Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior, emotion, and thought. The goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and influence mental and behavioral processes. Objective observation, experimentation, and quantitative and qualitative analysis are psychologists' tools for achieving these goals. By expanding and enriching our understanding of how people think, feel and behave, the study of psychology increases and broadens students' understanding of themselves and others, and encourages students to apply this knowledge and understanding appropriately to improve the condition of individuals and society.
Elizabeth Olson
Department Chair
Phone: 262-472-5400
Location: Laurentide Hall 1221
Davin Stavroplos
Department Assistant
Phone: 262-472-1026
Location: Laurentide Hall 1223
Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior, emotion, and thought. The goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and influence mental and behavioral processes. Objective observation, experimentation, and quantitative and qualitative analysis are psychologists' tools for achieving these goals. By expanding and enriching our understanding of how people think, feel and behave, the study of psychology increases and broadens students' understanding of themselves and others, and encourages students to apply this knowledge and understanding appropriately to improve the condition of individuals and society.
The Psychology Department in the College of Letters and Sciences offers undergraduates comprehensive exposure to the prominent theories and concepts of psychology, the techniques and results of psychological research, and the applications of psychological knowledge to everyday situations. The program offers field and research experiences that allow students to apply acquired skills and knowledge.
Our department strives to be a student-focused environment with faculty who are known for excellence in teaching and advising. We provide our students with a variety of opportunities to excel not only inside but also outside the classroom. Students are regularly engaged in field experiences, work alongside faculty members to conduct psychological research, attend and present research at local conferences, and participate in activities of the Psi Chi National Honor Society in psychology.
The Department offers B.A. and B.S. degrees in psychology as well as experiences that focus on preparation for graduate school. The Bachelor of Science in Education degree prepares students to teach psychology in secondary schools. The Department’s graduate program prepares students for careers in school psychology and offers the Master’s and Education Specialist degrees. At the completion of their major, undergraduate students should be prepared for graduate education and/or entry into occupations which utilize knowledge of human behavior.
The Psychology Department at UW-Whitewater seeks to provide students a wide variety of skills that students will utilize in their careers, education, and daily lives. These skills will propel students into careers and graduate schools and will remain useful throughout students' lives. The following is a list of the skills and opportunities that psychology students can expect to gain.
A primary goal of the Psychology Department's curriculum is the development of students' ability to think critically. This essential ability to reason with purpose and to be intellectually curious includes several thinking skills that are useful to students both within their academic coursework as well as their daily lives. These skills include the following:
The Psychology Department supervises field placements for majors interested in applying their knowledge of psychology to real-world situations for course credit (PSYCH 487). Students are supervised by both a Psychology Department faculty member and an on-site supervisor. These experiences provide insight into the types of employment students may achieve with a Bachelor's degree in psychology. Field Training is also excellent experience for students intending to pursue graduate training in such areas as counseling, clinical psychology, school psychology, and social work. Field placements include a range of human service agencies, schools, crisis intervention programs and correction facilities. Students are encouraged to take this course during their junior year.
Nursing Home Visitation Program
An option for placement in Field Training is the Nursing Home Visitation Program. Students are encouraged to participate in this well-known project founded by a UW-W student and a psychology professor, Dr. Clifford O'Beirne.The N.H.V.P has been a part of UW-Whitewater campus' efforts in community service for over 35 years, and has averaged over 200 hours per week. This is one of the largest programs in the nation that goes to nursing homes. To date, UW-W students have made over 175,000 visits to nearby nursing homes.For more information on the Nursing Home Visitation Program, please visit the program's website: http://www.nhvp.com
Independent Study (PSYCH 498, 498R) and Senior Thesis (PSYCH 499) are courses in which students work closely with a faculty member on a research project. Whether students should have certain background, such as having taken statistics will depend on the specific project. Students are always encouraged to contact their interested faculty to learn about possible research opportunities. A good way to get started on accumulating research experience is to volunteer to help with faculty's research if they have never worked with the faculty before.
Students may apply for financial support for their research (e.g., to purchase materials, travel) through the Undergraduate Research Program. Students who participate in this program will have the opportunity to present their research on UW-Whitewater's Undergraduate Research Day.Students interested in undergraduate research are encouraged to plan for enrollment in these courses by discussing the possibility with their academic advisor as early as possible.
Students may work with faculty on research in a number of different ways. Many students opt to take Independent Study (PSYCH 498) in which they work under the direction of a faculty member on research topics that interest them. These hands-on experiences may include literature review, data collection, analysis, or writing up papers or manuscripts. Students in the Undergraduate Research Program may enroll in Independent Study - Undergraduate Research (PSYCH 498R). These courses are repeatable (in combination with one another) for a maximum of 6 units in the major and 12 units in the degree.
Some students choose to complete Senior Thesis projects (PSYCH 499) that involve a faculty advisor and a committee of faculty project reviewers. Students engage in a critical review or an experimental study of a topic of interest to them under the supervision of an honors thesis committee of the Psychology Department. The course is repeatable for a maximum of 6 credits in the major and 12 units in the degree.
