UW News

February 21, 2008

At-risk youth, unconscious biases are subjects of psychology lectures

The the third annual Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lecture Series, “Discovery and Healing: Research Serving Humanity,” began last night with a lecture on ethnic minority adolescents by UW’s Ana Mari Cauce and UC Davis’ Rand Conger. The series features UW Psychology Department faculty and international experts sharing research results.

Two more lectures are scheduled:

Feb. 27, The Promise of Prevention for Conduct Problems in At-Risk Youth, by Robert McMahon, UW; and Patrick Tolan, University of Illinois at Chicago. One of the most pressing concerns for child service providers is dealing with youth who engage in problem behaviors such as aggression and delinquency. This lecture will share insight on the promising efforts and continuing limitations in trying to identify and intervene with these conduct problems, as well as explore the development and evaluation of a comprehensive intervention to prevent these problems in school-age youth who are at-risk.

March 5, The Psychology of ‘Blink’: Understanding How our Minds Work Unconsciously, by Anthony Greenwald, UW; and Lisa Cooper, Johns Hopkins. Recent psychological research has revealed widely held unconscious thought patterns that most people would rather not possess. This unconscious mental content, the methods used to extrapolate this data, and the impact of this content on our behavior will be revealed during this lecture. Additionally, research will be shared on how a patient’s race influences patient-physician communication and a physician’s clinical decision-making, as well as efforts to design interventions that can undo these undesired racial/ethnic health-care disparities.

All lectures are from 7 to 9 p.m. in 120 Kane. They are free and open to the public. The series is made possible by a bequest from the late Professor Allen L. Edwards, who taught at the UW from 1944 until his death in 1994. He was an outstanding teacher, researcher and writer, credited with changing the way modern psychological research is done by introducing statistical techniques to the science.