Passing of Bob Zajonc

I have just received the following message from Shinobu Kitayama:

Hi friends,

I have to bring you very sad news. Bob Zajonc -- Hazel Markus's husband and a renowned psychologist -- passed away early in the morning yesterday... Bob was a great psychologist and a very generous and wonderful person. He is being missed by everybody.

Simply put, Bob Zajonc was a mainstay of Michigan social psychology for nearly half a century. After receiving his Ph.D. at UM in 1955, he stayed there for nearly another 40 years as a professor.

There are several ways to measure a scholar's productivity and impact on his or her academic field, such as awards or articles in major journals such as Psychological Review, of which Bob had plenty. I have my own way of conveying Bob's impact.

For readers who are not statistical experts, a meta-analysis is an exercise where one rounds up as many studies as he or she can find on the same basic research question (often 100 or more studies) and then computes the average magnitude of the phenomenon. There are at least two published meta-analyses on lines of research that Bob either initiated or advanced, thus showing his role in inspiring others to study particular questions:

Bond, C. F., & Titus, L. J. (1983). Social facilitation: A meta-analysis of 241 studies. Psychological Bulletin, 94, 265-292.

Bornstein, R. F. (1989). Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research, 1968-1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 265-289.

A biographical sketch from the Foundation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sciences is available here (from which I borrowed the photo). Also, on February 13, 2004, I wrote a profile of Bob (click here for February 2004 archive, then scroll down).

In my view, Bob's productivity as a scholar was equalled only by his kindness and generosity to people in the Michigan social psychology program. Several times, Bob and Hazel opened their home to the department for receptions. Even though I never worked on any research projects with him, Bob was always very encouraging when he would hear of a project of mine that he found interesting.

UPDATE: The New York Times has published this obituary on Bob.

Visiting with Rick Larrick

In mid-November, I caught up with Rick Larrick, with whom I shared an office in the UM's Institute for Social Research when we were grad students nearly 20 years ago. Rick and I (along with Steve Fein) also did some research at Michigan on temperature and aggression in baseball (here and here).


The occasion for our recent meeting was a one-day preconference of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, held at the University of Chicago's downtown Gleacher Center. Shown in the collage with the picture of Rick (right) and me are some of Chicago's famous buildings, all just a short walk from the conference location.

It was a homecoming of sorts for Rick, as he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago's Business School (located on the main, Hyde Park, campus) from 1993-2001, before moving to Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Rick spoke at the preconference on his "MPG Illusion" research, which has gotten a lot of attention.

My presence at the preconference was largely accidental. I was coming to Chicago for my niece's Bat Mitzvah, when I realized the SJDM event was going on and that I could fit it into my schedule (with my sister's permission!).

Remembering Drake's Sandwich Shop

A while back, the Michigan Alumnus magazine invited reminiscences on Drake's Sandwich Shop, the longtime campus-area hangout that closed in the 1990s. I sent in a blurb and, while I don't believe it got published in the paper copy of the publication, it was included in this online version, along with lots of other people's recollections.

Visiting with Jean Twenge

While in Los Angeles about a week ago, visiting my family and my undergraduate alma mater UCLA, I was pleased to be able to attend a talk there by Jean Twenge, a fellow Michigan psychology Ph.D. Jean, who went through the UM program about a decade after I did, has been on the faculty at San Diego State for several years and thus is only a couple hours down the road from L.A.



I've also written a song about Jean and her research.

Yost Ice Arena Remains College Hockey Mecca

Earlier this month, USA Today published an extensive profile of Yost Ice Arena, where some of my fellow students and I enjoyed many an evening rooting on the Michigan Wolverine hockey team. As the article notes, longtime UM coach -- and former NHL great -- Red Berenson took over the reins in 1984; that is the same year my graduate-school cohort arrived.

Hazel Markus Wins Major APA Award

Hazel Markus, who spent roughly a quarter-century at the University of Michigan as a graduate student and then social psychology professor before moving to Stanford, has been named as a 2008 Distinguished Scientific Contribution award recipient from the American Psychological Association. This designation is a highly prestigious honor that is bestowed upon only three individuals per year (see here for a list of all-time winners). Congratulations to Hazel!

