychology field at large.” 

The student researchers representing Lee were Thomas Adekunle, Winter Bunch, Jacqueline Campbell, Christopher Dayton, Hannah Ford, Micayla French, Amanda Kristen Gregory, Casey Griffin, Katherine Herrmann, Heather Kalua, Elizabeth Kreuger, Kellie Lauzon, Jacob Lawson, Danielle Minehart, Kristin Nichols, Modupe Omotajo, Mikaela Peachey, Eric Pritt, Stephany Ramsey, Melissa Riggs, McKayla Riley, Virginia Swiatek, Ricardo Wilhelm and Amanda Yeager. 

Dr. Carter’s research team consisted of Ms. Bunch, Ms. Campbell and Ms. Peachey. The group exhibited a poster presentation titled “A Comparative Study of Young Adults’ Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors.” Ms. Campbell began a project last year which assessed the tie between religiosity and sexual attitudes of students at Lee. This year, she expanded the research and worked with Ms. Bunch and Ms. Peachey to assess the sexual attitudes and behaviors of students at Lee and at UTC, with the help of Dr. Jill Shelton, assistant professor of psychology at UTC, in order to compare the results between the two institutions, one public with no religious affiliation and one private and religiously-oriented. 

“The experience at SEPA made me respect and be even more thankful for being a student at Lee and having such great professors,” said Ms. Bunch. “I was able to apply the material learned in class to the real world, and I also got to talk to graduate schools, which has opened many doors that I didn’t know existed. All in all, the conference was an amazing experience, not only for the research, but more importantly for the future job and school opportunities that are now available to me.” 

Dr. Carter also worked with Ms. Peachey on a project titled, “Tradition versus Progressivism: Religiosity’s Effect on Parents’ Gender Specific Attitudes.” The survey explored parental attitudes towards gender neutrality in parents, particularly in regards to level of religiosity. Ms. Peachey hoped to examine how a person’s religious outlooks affect their gender-typed parenting, an area where there is a lack of current data. 

“Our students are capable of developing some really interesting studies which work toward filling gaps in the current literature,” said Dr. Carter. “It’s a joy to help them reach their goals, and I often find myself learning as much as them through the process of exploring new hypotheses and broadening our understanding of psychology.” 

Dr. Quagliana led Ms. Campbell, Ms. Lawson, Ms. Minehart, and Ms. Nichols in a research project titled “Exploring Teaching Effectiveness in an APA Style Writing Course.” The students gave surveys to students in two required classes within the psychology major at Lee University, one which is required early in the major, and one which is taken at the end. Through the surveys, they sought to determine whether or not students felt the early class was helpful in teaching them the requirements for American Psychological Association (APA) style papers, both early and late within the psychology major. 

Another of Dr. Quagliana’s groups, consisting of Ms. Kalua, Ms. Kreuger, Mr. Pritt, Ms. Riggs, and Ms. Swiatek, worked with Dr. Trevor Milliron, professor of psychology at Lee, on a project titled “Activating a Sense of Transcendence in Parent Training and Family Therapy.” Since religious and spiritual clients come to therapy with unique concerns for parenting and familial life, Dr. Quagliana, Dr. Milliron, and their research team examined the concept of transcendence as a way to promote familial bonding and parent/child attachment. 

“I feel honored and humbled to mentor my students in the research process and to watch them present their final projects and make Lee University look so good,” said Dr. Quagliana. 

Dr. Poole worked with Dayton, Griffin, Omotajo, and Ramsey on a poster presentation titled “Does Religious Priming Counteract Narrowed Attention to Attractive Faces?” In the study, participants viewed a series of attractive faces, which narrow attentional focus, and less attractive faces, which broaden attentional focus. At different times throughout the picture-viewing task, participants were asked to recite specific Bible verses to assess whether different types of religious priming may have an effect on attentional focus in social settings. The project was continued by Wilhelm, Bunch, Adekunle, and Herrmann. 

Ford, Lauzon, and Yeager worked under the direction of Poole on a research project titled “Holier than Thou: Assessing the Relationship between Perfectionism and Religiosity.”  The group researched the relationship between religiosity and perfectionism in the hope of discovering whether a link exists between religiosity, perfectionism, and frustration after failure to obtain important goals. 

French, Gregory, and Riley developed a project titled “Feed the Children: Do Personal vs. Impersonal Pleas Increase Helping?” with the help of Poole. They tested how appeals to emotion versus cognition influenced students’ willingness to give both time and money to non-profit organizations. They are currently writing an article containing their results from the study for publication in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. 

"The students’ presentations at this year’s conference exceeded our expectations,” said Poole. “They masterfully presented their research to hundreds of students and faculty at SEPA, and we could not be more proud of everyone who presented their research and contributed to these research projects.” 

SEPA is a regional psychological association affiliated with the American Psychological Association (APA). The organization was founded in 1955 and remains the largest psychological organization in the southeast and one of the largest in the United States. According to SEPA, their purpose is to “advance psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a means of promoting human welfare” by encouraging the exchange of scientific and professional ideas. 

For more information about SEPA or the 2015 annual convention, visit www.sepaonline.org. For more information about Lee’s Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, call 614-8125 or go to www.leeuniversity.edu.

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