Andrew Sage ‘08 masterminded a series of thefts his senior year at Linfield. Sage, now a graduate student at Western Illinois University, directed students to steal a cell phone and deceive an interviewer. The thefts were part of a collaborative research project on deception and lying he conducted with Kay Livesay, associate professor of psychology

Linfield Magazine Staff

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Andrew Sage ‘08 masterminded a series of thefts his senior year at Linfield. Sage, now a graduate student at Western Illinois University, directed students to steal a cell phone and deceive an interviewer. The thefts were part of a collaborative research project on deception and lying he conducted with Kay Livesay, associate professor of psychology

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Linfield Magazine Volume 5 Number 2 Fall 2008 Article 6 Fall 2008 Moments Pinpoint Students' Paths Linfield Magazine Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine Recommended Citation Linfield Magazine Staff (2008) "Moments Pinpoint Students' Paths," Linfield Magazine: Vol. 5 : No. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine/vol5/iss2/6 This article is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@linfield.edu. F  A  L  L    2  0  0  8   -   1 11 0   -   L  I  N  F  I  E  L  D    M  A  G  A  Z  I  N  EAs a Linfield student, Carrie (Blomquist) Ericksen ’03 collaborated with Gilden to study bias blindspot, one aspect of Gilden’s research, after finding unanswered ques-tions in reading.“That was the catalyst,” said Ericksen, who won-dered whether individuals benefit from feeling superior to others. (She found they do not.) Ericksen presented her Linfield results at local, regional and national confer-ences and said her research experience was instrumental in launching her graduate studies.“My colleagues were very surprised by how many conferences I’d been exposed to as an undergraduate,” she added. Now pursuing a Ph.D. in the applied social psy-chology program at Loyola University, Ericksen works as a study director at Calder LaTour, a market research and strategy development firm.Whatever the field, the undergraduate research ex-perience is essential as students apply to graduate school. “It opens up a lot of doors,” Bakner said. He found an interest in biopsychology before he knew the field ex-isted, after seeing the effects of his grandmother’s stroke. “I saw how radically that injury changed her emo-tions, memory and language expression,” he said. As a sophomore at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, he took a physiological psychology class and realized, “This is exactly what I’m interested in, the mix of behav-ior and the careful science that informs where behaviors come from.”Discovering knowledge As questions become ideas, and ideas become research projects, students start to find answers. They detail their results in research papers, which ultimately are presented alongside those of graduate students and faculty professionals in the form of posters, articles and talks at local, regional and national conferences. “Their projects often parallel work submitted by graduate students at national meetings,” Bakner said. Students are creating knowledge. Rather than summarizing existing work, they are adding to the body of research that is already out there. And perhaps more importantly, Gilden said, students are strengthening the scientific community.  “We are training future scientists,” he said. “These are students who will go to graduate school and beyond and make very real contributions to the storehouse of hu-man knowledge.” And as they satisfy their own curiosities, students are part of a larger movement. “Our hope is this data is contributing a small piece to the psychology community,” Sage said of his research on deception and lying. “This is just one small piece of the puzzle.”– Laura DavisAndrew Sage ‘08 masterminded a series of thefts his senior year at Linfield.  Sage, now a graduate student at Western Illinois University, directed students to steal a cell phone and de-ceive an interviewer. The thefts were part of a collabora-tive research project on deception and lying he conducted with Kay Livesay, associate professor of psychology.  During the interviews, student volunteers were asked to incorporate four nonverbal cues into their re-sponses – fidgeting, hand movements, leg movements and shifty eyes. If they could successfully mislead the inter-viewer about the theft, they earned $20.  “That got them motivated to lie,” said Sage with a smile. “We found that when we incorporated the ly-ing cues, participants were twice as likely to think that a truthful statement was a lie.”  The research project was ideal for Sage, a member of the National Guard who hopes eventually to work for the CIA. “I learned that eye witness testimonies are highly inaccurate, though they are heavily relied upon by law of-ficials,” he said.Emily Young ’05 spent nearly every day of her senior year in the psychology rat lab – and her successful experiment made it all worthwhile. After stumbling upon research about drug inter-actions, she wondered, “Why are cocaine and alcohol so commonly co-abused?” and decided to find out. She designed a research experiment with rats looking at the effects of these drugs when given alone and in combi-nation. “It was one of the coolest things I’d done at Lin-field,” she said. “It actually worked. It was exciting to get results right away, especially as an undergraduate.” As a research assistant at Oregon Health and Science University, Young is now conducting alcohol research with mice and plans to pursue a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience.Brenda Gehrke ’99 remembers the  semester that set her life’s path.  As a Linfield junior, Gehrke developed an interest in brain injury and jumped at the chance to take part in research with Lee Bakner, professor of psychology. At that time, she was one of the few students doing research at Linfield. “It was one-on-one research and I took part in ev-ery step of the process,” said Gehrke, who went on to earn a Ph.D. in biopsychology from the University of Ken-tucky. “It gave me a good foundation and prepared me for graduate school.” Now a pharmacologist with the Food and Drug Ad-ministration, she evaluates the safety of oncology drugs.A favorite part of research for Amanda Struthers ’04 is presenting it to groups  of people, a practice she started while a  student at Linfield.  “It can spur great questions and conversations, which is the exciting part,” said Struthers, a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska conducting nicotine cessation research. Fascinated by the physiological and psychologi-cal factors that play into drug dependence, she studies the underlying neural mechanisms involved in nicotine dependence. In the future, Struthers hopes to teach at a small, liberal arts institution like Linfield. “I loved my ex-perience – getting to know my professors and having the liberal arts perspective,” she said. “I want to be part of that at the teaching level.”Amanda Struthers ’04, a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska conducting nicotine cessation research, said the broad Linfield program allowed her a taste of the different divisions of psychology.Moments pinpoint students’ pathsEmily Young ‘05

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