Greg Diamond Updates Friends on His Goings-On

Greg Diamond, the social scientist-turned-lawyer who went through Michigan's social-psych graduate program with my cohort, recently released a year-end "newsletter" about what's going on in his life. With his permission, I am providing a link to it (click here).

Jon Krosnick Testifies Before Congress

I was channel-surfing with my TV remote last night, when I came across a televised Congressional hearing on C-SPAN. One of the witnesses was Stanford professor Jon Krosnick, with whom I overlapped a year in the social psych graduate program at Michigan, and with whom I've stayed in touch over the years in regard to issues of survey methodology.

It was in that methodologist's capacity that Jon helped with NASA’s National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS), and he was testifying before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology. What NASA probably brings to most people's minds is space travel, but the hearing had to do with pilots and safety in commercial aviation (as best I could tell). I guess airlines fall within the "Aeronautics" portion of NASA's title.

Here's a picture of Jon testifying, which I "borrowed" from the Committee's website (the original picture was very small, so this enlarged version is pretty fuzzy).


The most interesting part of the hearing, to me, came when Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL), holder of a Ph.D. in political science from Duke, mentioned during his time for questioning that he had taken a social psychology methods workshop from Jon, while the latter was on the faculty at Ohio State.

A transcript of Jon's testimony is available here.

Joe Veroff Dead at 77

I have just learned of the passing of UM psychology professor Joe Veroff, at the age of 77; his death occurred on September 30. An obituary appeared in the University Record, in which it is noted that, "A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. [Eastern] Nov. 24 in 1324 East Hall."

Joe's kind, gentle spirit is what I remember most. I, as well as countless other social and developmental psychology students over the years, took Joe's social-psychology core course on socialization and lifespan development (co-taught with the late Libby Douvan). As per Joe's tradition, the final day of class was a luncheon at his home. For my cohort, this event took place in May 1985. I was reminded of that by this portion of the obituary:

"It is hard to pass the old Veroff house on Granger without thinking of the many casual get-togethers for faculty and students, replete with wonderful home-cooked dishes, engaging conversation and good company that he and Jody provided for scores of scholars over the years," said Toni Antonucci...

Joe and his collaborators (and other Michigan faculty, too) were practitioners of the survey method, which I found to be a nice complement to the seeming emphasis at UM and in other social-psych programs on laboratory experimentation. Again, from the obituary:

With Elizabeth Douvan and Richard Kulka, Veroff co-authored two influential books based on findings from two nationally representative ISR surveys on these topics: "The Inner American: A Self-Portrait from 1957 to 1976" and "Mental Health in America: Patterns of Help-Seeking from 1957 to 1976."

Right around the time my graduate-student contemporaries arrived at UM in the early-mid 1980s, Joe and colleagues were beginning to launch the Early Years of Marriage Study, which continues to this day. Back on June 25, 2004, I wrote about Joe and the marriage study (June 2004 archive).

I'm sure many in the Michigan and broader psychology communities join me in expressing condolences and best wishes to Joe's family, friends, and colleagues.

Visiting with Paula Niedenthal

In mid-July, I caught up with my UM social-psych graduate-school classmate Paula Niedenthal (we overlapped three years in Ann Arbor, with Paula finishing her Ph.D. in 1987 and me in 1989). Our recent meeting occurred in Madison, Wisconsin, where each of us has been visiting at the University of Wisconsin, Paula for the past year in psychology and me in Human Development and Family Studies, teaching a four-week summer course.


Paula, who has been a faculty member for several years at Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, France, was an undergrad at Wisconsin, before moving on to Ann Arbor for grad school. To this day, she remains an enthusiastic ambassador for all things Badger-related.

A larger photo collection from my Madison visit is available here.

Visiting with Tom Nelson

A little over a week ago, I was at The Ohio State University, attending the second biennial U.S. Conference on Teaching Statistics. While there, I was able to visit with Tom Nelson, who partly overlapped with me during our graduate training in social psychology at Michigan.

