New member of Psychology for Fall 2009

The Psychology Department would like to welcome Navin Viswanathan to the faculty. He will be joining us in August 2009. Navin is completing his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology this summer at the University of Connecticut. He will be teaching Introductory Psychology, Psychological Statistics and the Psychology of Language in the Fall 2009 semester.

Navin has a great web page where he describes his interests in language processing:

http://magnuson.psy.uconn.edu/people/navin/

Welcome, Navin!

Spring 2009 Student Awards

The Psychology Department would like to congratulate all May 2009 graduates. We would also like to recognize this year's winners of the Panman Scholarship, May 2009 Outstanding Graduates (who were honored at a college ceremony on May 15th, 2009), STL's Honor With Books program (recipients are honored in a bookplate placed on a newly acquired psychology book in the Sojourner Truth Library), and (a newly created award to honor Psychology students who the faculty feel have excelled in various ways):

Richard A. Panman Memorial Scholarship

Rachael Carmen

May 2009 Outstanding Graduates

Rachael Carmen
LaRae Fasano (pictured below)






















Joseph Felice (pictured below, left, with President Poskanzer)



Jaymie Lowitt (graduate student)
Mandi Palmer
Viola Silvan

Sojourner Truth Library Honor With Books

Anna Lange
Kate Remauro

Psychology Department Excellence Awards

Kira Ayers
Rachael Carmen
Allyson Conner
LaRae Fasano
Susanne Feehan
Joseph Felice
Viviana Fyffe
Daniel Gambacorta
Anna Lange
Jaymie Lowitt (graduate student)
Brittany McKeldin
Mandi Palmer
Kate Remauro
Viola Silvan
Sean Wilson
Sarah Wolfe

Finally, congratulations to Joseph Felice, co-valedictorian of the May 2009 Undergraduate class!

Student Presentations at Mid-Hudson Conference

SUNY New Paltz undergraduates presenting at the 3rd Annual Mid-Hudson Psychology Research Conference on the campus of Mount Saint Mary College, in Newburgh, NY.

(l to r) Jeffrey Cummins (I-O Psychology); Anna Lange (Psychobiology); Stacey Smiel (Business Administration-Management)

Two New Faculty Members for Fall 2008

The Psychology Department welcomes two new faculty members for Fall 2008: Greta Winograd and KatySue Tillman. This brings the total number of faculty in the Psychology Department to 16.

Psi Chi joins fight against Cystic Fibrosis

On June 1 of this year, the first-ever SUNY New Paltz team will march in the Bowdoin Park "Great Strides" walkathon against a devastating and prevalent illness: Cystic Fibrosis. Our own Psi Chi chapter - led by Heather Mangione - will play a major role in this endeavor. Psychology department faculty member, Glenn Geher, is serving as the team leader.

To join this team (or to donate money to this cause), please visit Glenn's website (glenngeher.com) which has a link for this event - or you can paste the following into your browser (it needs to be pasted in two parts):
http://www.cff.org/great_strides/
dsp_donationPage.cfm?registeringwalkid=5186&idUser=238542

The weather on June 1 should be great!

Our team, "Hawks for Eamonn," is named for 2-year old Eamonn Rynne, whose dad, Austin, is an MBA student at New Paltz and whose mom, Marcy, teaches a fitness class here. Eamonn was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis immediately after birth. For more information, don't hesitate to contact Glenn (geherg@newpaltz.edu) or Heather (mangio01@newpaltz.edu).

New Paltz Psych majors present at Mid-Hudson conference

Two SUNY New Paltz I-O Psychology majors, Kristin Markgraf and Leigh Rokitowski, presented research they have been working on via Independent Study at the 2nd Annual Mid-Hudson Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference, held on March 29th, 2008 on the campus of Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY. Good job, Kristin and Leigh!


Left: Kristin Markgraf discusses her research with attendees at the conference.


Below, left: Leigh Rokitowski explains her empirical work with conference participants.

