The University of Alabama began a new Ph.D. concentration in Social Psychology in Fall 2006.  We welcome applications from highly qualified entering graduate students.  The deadline for applying to the program is January 15.

The goal of the concentration is to train individuals for a variety of academic and applied settings. Ample research opportunities exist: Areas of emphasis within the social psychology program include media psychology, preventive health attitudes and behaviors, social cognition, implicit social psychology, and the social-clinical interface. Other areas of strength within the department where collaborations are possible include geropsychology, psychology-law, and developmental psychology.  All graduate students in the social psychology concentration complete a supervised practicum in Teaching of Psychology, one component of which is full responsibility for a course in Introduction to Psychology (PY 101). Students also have the opportunity to teach undergraduate Social Psychology (PY 372). 

News

Our new graduate students for Fall 2008 will be Diane Eaton and Abby Evans. Diane is a graduate of the University of North Florida and Abby is a graduate of Indiana University. Diane is interested in the interface of social and clinical psychology and will be working with Jim Hamilton, whereas Abby has interests in attitude change and will be working with Jason Clark. Welcome to UA, Diane and Abby!

Congratulations to Joe Chandler, who won the A&S Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Doctoral Student. This annual prize is given to the top graduate student-instructor in the college. Earlier Joe had won the Paul Siegel Teaching Award as the best graduate student-instructor in the Department of Psychology.

We are excited that Jason Clark and Meara Habashi will join our social psychology faculty in Fall 2008. Dr. Clark will be a tenure-track, Assistant Professor. He received his PhD from Purdue University in 2007 and is currently Visiting Assitant Professor at Indiana University. Jason's research focuses on social information processing. His work to date concerns effortful and biased processing in areas such as persuasion, stereotyping, and impression formation. Among the courses he has taught are Social Psychology, Statistics, Attitudes and Attitude Change, and Social Psychology and Individual Differences.

Meara Habashi will be a Visiting Assistant Professor. She will receive her PhD from Purdue University in May 2008. Meara's research focuses on personality variables in prosocial behavior and she has taught courses in the Psychology of Women and Introduction to Psychology.

Our current graduate students include Nicole Muscanell (Florida State), Marnie Sutton (Alabama, McDaniel College), Brad Okdie (Toledo, Northern Iowa), Cassie Hull (Simpson), Joe Chandler (Birmingham-Southern), Jamie O'Malley (Spring Hill), Aimee Edison (Texas Tech, Alabama), and Kelly Pivik-Kelley (Idaho State).

Please send updates and corrections for the social psychology pages to Steve Prentice-Dunn (sprentic@bama.ua.edu).

Resources

Social Psychology Network (http://socialpsychology.org). Links to over 5,000 psychology-related sites. Additional information may be found on the subject areas of social psychology, as well as journals, electronic forums, teaching resources, and professional profiles of individual social psychologists. Compiled by Scott Plous.

Research Randomizer (http://www.randomizer.org). This web site is designed to assist researchers and students who want an easy way to perform random sampling or assign participants to experimental conditions. Sponsored by the Social Psychology Network.

University of Alabama Institutional Review Board (http://osp.ua.edu/IRB.html). This committee reviews all research with human participants for compliance with federal guidelines on the ethical conduct of research. The site contains instructions and forms for completing a request for approval of a research project as well as information on the ethical principles used to evaluate research.

University of Alabama IRB Reviewer Checklist. UA IRB members use this form when reviewing protocols. The article is in .pdf format .

Online Training Course for Researchers (http://www.research.umn.edu/consent/menu_soc.html). Developed by the University of Minnesota, this course addresses the obligations of investigators who conduct research with human participants. Topics include roles and responsibilities of researchers, guiding ethical principles, federal regulations, informed consent, IRBs, reporting of adverse events, privacy and confidentiality, and historical events that have shaped current policies. A certificate is available upon completion of the course.

All About Grants (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/default.htm). Provides tutorials on National Institutes of Health peer review, funding, and other topics that help new innvestigators plan and write a grant application.

UA Graduate School's Student Guide to Preparing Theses and Dissertations (http://www.graduate.ua.edu/thesis/manual/). Contains information on elements and stylistic requirements.

Ig Nobel Awards (http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html). The Ig Nobel Prizes, presented annually by Harvard, honor scientists whose work "cannot or should not be reproduced. Ten prizes are given to people who have done remarkably goofy things--some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise".