I've just returned from a trip to the West Coast that included a stop at the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) conference in Long Beach, California. Below is a picture of me with Monica Biernat at our poster. As I describe below, our study's subject matter had to do with golf, and I spared no detail in trying to create a golf theme -- the poster itself was supposed to look like a golf course, I brought along a golf club, and all visitors to the poster were given a complimentary golf ball.



Monica and I were in the same entering cohort (Fall 1984) in the social psychology graduate program at Michigan, and we each finished in the summer of 1989. For the last 14 years, Monica has been on the faculty at the University of Kansas; two of her former KU graduate students, Kathy Fuegen and Terri Vescio, were also authors on the poster, but were unable to attend SPSSI.

One of the nice things about this poster is that it is the first collaboration between me and Monica in 15 years, using the official conference or article citation date (the previous one being: Reifman, A., Biernat, M., & Lang, E.L. [1991]. Stress, social support, and health in married professional women with small children. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15, 431-445).

As I discussed a few months ago on this blog, Monica and I were both in Mel Manis's seminar on stereotyping in 1986. Monica has followed through in stereotyping and prejudice research since then, formulating the "shifting standards" model of social judgment (she has also recently come out with a book on the topic, one that would be good for a graduate seminar on social judgment).

I've gone in a few different research directions since grad school (primarily related to adolescent and young adult drinking), but I try to stay informed about the research being conducted by friends and colleagues of mine.

When female golfers Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie started playing in men's pro tournaments a few years ago, I came up with the idea of content analyzing media coverage of these women in men's tournaments, to test for evidence of shifting-standards phenomena. A detailed summary of the project, to this point, is available by clicking here.

Also while at SPSSI, I ran into another UM Ph.D. recipient from my era, Lisa Brown, on whom I can provide an update. After several years in Florida, Lisa is now on the faculty at Austin College, which is in Texas, but not in Austin (rather, it's in Sherman). Here's her faculty homepage, which is quite extensive.