Glenn Geher Lectures at Yale's Sex Week

Dr. Glenn Geher gave a lecture at Yale University's Sex Week. The lecture, which was on Valentine's Day and examined Dr. Geher's research on mating intelligence, can be viewed on YouTube. Part 1 of the lecture video can be viewed below. The rest is available at http://youtube.com/matingintelligence.

Did he really say THAT?! A closer look at the work of Lionel Tiger

Note: The content of this post reflects the opinions of those who have signed their names below, not the Psychology Department as a whole.

In celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday, Dr. Lionel Tiger (Rutgers University) was invited to give two presentations on campus on February 6. A group of faculty from several disciplines put together a fact sheet raising issues regarding some of Dr. Tiger's claims. As we have pointed out in a letter to the Oracle (http://www.newpaltz.edu/oracle/article.cfm?id=3540), the fact sheet included direct quotes taken from Dr. Tiger’s writing, provided factual information with full citations, and raised questions about Tiger’s unsubstantiated claims. We are posting the fact sheet here, along with a Reproductive Rights fact sheet that provides evidence against the purported "self-righteous and automatic public support for women’s interests and issues" (Tiger, 2005).

Maureen Morrow (Biology), Brian Obach (Sociology), Giordana Grossi (Psychology), Morgan Gwenwald (Library), Anne Roschelle (Sociology), Peter Kaufman (Sociology) Alison Nash (Psychology), Eve Waltermaurer (Sociology), Gowri Parameswaran (Educational Studies), Karl Bryant (Women’s Studies/Sociology), Maryalice Citera (Psychology), Amy Kessleman (Women’s Studies), Judy Dorney (Educational Studies), Susan Kelly (Women’s Studies), Nancy Schniedewind (Educational Studies)




Did he really say THAT?!
A closer look at the work of Lionel Tiger

Many of Lionel Tiger’s claims are based on the idea that biological differences between the sexes provide important insights for understanding human behavior. He states that “…the sexes differ enormously and it is unnecessary to recall here the immense catalogue of defined sex differences…”(i) On the contrary, research has shown that these differences are minimal and that females and males are similar on most psychological variables (ii). Furthermore, any methodologically sound research that claims that existing differences are biologically rooted should convincingly rule out obvious alternative explanations, such as the role of socialization.

It is Dr. Tiger’s sweeping claims based on relatively little evidence that leads some to suspect that his pronouncements really reflect a desire to advance a conservative political ideology more than to produce sound social scientific findings. He has expressed personal concern about how women’s gains in the area of education and employment pose a threat to the traditional male dominated social order (iii). He also considers gay rights to be among the biggest problems of our era (iv). While his views draw attention in the mass media and rally support in conservative political circles, as social scientists we should always be mindful of the methodologies that are used to reach conclusions.

Below are questions to consider based on just a few of Dr. Tiger’s claims drawn from publications distributed for this talk.

Lionel Tiger says that there is “self-righteous and automatic public support for women’s interests and issues”.

Given that the rate of female poverty is 27% greater than men’s (v), that women earn on average seventy seven cents for every dollar earned by a man (vi) and that women are disproportionately victimized by their male partners (vii), what evidence is there that there is “automatic public support for women’s issues”? Should these even be considered “women’s issues” or do these problems affect everyone in society?


Lionel Tiger says that measures to protect women from abuse, like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), represent “antipathy to men”.

The VAWA provides for improved services for victims of violence with special emphasis placed on underserved communities where women are unlikely to find the support needed to escape abusive situations (viii). How does this represent “antipathy to men”? Just what aspect of protecting women from violence does Dr. Tiger find objectionable?


Lionel Tiger finds it “heartbreaking” that courts issue restraining orders against men charged with domestic violence.

The truly heartbreaking fact is that these restraining orders are not effective enough. While these protective measures are put in place for short periods when evidence of a threat exists, one strong predictor of homicide by an intimate partner is possession of a restraining order (ix). Does this suggest that restraining orders present too much of an infringement on the rights of men charged with violent acts? Does Dr. Tiger believe that women should have even fewer protections?

