PSYC 491 and 492
During the Research Team experience, a small group of students (typically, 4-5) will study a particular topic in psychology in depth. Over the course of the academic year, the team works closely with their instructor to develop a hypothesis, design a study to test that hypothesis, submit an Institutional Review Board (IRB) application for approval to conduct the study, analyze the data collected following execution of the study, and report the study. In addition, the team reports their study orally at both local (i.e., the departmental Psi Chi Symposium and the university-wide Research and Creativity Day) and regional (i.e., the Virginia Psychological Association conference) venues. Typically, students produce an APA-style paper based on the project suitable for submission to a professional journal also. Last, the group may decide to produce a poster for presentation at a national conference, and may decide to prepare and submit a paper to a professional journal.
Research teams are populated during the spring semester prior to the start of the PSYC 491 course during the subsequent fall semester, and students commit to taking both PSYC 491 that fall and PSYC 492 the following spring. Professors who will supervise a research team present their topics and ideas at a “Research Showcase,” and if you find a professor whose research interests match your own, you may ask to be a part of that professor’s research team.
Students who complete the Research Team experience enroll in PSYC 491 – Individual Study for 3 credits in the fall semester, and PSYC 492 – Individual Study for 3 credits in the spring semester. Prerequisites for PSYC 491 include PSYC 261 – Introductory Statistics for Psychology, PSYC 362 – Research Methods for Psychology, and permission of instructor.
Scroll to read more about our current and future research team topics!
2026-2027 Research Team Instructors and Topics:
Dr. David Kolar
Human behavior is causing harmful changes to the environment and researchers have called for
social scientists to more closely examine how human behavior impacts the environment as well
as what people can do to help conserve the environment. Next year my research team will focus
on how we can take what we know about psychology and apply it to issues related to the
environment. In previous years my research teams have studied a variety of things related to the
environment including food waste, water use, attitudes about the environment, and cognitive
processes that influence environmental behavior. I am open to doing research in any area related
to environmental issues and psychology next year and will leave the exact nature of the research
up to the students working with me. Please note that you don’t have to be an expert on
environmental issues to be on my team, but you should be interested in them. Some possible
questions/areas include: 1) Overconsumption: People in the U.S. buy more products and
consume more resources than most other countries. Why? What can we do to change this? 2)
Why are some people more concerned about the environment than others? 3) How can we
change behaviors related to the environment? 4) How do attitudes about the environment
develop and are there age differences in environmental behavior? 5) How do others influence
our attitudes about the environment? 6) An applied study with a local non-profit environmental
organization. 7) How can we get people to waste less food and compost more?
Dr. Christine McBride
My research teams tend to explore why we eat what we eat. We have studied attentional focus
on food using the eye-tracker, the roles of guilt and mindfulness in stress-induced eating, the
types of stressors (e.g. cognitive or social) that elicit eating behavior, how descriptive norms
impact eating, the effect of social environment and social media on eating, and the impact of
menu design. We have studied eating in both adults and children. One of my previous research
teams studied how and why people justify decisions to eat “junk food”. For example, have you
ever said to yourself, “If I study for 10 more minutes, I can go have some ice cream!” We found
that those who put effort into a task tend to indulge on more potato chips and chocolate than
those who do not put in effort and following up on this line of research would be fun. Generally,
my students gain experience in both survey-based research and experimental, laboratory-based
designs to answer research questions about eating behaviors. The exact topic we study next year
will depend on the interests of the team members.
I look forward to working with students who are extremely reliable, motivated, inquisitive, and
love the research process! Our goal will be to present at a national or regional conference if
funding is available.
Dr. David Stahlman
Dr. Stahlman’s 491/2 research team will perform experimental behavioral work using a
nonhuman animal model. This will likely be the laboratory rat (Rattus norvegicus) but there is
the possibility of working with other species. In addition to the typical 491 team responsibilities
(e.g., literature review, experimental design, data collection and analysis) team members will
have important roles in animal handling and care.
