Psychology majors Hailey Connell ’24 and Anna Parkinson ’23 presented their research at the national meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held Feb. 23-25 in Atlanta, GA. With more than 7,500 members, the organization strives to advance the science, teaching, and application of social and personality psychology.
Connell and Parkinson, who were advised by psychology professors Dr. Matthew Weeks and Dr. Jason Haberman, discussed findings from their paper titled “Demonstrating the Ensemble Perception of Social Status.”
“Presenting at a national conference was a great experience. We got to share our work with other students and professors who provided helpful suggestions and gave us important questions to think about. It helped us to form our next research questions and figure out where to go with our future experiments,” said Connell. “Being able to do research over the past year has given me an opportunity to apply what I've learned in my psychology classes to a real project. I’ve had to be creative, organized, and committed in order to solve problems, understand the research materials, and create the next steps for our area of study. I have grown to appreciate the research process and the importance of social psychology. The skills I have gained will help me through the rest of my educational career.”