Lionel Tiger sees “remarkable gender discrimination” in the fact that more females are currently enrolled in college than males.

An average male high school graduate earns more than a female with over two years of college education (x). Is it unfair to men that women have to go to school two additional years in order to reach the earning level of males?


Lionel Tiger decries the "countless thriving women's studies programs" and "paltry number of ineffective male equivalents."

Women's Studies programs developed because the mainstream curriculum had ignored and marginalized women's experience. Rather than inhibiting the study of men, women's studies programs have generated interest in gender as experienced by men as well as women.


Lionel Tiger was a featured speaker at an anti-contraception conference organized by the radical anti-abortion Pro-Life Action League (xi).

Does it make sense to deny women access to abortion AND oppose the use of contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies?


Lionel Tiger says that an “anti-male bias” has created school systems “configured more to female than male nature” and that this explains superior female academic performance.

Like all major social institutions, educational institutions historically have been created, organized and administered by males (xii). Until relatively recently many colleges and universities did not even allow women access based in part on the belief that women “by nature” were not capable of benefiting from higher education. Was there any evidence to support these erroneous claims about “women’s nature” in the past? Does Dr. Tiger have any evidence to support his claims regarding education and women’s “nature” today?

(i) Tiger, Lionel. 2002. "The Human Nature Project". The Bradley Lecture - December 9, 2002. American Enterprise Institute
(ii) Hyde, J. S. (2005). The Gender Similarity Hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60 (6), 581-592
(iii) Tiger, Lionel. 2005. “You’ve Got Male” Wall Street Journal. All other Tiger references are drawn from this article except where noted otherwise.
(iv) Harrison, Colin. 1999. “Who Needs Men?” Harper’s June 1999, p 34.
(v) United States Bureau of the Census, 2005 (latest data available). The corresponding poverty rate for males is 11.1%.
(vi) United States Bureau of the Census, 2005, based on annual salaries for full time workers.
(vii) Dugan, Daniel S. Nagin, Richard Rosenfeld (2003).Exposure Reduction or Retaliation? The Effects of Domestic Violence Resources on Intimate-Partner Homicide Law & Society Review 37 (1), 169–198.
(viii) http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/
(ix) Dugan, Daniel S. Nagin, Richard Rosenfeld (2003).Exposure Reduction or Retaliation? The Effects of Domestic Violence Resources on Intimate-Partner Homicide Law & Society Review 37 (1), 169–198.
(x) United States Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, 1998.
(xi) http://www.prolifeaction.org/cinta/speakers.htm
(xii) Wheeler, Karen and Martha Tack. 1989. “Male and Female College Presidents: Leadership Attitudes and Behaviors.” Annual Meeting of the American Research Association.



REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS FACT SHEET

According to Lionel Tiger (2005):

“Male resentment of the self-righteous and automatic public support for women’s interests and issues has been increasingly noisily on the boil for some time.”

Do women really enjoy automatic public support for their issues? Do women really have power over men in contemporary American Society? Lets look at reproductive rights as one example of how women do not receive automatic support for their most fundamental rights—the right to control their reproductive freedom.


INSURANCE PROHIBITION AND RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION

Seventeen states (AR, CO, ID, IL, KY, MA, MS, MO, NE, ND, OH, RI, SC, VA, WI) prohibit health insurance carriers from providing abortion coverage. Since 1995 Congress has adopted language annually barring federal employees from selecting a health care plan that provides abortion coverage.

Several federal laws, most notably the Hyde Amendment, bar access to abortion care for most low-income women who rely on the federal government for their health care, with exceptions only to preserve the woman's life or if the pregnancy results from rape or incest. Women affected by these bans include recipients of Medicaid, Medicare, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Indian Health Service clients, and clients of the District of Columbia's public health care programs.

Congress banned the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions except in the case of incest, rape, or potential death of the mother.

33 states and the District of Columbia restrict low-income women’s access to abortion.

8 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable laws that require women to obtain the written consent from, or give notice to, her husband prior to receiving abortion care: CO, IL, KY, LA, ND, PA, RI, SC.