Since 1992, Tom has been on the faculty in political science at OSU, focusing on the kinds of topics one would expect from a social psychologist -- attitudes, public opinion, and methodology. In fact, Tom is a leading figure in the hybrid field of "political psychology."

Like Tom, I have a faculty appointment outside of a psychology department (in my case, human development and family studies). As I've discussed with various people over the years, social psychology is an excellent discipline in which to receive training, as the social/behavioral theories and methodological/statistical techniques one learns can be applied across a variety of disciplines.

Here's a photo from our recent visit, taken in Tom's office. He just happened to have his U of M diploma laying around, so we included it in the picture.

Shaking Things Up a Bit on "Michigan Thursday"

As I wrote about in my March 4, 2004 entry (March 2004 archives), since I first arrived as a faculty member at Texas Tech University in 1997, I have carried on my own "tradition" called Michigan Thursday, in which I wear U of M garb every Thursday. Michigan Thursday complements the pre-existing Texas Tech tradition of faculty and staff members wearing the school colors of red and black every Friday. Thus, with me, Michigan Thursday leads into Texas Tech Red & Black Friday.

In the fall of 2005, upon completion of her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, an attachment theory scholar named Kazuko Behrens joined our faculty at Texas Tech. A Golden Bear through and through, Kazuko became the first (and thus far, only) Texas Tech faculty colleague to join me in the weekly use of garments to display spirit for our alma maters. In Kazuko's case, we have Cal Thursday.

The first (or sometimes second) Thursday of every month, my department has its regular faculty meeting. On May 10, we had our final meeting of the academic year. In anticipation of this final meeting, Kazuko and I decided to throw our colleagues a curve-ball, of sorts, by switching our school garb. Neither of us has any official affiliation with the opposite school. I wore a Cal shirt (which I had picked up on a previous visit to the Berkeley campus) and I loaned Kazuko one of my Michigan ones. We were pleased to see our colleagues discover the switch very quickly.

The picture below shows us at the faculty meeting. Notice, also, the matching pens we're holding (me, a Cal pen, and Kazuko, a Michigan one).

Demise of the Frieze Building on the UM Campus

In recent months, the demolition of the Frieze Building on the University of Michigan campus has been ongoing. As I first learned about and reported here in July 2005 (see monthly archives on the right-hand side of this page, midway down), the Frieze Building will be making way for a new residence hall, North Quad (which will join South, West, and East Quads).

Various online articles and photo essays about the demolition are available. The university has a blog devoted to the Frieze Building, through which you can access a link to the photo essays.

There's also a retrospective exhibit, sporting a title only a punster such as myself could love, "Frieze Frame" (click here and here for further details).

During my years at Michigan in the mid-late 1980s, social work was one of the disciplines housed in the Frieze Building. I used the Social Work Library fairly often, as it was a good source of journal articles on stress and coping, a topic I was studying at the time. Ultimately, however, a splashy new building for the School of Social Work opened several years ago by the corner of South U. and East U.

The Frieze was also home to performing arts disciplines, but new replacement theatrical facilities are in the works, too.

Given the physical size of UM, many faculty, staff, and students probably have had little familiarity with the Frieze Building, even during the years it was hosting academic departments. For some, though, it does carry nostalgia.

Monica Biernat, who obtained all of her degrees at U of M and was a member of the same entering cohort as me in grad school, e-mailed me this reflection in 2005: "I can't believe the Frieze building is coming down -- I used to study there for finals when I was an undergraduate!"

25th Anniversary of Zingerman's Deli

I was just doing some leisurely web browsing, when I decided to check out the latest news that was fit to print at the New York Times. Front and center on the page (the online version, at least, as shown below) was a nice photograph. Was it of a major news event in Washington, DC or in some other major world capital? No. Shown in the photo was none other than Zingerman's delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan.


The occasion for the article appeared to be Zingerman's 25th anniversary, and how the deli and the company's associated businesses are expected to bring in $30 million in revenues this year.

My cohort entered graduate school at U of M in the fall of 1984. As best as I can recall, I was never aware during my years in school there of how new Zingerman's really was, at the time. Perhaps the brick exterior just made it look old. My final two years of grad school (1987-88 and 1988-89), I lived on East Kingsley, just a few blocks east of Zingerman's. I wouldn't say that I frequented the place, but I certainly enjoyed a bagel or a sandwich there from time to time.

