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October 09, 2006
my psychology heritage...
so, i'm working on this academic genealogy project. it requires me to find out about my advisor, her advisor, her advisor's advisor and so on...
guys, in terms of family trees, mine's gotta be a red oak :) well, in my little branch of psychology, i come from some giants. and i'm pretty proud of these folks, so i'm going to tell you about them...
so, my academic great-grandfather is bob zajonc (pronounced sci-ance). he came from poland during world war II and finished his education in the united states. social psychology was just beginning to flourish in the u.s. at this time because of the crazy conflicts that the world was facing at that time.
anyway, this guy came up with all these foundational concepts like the mere exposure effect (the more you are exposed to something, the more you like it). he's also studied all these relationships between birth order and scores on tests like the SAT. he found oldest kids do better because they benefit from tutoring the younger kids throughout the years.
he's done a ton of other work as well.
my academic grandmother is hazel markus. this is one cool lady! originally from london, she did her undergrad in california and then came to michigan (oh, bob's schooling was at michigan as well). balancing academia and family, she did a ton of work on the self. but, of course, i love her and know best her work on cultural constructions of the self. she was the co-author on one of the foundational papers in that area.
and as cool as these guys are, you guys know that i can't say enough good things about my advisor, susan cross. she originally went to school for horticulture, then got her masters in higher education and worked for intervarsity ministries. after that, she heard about social psych and felt like that's what God had for her. she wasn't sure where to go so she emailed david myers (any of you taken an intro level psych course? look at your book. he probably wrote it. and he's a Christian.). he said michigan's the best, so off she went.
she did a lot of work on the self as well and through a lot of it, came into the realm of cultural psychology. i honestly don't know how this woman does it all! she and her husband are both professors and yet they manage to raise their two little boys, be REALLY involved in service to the academic community, and stay actively involved in ministry.
anyway, i know most of you will skip this post, but i don't get to tell many of you about what goes on in my school world, but it is so sweet and i'm excited about what these people have accomplished. haha, i'm not usually a "where did i come from?" person, but this project has been fun.
i'm excited to know that such quality students, researchers, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers have helped shape my academic career.
okay, that's all :)
Posted by Autumn at October 9, 2006 12:57 PM