Faculty Research Interests

Except where noted, the professors listed below will collaborate with students on research projects and supervise students' research.  

Heather Adams, Ph.D.  
Identity development; Marginalized populations; Qualitative paradigm. 

Paul Biner, Ph.D.
Control motivation; Industrial/organizational psychology; Training evaluation. 

Darrell Butler, Ph.D.
Cognition (e.g., perception, decision making, critical thinking, problem solving, and computer interfaces). Currently, I am involved in several long term projects: to develop a new, computer-based approach involving concept maps to testing student knowledge, to evaluate the role of multimedia as an effective scaffold of higher cognition, and to explore models of people's beliefs in ideas that research has found are myths. 

Lambert Deckers, Ph.D.
Emotions; Decision making. 

Johnathan Forbey, Ph.D.
Personality assessment and test interpretation issues (primarily with the MMPI); Computerized adaptive testing in personality assessment. 

George Gaither, Ph.D. 
Human sexual behavior; Psychology major student development; Teaching and learning issues in higher education; Trauma and psychopathology. 

Rachel Gentry, Ph.D.
Abuse and trauma; Relational victimization and bullying; Attachment. 

Thomas Holtgraves, Ph.D.
Interpersonal communication processes/psycholinguistics; Personality and information processing; Gambling. 

Mary Kite, Ph.D.
Gender stereotyping and prejudice; Attitudes toward gay men and lesbians; Attitudes toward older adults. 

Linh Littleford, Ph.D.
Diversity and teaching; Privilege and inequality framing; Diversity and ethnic minority issues; Asian/Asian American mental health; Acculturation and ethnic identity; Interpersonal interaction and intergroup anxiety; Professional ethics; Cross-cultural psychotherapy.

David Perkins, Ph.D. 
Community Psychology; Community supports for serious mental illness.  Please note: Dr. Perkins is not currently accepting new graduate students.

Kerri Pickel, Ph.D.
Eyewitness memory (weapon focus, attentional processes, suggestibility, deception); Juror decision making (retracted confessions, inadmissible evidence, integration of evidence). 

Kristin Ritchey, Ph.D. 
Reading comprehension (drawing inferences during reading, the cognitive effects elicited by text signals, designing texts to maximize comprehension and memory); Teaching of psychology (investigating effective teaching methods).

Stephanie Simon-Dack, Ph.D. 
Cognitive neuroscience; The "binding problem" (how the brain processes and integrates information from multiple senses), specifically binding auditory and touch information. 

Michael Tagler, Ph.D.
Attitudes; Sex differences in reactions to infidelity; Theory of planned behavior; Sleep habits. 

John Wallace, Ph.D.
Impact of rating scale appearance on ratings.

Bernard Whitley, Ph.D. 
Individual differences associated with prejudice, especially authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.  Please note: Dr. Whitley is not accepting new graduate students for fall, 2013.