About the Department
Professor Gitta Lubke wins prestigious Cattell Award
The Cattell Award is named for Raymond B. Cattell, a founder of SMEP. This award is an early-career award given annually by the Society to a young researcher who has made outstanding contributions to multivariate experimental psychology and who shows promise of continued work of a very high quality.
(October, 2007)
Americans living longer –but can we live better?
Early this morning (October 17), the population of the United States swelled to 300 million, in part because of longer life expectancy. But while Americans are definitely living longer - the average man can expect to live about 72 years; the average woman about 75 years - they aren't necessarily living better. “When we think about medical advances that increase life expectancy, it's important to recognize that, as of now, for every four years they add to life expectancy, only one of those years is a quality year," says Cindy Bergeman, a professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame who studies resiliency and aging.
The Art of Conversation
When mom told you to make eye contact during conversation, you may have been getting more than a lesson in good manners. Kathleen Eberhard, associate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, is using eye-tracking technology to explore how we move our eyes to gauge if another person understands what we’re saying.
A Labor of Love
As director of the Notre Dame psychology department's Laboratory for Psycho-oncology Research, Thomas Merluzzi devotes his professional energy to helping people with cancer. Not because he wanted to since he was 10 or because one particular class in college really grabbed his interest. In fact, after earning his doctorate in 1975, he spent the first part of his career researching social anxiety. No, Merluzzi, a professor of psychology, has dedicated himself to finding ways for people to cope with cancer because the disease has affected him, as it does millions of others, in a very personal way. ‘You don't have to be Freud to figure out where (my interest comes from),’ said Merluzzi, whose first wife and mother both died of cancer, his wife of breast cancer when she was 38. “It's not some subconscious thing for me; it's an active willingness to participate in the process of trying to work on this disease from a psychological perspective.”
New ADHD intervention yields promising results
Navigating the social and emotional landscape of adolescence can be challenging for even the most adept young teen. Psychology researchers at Notre Dame recently have conducted a study on adolescents with ADHD to learn more about the disorder and to determine if the working memory of a person with ADHD can be “re-trained” to operate more efficiently. ‘Attention is a complex function. It’s not just one ability, but a host of abilities is involved, explains Brad Gibson, associate professor of psychology, who is working on this project with Dawn Gondoli, associate professor of psychology; Julie Braungart-Rieker, professor of psychology, and Alesha Seroczynski, director of research at Madison Center.
Graduate School names Shaheen Award winners
Four doctoral candidates at the University of Notre Dame have received the 2006 Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Graduate School Awards. Named in honor of a Notre Dame alumnus and his wife, the award recognizes the top graduating doctoral degree recipients in the humanities, social sciences, science and engineering. Nominated by their departments, the Shaheen Award winners are chosen for their superior ability as exhibited by grades, research and publication records, fellowships, and other awards received during their course of study at Notre Dame, and teaching ability. (Lauren) Papp, in psychology, wrote her dissertation, "Dimensions of Marital Conflict in the Home, Parental Psychological Symptoms, and Child Adjustment: A Family-Wide Investigation," under the direction of E. Mark Cummings, Notre Dame Professor of Psychology.
Alumni Association honors distinguished students
Peter Quaranto, a senior from Franklin, Mass., and Mignon Montpetit, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology from Portage, Ind., have been selected recipients of the University of Notre Dame Alumni Association's 2005-06 Distinguished Student Award and Distinguished Graduate Student Award. A recipient of the Senior Recognition Award in Psychology, Mignon was graduated from Notre Dame in 2001, received her master's degree from the University in 2004 and completed her master's thesis titled "Self-Concept and Adaptation to Conjugal Loss in Later Life." Currently, she is a research assistant in the Gerontology Laboratory and a member of the Gerontological Society of America and Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology.”
Monroe delves into the intricacies of depression
Scott Monroe needs only to see a television commercial for a depression drug to judge how much society’s perception of the syndrome has changed. “Decades ago depression was a very different beast,” said Monroe, who left the University of Oregon to join the Notre Dame faculty this semester as Warren Foundation Professor of Psychology. “It was more removed from public consciousness. It was more severe in its clinical presentation.” Monroe has researched depression since the mid-1970’s, and initially focused on genetic causes.
Narvaez addresses moral education in ‘Handbook of Child Psychology’
Darcia Narvaez, associate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, has co-authored a chapter on character development in children in the “Handbook of Child Psychology,” now in its sixth edition. This is the first time in the book’s 60-year history that character development or moral education has been included. In the chapter on character education, Narvaez and co-author Dan Lapsley, chair of he educational psychology department at Ball State University, address questions of habits, traits, virtues, and reasoning in children.
New appointments for Psychology’s Don Pope-Davis
Don B. Pope-Davis, associate vice-president for graduate studies and professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed chair of the University’s Faculty Board on Athletics and its NCAA faculty athletics representative by Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2000, Pope-Davis studies in the areas of multicultural psychology, counseling and education.
Battling parents leave scars on kids
Whether they're screaming or steaming, warring parents have a long-lasting, negative effect on their children's development. A group of studies that looked at children at different ages and over time found that both kinds of parental conflict, outright hostility or giving each other the cold shoulder, caused anxiety and acting-out behavior in their children and threatened their emotional security. ‘And not only do kids not get used to fighting, they become more sensitive to it over time,’ said E. Mark Cummings, a professor of psychology at Notre Dame University who was the lead researcher on one of the studies, published last week in the journal Child Development.
New studies confirm impact of parental conflict on children’s futures
Two new studies lend further support to research by E. Mark Cummings, a University of Notre Dame professor of psychology, on the impact of parental conflict behavior on their children’s future behavior. Cummings, the Notre Dame Professor of Psychology, and researchers from Rochester University and the Catholic University of America, found that the manner in which parents handle everyday marital conflicts has a significant effect on how secure their children feel, and, in turn, significantly affects their future emotional adjustment. A useful analogy is to think about emotional security as a bridge between the child and the world," Cummings said. “When the marital relationship is functioning well, it serves as a secure base, a structurally sound bridge to support the child's exploration and relationships with others.”
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Volunteers sought for cancer study
Volunteers are currently being sought for a University of Notre Dame study that will examine how people cope with cancer. Thomas V. Merluzzi, director of the Laboratory for Psycho-oncology Research in the University's Department of Psychology, is seeking a wide variety of men and women with cancer to participate in an investigation into measures of coping and quality of life in cancer patients. Volunteers will be asked to respond to a series of questionnaires, which will take just over an hour to complete.