It is often surprising to students how much we don’t yet know about basic behavioral
processes—and it will be largely up to the students what open question(s) we seek to tackle. In
the past, my teams have studied spatial learning (e.g., using mazes), novel object recognition and
its relation to creativity, non-associative learning, the control of behavioral variability, and other
topics.
Preference for placement on this team will be given to students who can commit to meeting on
Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:30pm-4:45pm.
Dr. Hilary Stebbins
My research interests revolve around two topics. First, I am interested in factors related to sleep
in college students, such as how sleep deprivation and circadian preference (whether you are a
morning or evening person) relate to cognitive performance and behavior. Second, I am
interested in the neurotransmitter dopamine and how individual dopamine functioning relates to
our behavior. One correlate of dopamine function is the spontaneous eyeblink, which we can
measure with electrooculography (EOG). Dopamine has been linked to a number of interesting
traits such as reward-based learning, impulsivity, creativity, addiction potential, and even
egalitarian behavior. Ideally, I would like my 491/492 team to find a way to link dopamine to
questions about sleep. For example, one of my past teams found that as people report higher
levels of sleepiness, they show higher dopamine function and also have more difficulty
controlling impulsive actions. However, we will work as a team to design one or more studies
during the year, and I am open to the direction of the research as long as it involves one of my
areas of interest. You do not need to have a strong background in biology to work on this project,
but you do have to be motivated to learn about these variables and be committed to doing
experimental work in the lab. If you have questions or are interested in learning more about
these variables, stop by my office (Mercer 328) or send me an e-mail (hstebbin@umw.edu).
Dr. Laura Wilson
Research has shown that approximately 30% of women in the United States experience stalking
during their lifetime. Stalking places survivors at increased risk for PTSD, depression, anxiety,
substance abuse, and physical health difficulties. Despite this, very little research has examined
potential ways to better support stalking survivors. I am open to any ideas related to the topic of
stalking, but two potential research questions to pursue are: (1) How do people typically respond
to stalking survivors? Studies on other forms of interpersonal violence have found that negative
social reactions are robust predictors of long-term outcomes among sexual assault survivors.
Only a very small number of studies have examined the impact of social reactions received by
stalking survivors. (2) How do survivors conceptualize the stalking they experienced? Studies
with rape survivors have found that the majority use non-victimizing language to describe what
happened, such as saying it was a “miscommunication.” No published work has examined how
stalking survivors conceptualize what happened to them. If you are thinking about ranking my
team, the most important thing is that you need to be okay with talking about trauma. If you are
concerned that the topic may be triggering for you personally, then I would recommend not
ranking my team. Also, I am pre-determining that my research team class time will be Tuesdays
and Thursdays from 2:00pm-3:15pm during the Fall semester. Please only rank my team if you
could make that day/time work for our class in the Fall.
2025-2026 Research Team Instructors and Topics:
Dr. Marcus Leppanen
Students interested in being on my research team should have a broad interest in cognitive psychology. In general, my research interests include memory, attention, emotion, and how individual differences are related to those processes (e.g., handedness or mindfulness). My research teams conduct in-person laboratory experiments to collect behavioral and self-report data. This year I plan on conducting an experiment using eye tracking technology. Students on
my research team (or not) have the opportunity to work on a project with me during the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Institute (AHSSSI) which would occur during the first summer session (May 19th to June 18th). I will provide more details about this experience during the in-person meeting. You should email me with questions before you indicate interest in AHSSSI on your application if you cannot attend so you know what it entails. Membership on
my research team is a preference but NOT a requirement for participation in AHSSSI. While I want my team to develop a project using the eye tracker as one piece of our methodology, I am open to student interests directing the 491/492 project. One thing I am interested in studying next is the relationship between handedness and memory. Research has shown that consistency of handedness is related to the impact of eye movements on memory performance. Is there a relationship between handedness and how we direct our attention with eye movements that underlies that effect? That is a question my summer project will start looking into, but does not have to drive the 491/492 experience. My students tend to present their work at a regional or national conference each year.
