Psychology Club thanks all of the donors who have supported us so far. Thank you so much for helping us continue to work towards our goal of getting psychology students to MPA in April. With the last day to submit research for MPA fast approaching, the club exec team thought it was beneficial to hear about what some of us will be bringing and presenting at MPA. 

Lydia Harders - President

Lydia's project investigates autobiographical narratives of individuals and their mental health challenges. This will provide further insight into the factors that shape decisions related to help-seeking. She aims to investigate whether the ways people describe their mental health story before receiving treatment, specifically through themes of achievement and emotional expression, relate to their future help-seeking decisions. 

She will be presenting her honors capstone project with Dr. Kristi Costabile as her advisor. Dr. Kristi is the director of the Social Cognition and Perception Lab. Lydia is interested in this research because it closely aligns with her future goals in social work, particularly supporting individuals navigating mental and physical health challenges.

Jaclyn Smith - Fundraising Chair

Jaclyn is in the Applied Cognition Lab at Iowa State, which focuses on interviewing and interrogation. She works alongside her lab director, Dr. Meissner, and graduate students. Jaclyn is interested in this area because she likes the science behind interrogations and dealing with the interworking's of it all. She is currently working on the possibility of taking research related to this to MPA with the help of her lab director and graduate students.

Sydney McIntosh - Club Community Chair

My research is under my McNair Scholar independent project where I am working with Dr. Han Na Lee and her graduate student Jaisy Lau. I am going to be focusing on how anti-DEI initiatives at a predominantly white institution (PWI) affects ethnic minority mental health. Specifically, I will be looking at perceived stress, perceived sense of belonging, and perceived climate of campus diversity. I am interested in this research area because Iowa is currently a state where anti-DEI initiatives in higher education have been successfully implemented.

Lucy Menssen - Club Outreach Chair

I am in Dr. Marsee's Adolescents and Delinquency Lab. The project I am working on currently is Online Trends Among Students. We are looking at comparisons of online delinquency and traditional delinquency. Some of the specific questions tied to this topic include how frequently online delinquency is reported compared to general delinquency and is age of onset different for online versus general delinquency.

Thank you so much to all of the donors who have generously given to Psychology Club over the last few days. Our club really appreciates your support in sending Psychology Club members to MPA to help them build their knowledge of research, have chances to talk with professionals in various fields, and continue to grow their passion for psychological research! Over the last few weeks, the executive team has been working very hard on implementing new fun and educational activities and meetings for students to attend.

First off, on Tuesday October 7th, Psychology Club exec members went and supported Dr. Tess Neal at her talk over 'Insanity Cases That Shaped Popular Culture'. This is a new True Crime Lecture series at Iowa State that will continue throughout this semester. Dr. Neal did an amazing job at showing the audience how the insanity defense came to be in our justice system and how differently it is portrayed in fantasy movies versus real cases. We all loved getting to hear about this topic and learn from Dr. Neal's extensive expertise in the subject!

On Wednesday, we had our third Psychology Club meeting of the semester and with class registration just around the corner, we decided to have a 'Spill the Tea' meeting for all of the classes that a Psychology major could be interested in taking in the Spring. The whole exec team, as well as our club faculty advisor and academic advisor, were able to talk to students about what different classes entail, the material that each class covers, and what classes are needed as a Psychology major. It was a really great turn out; we were so happy to see everyone there and we even got to partner with Psi Chi for this meeting!

Please continue to follow our weekly updates on this platform for more information on what our club is up to or add us on Instagram @psychclubisu! Thank you again for everyone who donated, the exec team and all of the club members sincerely thank you for your donations!