Upcoming Convention Highlights

We had a great program for you in 2010.  As always, there were invited SWPA speakers, an APA sponsored lecture, plus invited symposia organized by our state representatives (LA and MO) in the second year of their 2-year term.  Additionally, several of our adjunct organizations had invited speakers (SAMR, Psi Chi, SCPA), and there was the traditional President's talk on Friday afternoon.  Of course, the program was also filled with a variety of talks and posters by our members.  Finally, we had 17.5 hours of Continuing Education Sessions available at the convention.

Karen Pryor Karen Pryor is a scientist with an international reputation in two fields-marine mammal biology and behavioral psychology. Through her work with dolphins in the 1960s she pioneered modern, force-free animal training methods. Karen is the author of many scientific papers and monographs, as well as seven books. She is a founder and leading proponent of clicker training, the worldwide movement involving new ways to communicate positively with pets and other animals. The founder and CEO of the behavioral publishing company Sunshine Books, Inc., and its online divisions, Karen has three children and seven grandchildren. She lives in Boston with two clicker trained dogs and a clicker trained cat.

Rick Miller Rick Miller received his Ph.D from Northwestern University.  He has taught at Georgetown University, the University of Cologne, and since 1990 has served as chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.  He is past-President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, special topics Editor for the Journal of Psychological Inquiry, and the coordinator of the Wertheimer-Portenier Teaching Conference. He is the recipient of several teaching awards including the University of Nebraska system award for "Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity," and the Robert Daniel Teaching Excellence Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. His research has examined social comparison processes, social influence techniques, cross-cultural differences in generosity and envy, as well as the teaching of  controversial subjects.

Dr. David G. Thomas Professor,  Department of Psychology, Oklahoma  State University Psychology is a Science: Engaging Students in the Research Process In part to address problems concerning the lay public’s ignorance of the true nature of psychology as a scientific endeavor, the APA has included in its Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major  a call not only to convey this knowledge base to students (Goal 1), but also to teach students to understand the methods we use to gain this knowledge (Goal 2) and to think critically and skeptically (Goal 3) about it. Thus one of my primary learning objectives in teaching psychology to undergraduates at any level is to provide the tools for understanding and evaluating that body of knowledge, as well as the representations of it and other scientific data in the popular media. This year’s H.K. Wolfe Lecture will focus on a) teaching basic and advanced research designs through the use of news media, movie plots, and my own research in Ethiopia; b) active participation in the research process using computer-based experiments, public data bases, and untapped sources such as cemeteries and zoos; and c) helping students search for alternative explanations to foregone conclusions.

Dr. William Swann University of Texas - Austin Fighting, dying and killing for one’s group: Nature and consequences of identity fusion Whereas most people draw a sharp division between their personal selves and the groups of which they are members, some people feel that their personal and group identities are fused. When people’s personal and social selves become fused, they perceive the two to be functionally equivalent. As a result, they express willingness to engage in extraordinary behaviors in the service of their group membership, such as fighting, dying for the group, or even killing for the group. In one study, for example, persons who were fused with Spain endorsed plunging to their deaths in front of a speeding trolley to save the lives of fellow Spaniards.  The nature and implications of identity fusion will be discussed.   William B. Swann, Jr., is currently a professor of Social-Personality Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin with appointments in the Psychology Department and School of Business. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota. He studies identity and the self, identity negotiation and, most recently, identity fusion. He has also been elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Once a Fellow at Princeton University as well as the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, he has received multiple research scientist development awards from the National Institutes of Mental Health. His research has been funded by awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute for Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

Dr. James Grice Professor, Oklahoma State University Recovering our Common Sense: Psychology as an Observation Oriented Science   Since the early 1900s psychological research has been dominated by statistical methods that are overly abstract and often ill-suited for the types of questions most psychologists wish to ask.  In this presentation, Observation Oriented Modeling will be introduced as a radical alternative to these traditional methods of data analysis. Practically speaking, Observation Oriented Modeling challenges researchers to develop integrated models that explain patterns of observations rather than estimate abstract population parameters. The focus of research is thus shifted away from aggregate statistics, such as means, variances, and correlations, and is instead directed toward assessing the accuracy of judgments based on the observations in hand. This shift brings the persons in a psychological study to the forefront of the analysis and conclusions, while completely eschewing such confusing concepts as Type I, Type II, Type III errors, statistical power, and the p-value. Philosophically, this new approach is more consistent with the common sense realism of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas than with the idealism of René Descartes; and the end result is an approach to data conceptualization and analysis that is demanding and rigorous, but also straightforward and intuitive.