Professor of Psychology Miriam Liss recently presented a poster entitled “The dark side of romance: Romantic beliefs predict intimate partner violence” at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, Calif. with her collaborators Mindy Erchull, Hester Godfrey ’14, Leanna Papp ’14, and Lauren Waaland-Kreutzer ’14.
Erchull and Colleagues Present Research at Convention
Associate Professor of Psychology Mindy Erchull recently presented a number of posters at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco. She presented “Women’s experiences of sexual objectification and justifying beliefs predict fear of rape and rape avoidance behavior” with Leanna Papp ’14. She presented “Is everybody doing it? Sex in the college freshman male population” with Alexandra Zelin ’11. She also presented “Exploring the sexual double standard through ‘slut-shaming’ on Facebook” with her colleagues Miriam Liss, Leanna Papp ’14, Michelle Gnoleba ’13, Charlotte Haggerman ’14, Caitlin Robertson ’13, and Haley Miles-McLean ’13.
UMW Student Wins Virginia Psychological Association Award
University of Mary Washington senior Leanna Papp has been named the winner of the Frederick B. Rowe Award for an outstanding paper at the Virginia Psychological Association conference.
Papp received the award for her paper “Looking Over Her Shoulder: Women’s Justifying Beliefs and Experiences of Objectification Predict Fear of Rape and Rape Avoidance Tactics.” The work serves as her psychology honors thesis and her women’s and gender studies capstone project with Associate Professor of Psychology Mindy Erchull.
The paper explores the effects of the history of rape and attempted rape, sexual objectification, and justifying beliefs on the fear of rape and rape-avoidant behaviors of women. The results suggest that women’s fear of rape is often more contingent on more subtle factors than obvious trauma, and that rape avoidance behavior may be a more complicated construct than originally hypothesized. In 2013, Papp received an undergraduate research grant from Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, to begin her project.
“The fact that Leanna sought off-campus grant funding for this project is indicative of her drive and determination to see this project through,” Erchull said. “I look forward to working with her in the coming months to revise her thesis for publication.”
A psychology and women’s and gender studies double major, Papp is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Chi and Mortar Board. She has worked as a writing tutor for the past three years and as a research assistant/lab aide for the Department of History and American Studies since her junior year. She is a founding member of the campus feminist club, and has served as its president.
Recent Study on Jealousy By Mindy Erchull (WAMU)
Erchull Receives Waple Professional Achievement Award
Associate Professor of Psychology Mindy Erchull is the recipient of the 2014 Waple Faculty Professional Achievement Award. The award, which was announced during the General Faculty Meeting on April 23, was established in honor of Shirly van Epps Waple and is in its second year.
Based on faculty nominations, this award recognizes Erchull’s scholarly, creative and professional achievements.
Mindy Erchull Awarded the Florence L. Denmark Faculty Advisor Award
The UMW Psi Chi officers surprised Mindy Erchull during the awards ceremony at the close of the 2014 Psi Chi Symposium when they announced that she had just been awarded the Florence L. Denmark Faculty Advisor Award by Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology. This award recognizes Erchull as the one faculty advisor for the 2013-14 academic year who best achieves Psi Chi’s purpose. This year’s officers nominated Erchull because they felt she well exemplified the criteria of ongoing service to the chapter while being motivating to members and having made contributions to the field of psychology at both local and national levels. The award will be presented to Erchull at the American Psychological Association convention in August.
Erchull & Liss Publish in Gender Issues
Dr. Mindy Erchull, associate professor of psychology, and Dr. Miriam Liss, professor of psychology, have published a paper in the journal Gender Issues. The paper is entitled “Exploring the Concept of Perceived Female Sexual Empowerment: Development and Validation of the Sex is Power Scale”.
This paper is comprised of a series of three studies detailing the development of the Sex is Power Scale (SIPS). This measure can be used to assess whether women view their sexuality as a source of personal power as well as whether they believe that women in general use sexuality as a source of power over men.
Erchull and Liss Publish Paper
Dr. Mindy Erchull and Dr. Miriam Liss have published a paper in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, now available through early online publication, entitled: Feminists who flaunt it: Exploring the enjoyment of sexualization among young feminist women.
They found that, among self-identified feminist women, enjoying sexualization was related to a mix of traditional and feminist beliefs. Feminists who reported enjoying sexualization felt empowered but were less likely to notice personal experiences of injustice or continued gender inequity.
Erchull and Liss Publish Paper with Former Student
Dr. Mindy Erchull and Dr. Miriam Liss, along with a former student Stephanie Lichiello, recently had a paper titled “Extending the Negative Consequences of Media Internalization and Self-Objectification to Dissociation and Self-Harm” published in the October online first edition of the journal Sex Roles. Our findings suggest that self-harm and dissociation, both outcomes associated with the literature on trauma, are related to self-objectification and media internalization. We suggested that objectification could be considered a form of insidious trauma or microaggression.
Liss and Erchull Publish in Psychology of Women
Miriam Liss, professor of psychology, and Mindy Erchull, associate professor of psychology, published a paper in the September 2013 issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly titled “Differences in Beliefs and Behaivors Between Feminist Actual and Anticipated Mothers.” They found that feminist non-mothers anticipated an egalitarian division of labor but feminist mothers were more likely to do the majority of the household chores and childcare. They also found that young feminist women anticipating motherhood hoping to give their children nontraditional name choices while feminist mothers were more likely to give their children their husbands’ last name.