Inaugural undergraduate psych conference begins tomorrow

The First Annual Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference sponsored by Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology, and the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Association will be held tomorrow in Jordan Hall, starting at 8:30 a.m.

George Slavich, coterminal student in Psychology and Communication, is the founder and executive director of the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference. He says that the conference was his “brainchild.”

After visiting other undergraduate conferences in Santa Clara, San Jose and UCLA, Slavich said he felt “frustrated” because “they had very circumscribed goals.” It was then that he came up with the idea of founding Stanford’s own undergraduate psychology conference. “I decided that Stanford could put on something that was high quality,” Slavich said.

“When I began planning this event back in May of 2000, the goal was to get at least 30 people to attend. It seems that we have blown the doors off of that estimate. Of the 220 registered attendees, 73 are presenters and 147 are spectators. Twenty-seven schools are represented, as well as six states and four countries,” Slavich said.

The conference will allow undergraduate students to present their research projects. Most students will be presenting their honors theses. Students can either present orally, giving 14-minute talks followed by a 5-minute question-and-answer session in seminar size rooms, or they can present their research through poster presentations, which Slavich describes as “a science fair set up in which you summarize your thesis on a large poster.” This option, Slavich said, “gives [students] a chance to interact with more people.”

Junior Adrian Aguilera will be presenting his research at the conference. His paper is entitled “The Effect of Tokenism on the Possible Selves of Stigmatized Individuals.” Aguilera said that he sees the conference as a “reward for people that have been doing research.”

“People that do research usually do it and then stop at that. They usually present to a small group, but this conference will really help to get your stuff out there” said Aguilera.

According to the Undergraduate Psychology Conference Web site, “in addition to giving, and hearing, traditional paper and poster presentations, participants will meet in a small group for lunch with a Stanford professor or graduate student who is currently performing research in the students’ area of interest.”

“The conference will be more of an opportunity to introduce undergraduates to faculty members,” Slavich said. “Most schools don’t have big names, so it is a big deal for them to talk to some of the superstars in psychology. We are lucky to have a well-known psychology department here.”

Slavich added that although part of the conference is about making connections, the other part of it is about “making psychology come alive.”

In addition to undergraduates the conference will also bring in high school students. “A class of talented psychology students from South San Francisco High School will make a surprise presentation,” according to the Undergraduate Psychology Conference web site. “Proceeds from the conference will be donated to a class of underprivileged high school students studying psychology, to be used toward purchasing new academic material.”

The keynote address for the conference will be given by Robert B. Cialdini, Regents’ Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and currently a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Business. Cialdini is the author of more than 125 articles and books, past President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and is a fellow of the American Psychological Society.

The faculty advisers for the conference are psychology Prof. James J. Gross, director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory and psychology Prof. Philip G. Zimbardo, current president of the Western Psychological Association and president-elect of the American Psychological Association.