Among the most important resources of a university, faculties play the role of providing academic knowledge and skills to their students. However, teaching is not the only work faculties need to do at Penn State Abington. Faculty also do important research in their fields or provide other services to the college.
Do you have any idea what kind of research your professors are doing? Here are some examples from faculty in psychological and social sciences.
David Huston, assistant professor of sociology, has been doing research in health, gender and inequality through the lens of the body.
Huston’s most recent research is on how pregnancy affects body image. Body image is a psychological term identifying a person’s subjective perception of the body, which could be different from the actual image of the body; in other words, how a person thinks he/she looks.
Forty of 50 pounds of change in nine months could really affect a person’s body image, self-confidence and self-esteem. It’s a radical change in a small period of time.
Huston asked participants questions to see how their body images changed when they put on weight and when they try to lose the weight after they give birth. He interviewed participants by phone or one-on-one meetings, asking 35 to 40 questions, which takes 1.5 hours on average.
With 30 interviews already done, Huston is planning to do 30 more over the next year to make a good data set for analyzing and drawing a conclusion and findings.
“What do you think would be the time a woman tells other people that she’s pregnant?” Huston asked, “What I found surprising so far is that, in general, women don’t tell other people about their pregnancy until they are about 10 to 12 weeks pregnant. It’s because they are afraid of miscarriage, which in general could take place in the first few weeks of pregnancy.”
For his next research project, Huston says he will probably study the body image of young men who are building their bodies.
Meghan Gillen, associate professor of psychology, has been doing research in appearance-related issues, including body image, body modification, and eating behavior.
The recent research of Gillen is about new mothers (after they have given birth) and their health behavior, feeding practices and particularly their body image.
“There is a lot of research focusing on the body image of women during pregnancy, but a lot of body image issues happen after women give birth.”
She does her research by giving online questionnaires. Gillen started this research two years ago. The process of collecting data is done already, which include 500 to 600 participants.
“It is such a large sample to go through the data and clean it up, like calculating the variables. I’m still working on the analysis of the data. I hope to publish at least several papers from this data in the next several years.”
Jacob Benfield, associate professor of psychology, has been doing research in social-environmental psychology, natural and anthropogenic soundscapes.
Recently, Benfield has been using virtual reality (VR) technology to research how environment could influence a person.
Students in the information science technology department, art and media department and psychological and social sciences departments worked with Benfield to build this virtual world.
By changing the light, sound, features, location and time of day, Benfield could see differences in the response of participants.
“Several cool researches could be done by VR technology, like light pollution, sound pollution and safety around animals,” said Benfield. “For example, participants are in the Yellowstone National Park facing a giant bison. The distance between the person and the bison tells if he feels safe enough in wild places. Sometimes, if a person is too close to a bison, I may ask him whether he has a problem estimating distance or doesn’t know the power of a wild beast.”
There are also surprising findings about light pollution in his research. As more lights are building up in a city, fewer stars can be found by human eyes. In VR technology experiments, an original night sky full of shining stars is shown to participants. However, most of them don’t really like the real night sky. “It just doesn’t look natural,” a participant said.
Benfield concluded, “It’s like there is a bottle of clean water and a bottle of brown water in front of you. You choose the brown water and think it’s supposed to be what natural water looks like. People don’t think the natural night sky is natural because they have never seen it before. They are born in a world with light pollution.”
Beth Montemurro, professor of sociology, has been doing research in sexuality and aging, gender and sexuality and culture.
Montemurro has done some interesting research before, like bridal showers and women going to men’s strip clubs.
Recently, Montemurro has been working on a project about how men’s sexuality changes over the course of their life, which is the follow-up project to how women’s sexuality changes. Experiences like marriage, fatherhood, aging and other factors are asked to see whether they impact men’s sexuality.
“What we found in this research is called ‘ready and waiting.’ When men feel ready, they tend to wait for somebody to tell them that they will go along with it.” Montemurro said, “If they are interested in a female, they don’t want to be too aggressive with her. They want to be sure that she is going to be okay with it, so that they won’t be rejected.”
Montemurro said that 94 interviews are already done. This research will be a five-year project.
These examples might provide you with a different view of your psychology and sociology professors. Every professor in every other department has his or her own research and projects to do every semester. If you are an undergraduate student, participating as an assistant in research related to your field will really be helpful for your future career and further education. Abington College Undergraduate Research Activities (ACURA) provides opportunities for undergraduate students who are looking for a chance to participate in research projects such as these.
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