43 states restrict young women's access to abortion by mandating parental notice or consent.

87 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider available (Fifteen years ago, 2,000 abortion clinics operated across the United States. Today there are only 750 in existence).

44 states and DC have laws subjecting abortion care providers to burdensome restrictions not applied to other medical professionals.




TRICARE is the military health care system serving 6.9 million active duty military personnel, retired personnel, and members of their families.

TRICARE is open to approximately 212,000 women of reproductive age currently serving in the military and 1.6 million female veterans.

Since 1979 the Department of Defense has prohibited abortion funding for military personnel, retirees, and their dependents through TRICARE, except when a woman's life is in danger.

In 1985 the ban was made permanent.

In 1997 Congress went even further by prohibiting the performance of abortions in military hospitals overseas even if paid for privately, except in cases of rape, incest, or where a woman's life is in danger.


RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

46 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services. All of these states permit individual health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services.

43 states allow health care institutions to refuse to provide abortion services.

13 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception.

8 states allow individual health care providers to refuse to provide services to contraception.

4 states explicitly permit pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraception.

9 states allow health care institutions to refuse to provide services related to contraception.

On at least 3 occasions, the Bush administration censored or changed accurate medical information on government websites at the behest of anti-choice activists. One of these websites was the Centers for Disease Control website where information about contraception and the transmission of STD's was taken off.

DO WOMEN REALLY HAVE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL POWER OVER MEN?????

THE EMPIRICAL DATE ON CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTION DO NOT SUBSTANTIATE SUCH A CLAIM.



These data were gathered by the Guttmacher Institute a non-partisan institute that does research on sexual and reproductive health and the National Abortion Rights Action League. Some information was obtained on the Right to Life web site.

From NPR The Writer's Almanac

January 11
From NPR The Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday of the psychologist and philosopher William James, (books by this author) born in New York City (1842). He was the older brother of the novelist Henry James, and one of the most prominent thinkers of his era. He was a man who started out studying medicine and went on to become one of the founders of modern psychology, and finished his life as a prominent philosopher.

He was a professor of physiology at Harvard when he was hired to write a textbook about the new field of psychology, which was challenging the idea that the body and the mind were separate. He could have just written a summary of all the current ideas in the field but instead decided to explore the issues of psychology he found most interesting and perplexing. He took twelve years to finish the book called, The Principles of Psychology (1890). It was used as a textbook in college classrooms, but was also translated into a dozen different languages, and people read it all over the world.

One of the ideas he developed in the book was a theory of the human mind which he called "a stream of consciousness." Before him the common view was that a person's thoughts have a clear beginning and end, and that the thinker is in control of his or her thoughts. But William James wrote, "Consciousness ... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows."

James's ideas about consciousness were especially influential on writers, and novelists from James Joyce to William Faulkner began to portray streams of consciousness through language, letting characters think at length and at random on the page. Consciousness itself became one of the most important subjects of modern literature.

He also helped invent the technique of automatic writing, in which a person writes as quickly as possible whatever comes into one's head. He encouraged audiences to take up the practice as a form of self-analysis, and one person who took his advice was a student named Gertrude Stein, who went on to use it as the basis for her writing style.

William James wrote, "The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures."

A Champion's Tale: Michelle Coombs

Click here to read the December 25, 2007 Times Herald Record article on champion swimmer and M.S. in mental health counseling student Michelle Coombs.

Way to go Michelle!

Recent Graduate Hired by Ulster-Greene ARC

Recent M.S. in Mental Health Counseling graduate Michael Reisner has been hired by Ulster-Greene ARC as an applied behavioral specialist. Congrats, Mike!

December 2007 Outstanding Graduates

Congratulations to the December 2007 Psychology Outstanding Graduates (l to r): Rodica Buzu (undergraduate), Michael Camargo (graduate student), and Rana Balesh (undergraduate)

Holiday Cheer!

This post originally led to a video of your beloved psych profs dancing dressed as elves. Mercifully, the video has been removed.

