Psychology

Related Student Organizations

Animal Behavior Club

Bucknell Researchers, Advocates and Investigators in Neuroscience (BRAIN)

Psi Chi (psychology honor society)

Psychology Club

Career Paths

A significant number of psychology majors become psychologists, delivering clinical services or teaching and doing research at other colleges and universities. However, the careers entered by former majors are extremely varied, as the following examples illustrate. Recent alumni have secured this sampling of positions:

• Counselor, Neighborhood Childcare Center
• Editorial Assistant, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Human Resources Specialist, Marsh USA, Inc.
• Litigation Legal Assistant, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
• Paralegal, Stroock, Stroock & Lavan
• Teacher, Teach for America

Selected Faculty Publications

Recent faculty scholarship has appeared in:

Advancing Women in Leadership Journal

American Journal of Primatology

Brain and Cognition

Developmental Psychopathology

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Journal of American College Health

Journal of Evolutionary Psychology

Physiology and Behavior

Psychobiology

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Study Abroad

Psychology students often choose to spend a summer, semester or year abroad. Recently, students in the program have studied in:

• South Africa
• Barbados
• Prague

Additionally, Professor Bill Flack is co-director of Bucknell in Northern Ireland, a three-and-ahalf week program for students interested in studying social conflict and peace-building.

Facilities & Resources

• The animal lab facility supports student research in animal behavior. Students can conduct projects using honeybees, and several species of primates, including Hamadryas baboons, macaques and capuchins.
• Research also is conducted using golden hamsters and rats.
• Some courses or research projects also make use of off-campus facilities, including schools and retirement communities.
• Abnormal psychology courses allow students to interact informally with patients at Danville State Psychiatric Hospital. Some students conduct research at the hospital. This experience increases understanding of psychiatric illness and the sometimes fuzzy boundary between normal and abnormal behaviors.
• Students enrolled in developmental psychology courses gain hands-on experience and can conduct research with children aged six weeks to six years at the on-site Sunflower Child Care Center.
• Students conduct research in the human research labs on a variety of topics in perception, cognition, personality and social psychology.

Graduate and Professional School

The study of psychology prepares students to enter graduate programs in psychology, medicine, law and business, among other fields. Students who elect to continue their education enter highly regarded programs, such as those at Harvard, Michigan, Toronto, UCLA and Yale. Recently, alumni have gone on to:

• Columbia University
• Northeastern University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Cornell University
• University of Maryland

Program Details

• Bucknell’s psychology major leads to a Bachelor of Arts degree. It is designed to provide a broad education in traditional areas of psychological experimentation and theory, along with opportunities for more advanced studies of topics with special appeal to individual students.
• The program offers minors in cognitive and perceptual science and neuropsychology.
• Psychology majors learn critical thinking, scientific reasoning, writing and quantitative analysis.
• Students grow to understand and conduct studies of the mind and behavior of a variety of species from multiple theoretical and practical perspectives.

Faculty

Chris J. Boyatzis
B.A. Boston; M.S., Ph.D. Brandeis
Scholarly interests: developmental psychology, religious and spiritual development

Kimberly A. Daubman
B.A. Nebraska; Ph.D. Maryland
Scholarly interests: social psychology, role of gender in selfconcept

David W. Evans
B.A.Westfield State College; M.A. Tufts; Ph.D. Boston
Scholarly interests: developmental psychopathology, comparison of children’s normal rituals, habits, and compulsions to obsessive compulsive disorder

William F. Flack Jr.
B.A. Maine; Ph.D. Clark
Scholarly interests: clinical psychology, emotion, nonverbal communication, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia

Andrea R. Halpern
B.A. Brandeis; Ph.D. Stanford
Scholarly interests: cognition, imagining and remembering nonverbal material such as music, cognitive aging, neural correlates of memory and imagery

Peter G. Judge
B.A. Bucknell; Ph.D. Georgia
Scholarly interests: animal behavior, cognition, and conflict resolution in nonhuman primates

Kevin P. Myers
B.S. Scranton; M.A., Ph.D. Duke
Scholarly interests: learning, appetite and food preferences

John T. Ptacek
B.A.Willamette; M.S., Ph.D. University of Washington
Scholarly interests: personality, adjustments to stress, coping, and support in couples, the communication of bad news

Ruth Tincoff
B.A.Wayne State University; M.A. and Ph.D. Johns Hopkins
Scholarly interests: identification of words in spoken language by infant; broader interests in language, infant development, animal communication and how humans learn new information

T. Joel Wade
B.A. East Carolina; M.A., Ph.D. University of North Carolina.
Scholarly interests: Social psychology, evolutionary theory in relation to the correlates of attractiveness and mate attraction

Undergraduate Research

Bucknell students can collaborate with faculty on research within many areas of psychology, including those of animal behavior, development, developmental or adult psychopathology, human cognition, learning, neuroscience, personality, sensation and perception and social psychology. Recently, students have worked on the following sampling of independent projects with faculty mentors:

• Individual Differences in Auditory Imagery
• Functional Semantics and Vocal Complexity in Canis and Vulpes
• The Terrible Twos and Compulsive-Like Behavior in Typical Children

Courses Offered

Students take a broad assortment of classes in psychology that expose them to many levels of analysis, ranging from biological causes to cultural influences on behavior.

Abnormal Psychology
Advanced Abnormal Psychology
Advanced Developmental
Psychology
Advanced Perception
Advanced Personality Theory
Advanced Social Psychology
Analysis of Psychological Data
Animal Behavior
Appetite and Eating Behavior
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Animal Behavior
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Emotion
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Learning
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Personality
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Sensation and Perception
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Abnormal Psychology
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Human Cognition
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Developmental Psychology
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Health Psychology
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Physiological Psychology
Applied Research Methods Seminar: Social Psychology
Black Psychology
Cognitive Aging
Community Organizations of Northern Ireland
Comparative Animal Cognition
Culture and Child Development
Developmental Psychology
Developmental Psychopathology
Emotion
General Psychology
Health Psychology
History of Psychology
Honors Thesis
Human Cognition
Human Neuropsychology
Introduction to Sports Psychology
Language Development
Learning
Neural Plasticity
Personality Psychology
Physiological Psychology
Primate Behavior and Ecology
Psychology of Beauty and Attraction
Psychology of Health and Adjustment
Psychological Statistics
Psychology Capstone
Psychology of Music
Psychology of Race and Gender
Psychology of Women
Sectarian Conflict in Northern Ireland
Sensation and Perception
Social Psychology
Topics in Psychology
Undergraduate Research

Internships

Psychology students can gain career experience through summer internships. Recently, students have been interns at:

• Brown Brothers Harriman
• KidTherapy
• The National Ability Center

Quick Facts

Number of full-time faculty: 13

Average number of majors per class year: 68