Congratulations to everyone at Zingerman's for their accomplishments, longevity, and recognition by the New York Times.

Arthur Schlesinger, Famous Historian Who Spoke at UM, Dead at 89

Arthur Schlesinger, the Harvard (and later, City University of New York) historian and friend of the Kennedy family, died a couple of days ago at the age of 89. Schlesinger spoke at the University of Michigan in, I would guess, 1987 or '88. I attended and, as I recall, fellow social psych grad student Jill Klein, a longtime fan of the Kennedys, went with me.

Schlesinger's UM talk focused on his theory of 30-year cycles in American politics (the ideas of Schlesinger and others who take a similar approach are analyzed here). The Republicans, of course, dominated presidential politics in the 1920s, '50s, and '80s, whereas the Democrats held the White House for most of the 1930s, '60s, and (not known at the time of Schlesinger's appearance) the '90s.

The regular speaking appearances by eminent scholars, writers, public officials, and artists from around the nation and world are, in my view, an important part of the Michigan experience.

Hazel Markus Quoted in New York Times Article

Today's New York Times has an article on the demographic make-up of top American universities' undergraduate student bodies, with a focus on the large percentages of Asian-American students at these institutions ("Little Asia on the Hill," by Timothy Egan). Here is a link to the article; note, however, that you may have to complete the free registration and the article will probably disappear from free access in a few days, anyway. Those of you at universities whose libraries have online subscriptions to LexisNexis might try seeking the article through that option.

Hazel Markus, a social psychology professor at Michigan from 1975-1994 before moving to Stanford, was quoted in the article, as seen in the following excerpt:

Hazel R. Markus lectures on this very subject as a professor of psychology at Stanford and co-director of its Research Institute for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her studies have found that Asian students do approach academics differently. Whether educated in the United States or abroad, she says, they see professors as authority figures to be listened to, not challenged in the back-and-forth Socratic tradition. “You hear some teachers say that the Asian kids get great grades but just sit there and don’t participate,” she says.

One of the main findings of cross-cultural psychology is that Asian cultures tend to be more collectivist, with more of a premium on maintaining harmony within the group, than is the case in the U.S. In the above excerpt, I can see Asian students' stance toward professors as being consistent with preservation of harmony within the classroom. However, such a demeanor may also create the seeming paradox of Asian students being perceived as excessively individualistic.

Getting to Meet Mary Sue Coleman at UM Rose Bowl Rally in L.A. Area

Happy New Year!

Wolverine Nation relocated to southern California this past holiday season, as supporters of the Maize and Blue flocked to see Michigan play in the Rose Bowl football game (the less said about the game, the better).

I'm from Los Angeles and was back home visiting family. I did not go to the game, but my family and I attended a pep rally for the team at the Santa Monica Pier, Sunday, December 31, the day before the game.

I would say there were at least a few thousand Wolverine fans there. Because we were a bit late in arriving, we had to stand off to one side of the stage, behind a huge sea of humanity. Afterwards, however, a couple family members and I walked around the main area where the stage was.

UM President Mary Sue Coleman was in the area, and what looked like a dozen or so students were reacting to her as if she were a rock star, requesting to take photos with her. I waited my turn and got to take a picture with her, too (shown above). There were two points I wanted to convey to her, and did during my brief opportunity:

(1) After introducing myself as a Michigan Ph.D. recipient and current faculty member at Texas Tech University, I noted to her that my president at Texas Tech is her former provost when she was president at the University of Iowa, Jon Whitmore.

(2) In reaction to a statewide ballot proposition passed in November 2006 barring consideration of race/ethnicity (and some other demographic characteristics) in decision-making by Michigan governmental entities, President Coleman had vowed to use all legally available means to maintain a diverse student body at the university. (Many of you will recall that the U.S. Supreme Court had said in 2003 that race-sensitive admissions policies, if properly designed, were constitutional. The Court's opinion only said, however, that such policies were allowable, not required.)