Happy Holidays!

Coombs Selected ECAC DIII Swimmer of Week

MS in mental health counseling student Michelle Coombs was selected the Division III ECAC Swimmer of the week after leading the Hawks to a fifth place finish at the Winter Championships this past weekend. Coombs finished first in three individual events, in addition to taking first as a member of three relay squads. The senior earned first in the 50-yard freestyle (24.56), 100-yard freestyle (53.20), and 200-yard freestyle (1:56.85) events. Coombs also finished second in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 59.15. Overall, Coombs had the second highest point total. More swimming news here.

Congratulations, Michelle!

Panel discussion on Gender, Sexuality and Evolutionary Psychology

On October 22nd the Departments of Psychology, Biology and Educational Studies, along with the Evolutionary Studies Program and the Women’s Studies Program sponsored a panel discussion on Gender, Sexuality and Evolutionary Psychology. Participants included Tom Nolan (Biology), Mike Camargo (graduate, Psychology Department MA program), Alison Nash (Psychology) and Gowri Parameswaran (Ed Studies), with Suzanne Kelly (Women’s Studies) moderating.

How the Panel Came About
The Gender, Sexuality and Evolutionary Psychology panel emerged out the of the Love & Sex course Suzanne Kelly has been teaching at SUNY New Paltz for the past five years. Love & Sex is an interdisciplinary course with a philosophical bent, asking questions about how and why love and sex are gendered and what that means for intimate relationships and marriage. Most students who take the course already have some grounding in using gender as an analytical lens, and the understanding that feminism is rooted in both theoretical and practical attempts to dislodge culture from the grips of nature. But last year Professor Kelly began to notice a set of ideas popping up in class discussions, ones that seemed to reinforce the very female and male stereotypes feminists redressed long ago. Women desire love and men desire sex. Women want resources and men want physical beauty. Women are nurturers and men are murderers. Professor Kelly was perplexed; how had these ideas moved from being issues to be addressed using historical, sociological and philosophical frameworks, to becoming a bunch of scientific facts based in evolution? Now that these issues were back on the table, Professor Kelly felt a need to have a conversation that extended beyond her classroom, and to address these concerns by way of healthy debate. Thus a university-wide teachable moment surfaced from students’ struggle to make sense of the conflicting perspectives on gender and sexuality that they were receiving from their various courses.

Over the summer, a group of interested faculty from the Women’s Studies Program and the Psychology Department read articles and had meetings to discuss evolutionary psychology. We focused on what we perceived to be fundamental issues within the discipline as well as its implications for understanding gender and sexuality. The idea of a panel discussion grew from these meetings, with the goal of facilitating discussion of the various perspectives.

For those readers who are wondering what evolutionary psychology is, here is brief overview: Evolutionary psychology is an approach to psychology that views many prevalent human behaviors as biological adaptations. These adaptations are thought to be designed by natural (or sexual) selection to solve problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Much attention is paid to gender differences in mating ‘strategies’ and in cognition. For example, studies focus on what characteristics men and women find desirable in potential mates, what situations arouse jealousy, and gender differences in spatial abilities, math, and science. Critiques arise from a number of different disciplines: e.g. from within biology and psychology, and from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and women’s studies. Central criticisms include poor methodology, faulty reasoning, lack of historical context, and paying lip service to, but not addressing, socio-cultural influences.


The panel presentations
The first two presentations presented an overview of the principles of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. The second two presentations presented scientific and cultural critiques of evolutionary psychology.

Tom Nolen outlined the basic principles of evolutionary biology, including the central concepts of adaptation and sexual selection, and described the kinds of evidence necessary to show that a particular trait is biologically adaptive. He gave an example of research findings indicating that male birds’ decorative traits that are used to attract females signal important advantages like resistance to parasites. Thus, females choosing these ‘attractive’ males produced offspring that inherited these adaptive traits.

Next, Michael Camargo showed how these principles are applied to humans. He outlined the principles of evolutionary psychology and illustrated the methods psychologists use to trace the evolutionary advantages of common human behaviors. He used the example of morning sickness and its adaptive role in protecting women from toxins.

