The Senior Program

Each psychology major completes a research project that culminates in a written thesis and an oral presentation. Working closely with a faculty advisor, the student uses the senior project to synthesize and focus previous coursework. Each project is an original work of scholarship that provides an in-depth examination of a particular empirical or theoretical issue.

Recent projects in psychology include:

• A Little Self Love: Awe, the Small Self, and Self-Compassion
• An Influencer’s Influence: How Construed Framing Affects Moral Judgment of Sponsored Content
• Ask Me Again After Immersion: The Impact of Language Immersion Experiences on the Moral Foreign Language Effect
• Childhood Emotional Neglect, Emotion Regulation, and the Role of Family Income
• Cognitive Tug-of-War: How Attention Bias Toward Threat Mediates the Relationship Between Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Executive Function in Children Over Time
• Coping With Fear: Fear-Based Quality of Life and Coping Behaviors During COVID-19 in Children and Adolescents
• Defending Emotion: The Effect of Attorney Anger and Authenticity on Jury Decisions
• Does Error Processing Relate to Negative Affect and Right Wing Authoritarianism?
• Do Your Parents Predict Your Friends?
• Examining Family Emotional Context as a Mediator between SES and Emotion Regulation in Adolescence
• Food for Thought: The Impact of Nutritional Supplements on Depression Treatment
• From College to Career: Predicting Outcomes of Alumni with ADHD Symptomatology
• Gender Differences in Friendship Helping Behaviors
• Influence of Reward on Holistic Strategy Use in Visuomotor Adaptation
• Neural Correlates of Explicit Strategy Use in Visuomotor Rotation
• Defending Emotion: The Effect of Attorney Anger and Authenticity on Jury Decisions
• The Effect of Media Exposure on PTSD and Perceived Stress in Adolescents following Hurricane Irma: The Moderating Role of Gender
• The Improvement of Early Intervention Treatment in Schizophrenia
• The Impact of Acculturation State on Internalizing Symptoms
• The Impact of Role Play for Children: Exploring Attention, Creativity, and Character Complexity
• The Impact of Scaffolding on Learning Complex Tasks
• The Imposter Phenomenon and Disability in Post-secondary Education Adaptation
• The Perceived Competence of Female Attorneys Based on Appearance and Internalized Misogyny
• The Psychology of Recidivism: How Attributions, Criminal Identity, and Self-Stigma Shape Reoffending
• The Use of Social Media For Friendship Fulfillment: How Age and Gender Impact this Relationship
• Understanding Motivations for Substance Use in College Students with ADHD
• Wait for It! Peer Influence on Self-Control in Children Ages 3-5
• Whose to Blame? The Effect of Gender Similarity, Stereotypicality, and Perspective on Blame
• Who Blames Victims of Rape? Exploring the Role of Self-Compassion, Perspective Taking, Perceived Vulnerability, and Gender
• When You Can’t Read the Vibe: How Cringey Behavior Affects Blame and Moral Character Judgments
• Self-Compassion and Reactions to Imagining Being Confronted for Having Committed a Microaggression