In that context, I told President Coleman that, through my experiences as a social psychology graduate student, I had gotten to know some of the faculty members who would go on to play roles in defending the university's admissions policies at the Supreme Court. I then finished with my encouragement to her to, "keep fighting the good fight on educational diversity."

***

In addition to former football coach Bo Schembechler, about whom I wrote a couple entries ago, the University of Michigan lost another icon recently, former U.S. president Gerald R. Ford. Not only was Ford a UM alunmus; he also played football for the Wolverines. Also, the UM's School of Public Policy was named after Ford a few years ago.

Jacqui Woolley Featured for New Publication

Jacqui Woolley, a Michigan developmental psychology graduate student from the mid-late 1980s and a faculty member at the University of Texas, Austin ever since, just had a recent publication of hers featured in this news release by UT's media service. Congratulations to Jacqui!

Bo Schembechler, Legendary Football Coach, Dead at 77

Glenn E. "Bo" Schembechler, the University of Michigan football coach from 1969-1989, died today at age 77. In one of those bizarre coincidences, Schembechler's passing occurred just one day before the annual Michigan-Ohio State showdown. With the Buckeyes and Wolverines both sporting perfect records coming in -- and ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country, respectively -- some observers are calling tomorrow's game the most significant one of the long series between UM and OSU.

Cranky and "old school," but with a grandfatherly friendliness, Schembechler was -- and always will be -- a UM institution. As noted in the above-linked university tribute to him, Schembechler spoke at the 2005 Michigan commencement (a video is also available). I suspect there are not too many college coaches in any sport who would be invited to speak at a graduation some 15 years after their coaching days were over!

There's a Schembechler Hall on campus, and there was even a reference to him in the 1983 movie "The Big Chill" (see the item toward the bottom of this Big Chill trivia list).

The UM has lost one of its true icons, one who not only made things exciting for Wolverine football fans, but also really connected to the university community as a whole.

James Hilton Moves to UVA

In response to my recent Michigan-Princeton-Waterloo overlap analysis (immediately below the present posting), I received word that longtime UM professor (and Princeton Ph.D.) James Hilton had moved to another university in an information technology (IT) capacity. After a little bit of web searching, I see that he's now at the University of Virginia (news release).*

James joined the Michigan social psych faculty in the Fall 1985 semester (I'm virtually certain of the timing). I entered the graduate program in Fall 1984, and the faculty search/hiring process that yielded James was my first exposure to job talks, meetings with candidates, and other such events. James's research focused on person perception and self-fulfilling prophecies; during his first few years at UM, the graduate students with whom he primarily worked (based on a review of article references) included Steve Fein and Bill von Hippel.

As noted in the above-linked UVa news release, James also left a lasting impression with his teaching. The basic undergraduate social psychology lecture course had several hundred students, with students also attending discussion sections of around 25 for an hour a week. I was a Teaching Assistant for James one semester and, in addition to leading a couple of sections, I attended the lectures.

I would say that within the first 10 minutes of his first lecture of the semester, James had the students in the palm of his hand. His sense of humor -- sardonic, but not acerbic -- was very effective with the students.

For example, in setting the stage for his presentation on the classic social-psychological finding that people prefer to affiliate in anticipation of a stressful event rather than wait alone (see description of the Schachter study toward the bottom of this document), Hilton reminded the class of a common occurrence on exam days.

Almost invariably, it seems, students gather in the hallway before a test, to discuss material from their notes with other students. Why do students show up early? , James asked the class. Was it because they wanted to allow enough travel time in case they blew out a tennis shoe along the way? No, he insisted. It could well be because affiliation with others would help to alleviate the pre-test anxiety.

The UVa news release also mentions that James is returning to what sports fans would identify as "ACC Country," Virginia being close to Hilton's boyhood home of North Carolina. In another of his memorable classroom demonstrations, James once started lecturing in a heavy North Carolina accent, driving home the important person-perception point that the presence or absence of a Southern accent would likely lead people to judge him differently.

Best wishes to James as he begins this new phase of his career!

---
*Hilton returned to the University of Michigan in 2013 as Dean of Libraries.

[The information above about the size of the large lecture courses was edited slightly from an earlier version, for clarity.]