Alison Nash provided an epistemological and methodological critique of the reasoning and methods used by evolutionary psychologists to arrive at their conclusions about human sexual behavior. She pointed out that evolutionary psychology mirrors dominant stereotypes about gender and sexuality in western society since the 18th century, like the notion of coy females and philandering males.

Gowri Parameswaran spoke about how both sex and sexuality are socially constructed as evidenced by widely varying cultural practices both within and across cultures. She suggested that the uniformity in sexual behavior across many cultures that evolutionary psychologists observe could be explained by the pervasiveness of European colonial influences across the globe and the Eurocentric lens that researchers used and still use to study ‘other’ cultures.

Future conversations
At the panel discussion, several themes emerged that we would like to explore in future colloquiums, panels, and roundtable discussions:
1. Is evolutionary psychology a new discipline? The place of evolutionary psychology in the history of psychology, and more broadly, the historical context of biological determinism.
2. Do humans have ‘instincts’ like other animals do? Is the concept of instinct useful for understanding animal and human behavior? Are ‘instincts’ governed by modules in the brain as assumed by EP?
3. The existence of modules, that is, highly specialized neural systems that evolved for specific complex behaviors, is simply assumed by EP and never empirically demonstrated. What value is there for a biological and psychological science to focus on distal explanations of behavior without providing an analysis of the development, functioning, and evolution of the neural mechanisms involved in the production of behavior?
4. What does evolutionary psychology add to our understanding of gender and sexuality?
5. What are the implications of evolutionary psychology ideas about gender differences in sexuality and cognitive abilities?

We welcome ideas about other issues that people would like to address, and suggestions for venues for future conversations. Feel free to contact one of us at our e-mail addresses below, or to post comments, questions, and suggestions on the psychology department blog at http://sunynewpaltzpsychologydepartment.blogspot.com/.

Suzanne Kelly (Women’s Studies) (suzmkelly@aol.com)
Alison Nash (Psychology) (nasha@newpaltz.edu)
Gowri Parameswaran (Ed Studies) (paramesg@newpaltz.edu)
Giordana Grossi (Psychology) (grossig@newpaltz.edu)
Peter Brown (Foreign Languages) (brownp@newpaltz.edu)

2007-08 Psi Chi officers

Meet the 2007-2008 SUNY New Paltz Psi Chi chapter officers (clockwise from top): Heather Mangione (President), Audrey Sheridan (Treasurer), Kate Remauro (Secretary), Sarah Karsch (Vice President). This picture was taken at the 2nd Annual Psychology Fair, held in SUB 100 on October 23rd, 2007.

Donna Coch's visit

Donna Coch (Dartmouth University) gave a talk on "Mind, Brain, and Education: A New Science of Learning" on October 9th. The talk, which focused on recent attempts at bridging the fields of neuroscience and education, was followed by a workshop (October 10th) that brought together faculty and students from the psychology and education departments.

2007 Psychology Scholarship winners!

On Saturday, September 29th, 2007, several scholarship winners from Psychology were honored with a brunch reception in the SUB. Action reporter Doug Maynard was there on the scene!

2007 MRP Annual Scholarship winner Aimee Hughes. Aimee is a senior Psychology major this year.



2007 Dr. Richard Panman Memorial Scholarship winners (left to right): Heather Mangione, Michelle Coombs, Regina Musicaro. All May 2007 graduates, Heather and Michelle are now in our masters programs (Heather in the MA Psych program, Michelle in the MS Mental Health Counseling program), and Regina is working at Dr. Daniel Schacter's laboratory at Harvard University.

Usual/Unusual Ways

How did you spend your summer break?

Graduate Program Alumni

Attention graduate program alumni:

Welcome to the Psych Department's blog. We would love to hear what you are up to these days. Please post a message here telling us when you graduated and what you are doing. Any old time memories from your time at New Paltz are also appreciated.

We look forward to hearing from you!

For alumni links, click here!