Dr. Virginia Mackintosh
Menstruating is something half the population does yet discussing it is often considered taboo, and there is surprisingly little research on its psychological impact. I’m interested in views on menstruation across the lifespan – from people’s stories of their first periods (menarche), to feelings of shame/pride regarding menstruating, to attitudes about aging associated with menopause.
Dr. Jennifer Mailloux
Over the past few years, I have been studying how certain variables are related to sexual satisfaction suing self-report data. One of the variables I have studied is cognitive distraction during sexual activity. Individuals can be distracted during sex by focusing on whether one’s body will look pleasurable to one’s partner and/or whether one will behave in a way resulting in one’s partner’s sexual pleasure. Distracted individuals may not focus on themselves, including the pleasurable sensations and feelings that may occur during sex, which may result in low sexual satisfaction. Other variables I have investigated that appear to be related to sexual satisfaction include body consciousness, body shame, and body esteem and, most recently, sexual sensation seeking. This is not an exhaustive list of variables that can influence sexual satisfaction! Also, in the past, I have limited my research to heterosexual women, albeit across a range of ages. Most recently, I have included men, as well as individuals with different sexual orientations, in my research. These investigations revealed many interesting differences involving sexual satisfaction between these groups. For example, I found body esteem influenced sexual satisfaction in younger, but not older, women. Also, I found that sexual satisfaction was positively related to sexual sensation seeking in homosexual, but not heterosexual, men and women. In the future, there are a lot of directions to go with this research, including examining other types of variables (behavioral or physiological) that might influence sexual satisfaction.
Dr. Erin Palmwood
My research examines different aspects of romantic relationship functioning in order to determine what factors contribute to relationship success and distress. In the past, I have worked with students to conduct studies exploring:
• The impact of romantic relationship threat on emotion regulation ability
• Inhibitory control problems as a predictor of engagement in infidelity
• The link between positive relationship characteristics and attention allocated to romantic partners
• The impact of unsupportive partner behaviors on reactivity to making mistakes
I typically use electroencephalography (EEG) to examine these phenomena (e.g., inhibitory control, emotion regulation, attention allocation, reactivity to mistakes) at the neural level, and I hope to do this with my research team next year. However, the specific study that my team conducts, including the methodology of that study, will be determined by student interests. Familiarity with brain research is not necessary to join my team! I particularly enjoy working with students who are highly organized, conscientious, and excited about research.
Dr. Holly Schiffrin
The majority of my research focuses on the intersection of parenting and well-being. For the past 10 years, I have focused on the impact of helicopter parenting on emerging adults’ well-being. Helicopter parenting refers to a developmentally inappropriate level of parental involvement and control that limits the autonomy of adult children. Helicopter parents tend to “hover” over their children to monitor their decisions around school, social interactions, etc. with the intention of
preventing harm or failure. However, this involvement seems to have a paradoxical effect and is associated with decreased well-being. Some of my prior teams have examined the outcomes of helicopter parenting in emerging adults such as anxiety, depressive symptoms, satisfaction with life, prosocial behaviors, growth mindset, academic burn out, and eating disorders. I am interested in following up some of these topics as well as examining different outcomes that have not been explored in the literature. The final project pursued will depend on the research interests of members of the team. Whatever the final topic, I am interested in working on applied issues related to well-being that have practical applications. My research team will be involved in designing the study as well as developing data collection instruments, collecting data, analyzing data, as well as
writing reports and making presentations to summarize the findings. Depending on the outcome of the study, we may also submit the results of our investigations for presentation at a national conference or publication in an appropriate journal. If you have questions or are interested in learning more about these projects, stop by my office (Mercer 329) or send me an e-mail (hschiffr@umw.edu).