Kimberly K Knesting
Associate Professor
Department(s): Psychology
Laurentide Hall 1213 |
(262) 472-5412
Heather M Niemeier
Associate Professor, Add'l Pay Non-Instructional
Department(s): Psychology
Laurentide Hall 1227 |
(262) 472-5418
Elizabeth A Olson
Associate Professor, Add'l Pay Non-Instructional
Department(s): Psychology
Laurentide Hall 1221 |
(262) 472-5400
Davin R Stavroplos
Department Assistant
Department(s): Psychology
Laurentide Hall 1223 |
(262) 472-1026
Brandon J Thomas
Assistant Professor
Department(s): Psychology
Laurentide Hall 1207 |
(262) 472-5824
There are numerous scholarship opportunities available to students, both through the university, the College of Letters and Sciences and the Psychology Department. To make life a little easier, all of the university's scholarship applications and requirement listings are available online.
The Larry and Mary Lee Anding Psychology Student Merit Scholarship
The Huang-Christner Psychology Scholarship
The Paula Poorman and Susan Simmons Family Psychology Scholarship
The Amy Krueger Memorial Scholarship
The Richard D. Kelley Psychology Scholarship
Song Family School Psychologist Scholarship
The Barbara Ann Hersko Scholarship
Students may gain valuable research experience through the department's research laboratories and research programs dedicated to conducting psychological research. These labs and programs are typically led by individual faculty members who serve as the "principal investigator" on research studies that are conducted within the lab or program. It's also typical for the research conducted in labs and programs to have a long-term and specific research focus, such as investigating the mechanisms of reward evaluation in the brain, or the relation between reading fluency and reading comprehension among school children. Involvement in a research lab can confer students with a strong background in a particular and focused field of research.
Below are details about several labs/programs within the psychology department. More detail can be obtained by contacting research faculty directly.
Interested students are advised to have successfully completed both PSYCH 215 (Basic Statistical Methods) and PSYCH 216 (Research Methods), and have Junior standing before applying to join a lab or program.
Behavioral Neuroscience Research Lab (Dr. Meg Waraczynski)
We study the neural mechanisms of reward evaluation in the mammalian brain. Specifically, we study how neurochemical manipulations of cells in a structure called the extended amygdala affect rats' evaluation of the reward effect of stimulating the brain's medial forebrain bundle. Ultimately, we seek to computationally model how cellular activity patterns in the extended amygdala represent the momentary value of a reward in the context of the animal's current internal and external environment.
The work of undergraduate assistants is critical to these goals. Each semester students in both psychology and the biological sciences assist with animal testing, data analysis, and other related tasks. Some students earn competitive undergraduate research grants, complete thesis projects, and present their work at professional conferences and in professional journals. Students also get to know other motivated, curious, hard working students with a variety of interests and gain experience working as part of a team to achieve important goals. If you would like more information about our lab contact Dr. Waraczynski ( waraczym@uww.edu) or any students currently part of our research team.
School-Based Reading Research (Dr. Christine Neddenriep)
Our research team is interested in looking at the relationship between reading fluency (reading with ease) and comprehension (reading for understanding) in elementary-school children. We are currently working with third-grade students at Washington Elementary School in Whitewater to improve their fluency and comprehension by using a strategy, Reread-Adapt and Answer-Comprehend (RAAC) which has been shown to increase students' speed and accuracy in reading as well as their understanding of fictional text. However, RAAC has not been applied to improving understanding of nonfiction text. Our research team has developed specific comprehension questions to assist students in understanding nonfiction text using the RAAC method. We use single-case, experimental designs (e.g., multiple baseline design across participants) to evaluate the effects of the intervention. We first evaluate the effects of fluency instruction alone on reading speed and accuracy as well as comprehension and then we add the comprehension instruction to determine the relative change in both fluency and comprehension with the addition of comprehension instruction. Our team currently includes one undergraduate student, Shawna Loniello, who is in the Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) and five graduate students in school psychology.
The Laboratory for Language and Emotion (Dr. David Havas)
The Laboratory for Language and Emotion uses the theory of embodied cognition to explore the relationship between language and emotion. This lab is specifically interested in how language can evoke strong emotions in people, and also, how emotions impact language comprehension. Recent research has shown that manipulations of participants' facial expressions of emotion change the speed with which they comprehend emotional sentences. For example, pleasant sentences are read faster while smiling than while frowning, and vice versa for unpleasant sentences. This finding helps support theories of embodied cognition, and shows that emotional states interact with sentence understanding. Students who participate in this lab will be exposed to a variety of research methods, including the use of electrodes and eye tracking equipment. Please visit the lab's website or contact Dr. Havas ( havasd@uww.edu) for more information about this lab.
The Applied Health Psychology Lab (Dr. Sasha Karnes)
The Applied Health Psychology Lab is currently recruiting and enrolling adult patients from Aurora Health Care for a randomized controlled trial. The purpose of the research is to test the effectiveness of a web-based program that is based on motivational interviewing for increasing physical activity. Undergraduate researchers are involved with day-to-day study operations. Specific tasks include gathering and cataloging participant intake information, obtaining informed consent, collecting survey data, and sending intervention materials.