Dr. Bev Wilson from the Department of Graduate Psychology is looking for 1 to 2 student volunteers interested in helping with two different coding projects related to emotions in families.  The first project involves documenting parents’ awareness, acceptance, and regulation of their own and their children’s emotions. This project also looks at how parents coach their children about emotions. This interview, the Meta-emotion interview, was developed by Dr John Gottman. The second project involves watching play interactions between parents and their children and documenting the type and quality of emotions expressed.  We will also document the degree to which parents are able to judge the intensity of their children’s emotional responses and keep their interactions at an appropriate level. In other words, we are investigating whether parents are able to tell when their child is becoming too excited and may cry or otherwise become upset. 

For these coding projects, we are looking for graduate or advanced undergraduate students who:  1) are interested in learning about emotion and family interaction patterns; 2) are doing well in their academic courses (relatively high GPAs), and 3) can commit to working for about 10 hours per week for at least 3 quarters (e.g., spring, summer, and fall). Participating in these coding projects should be very helpful to students applying to graduate school as well as students who plan to work with children and families in their career.  Interested students should apply to Holly Petaja Benson at petajh@spu.edu or (206)281-2628 or Ari Stevens at stevea@spu.edu or (206)281-2628.  Please complete and return the attached application.

 Please note that students are not paid for this experience. Qualified undergraduate students can receive course credit. Juniors and seniors in psychology may be able to earn 3 credits for Research Experience (Psy 2361) by working on this project.   Selected students may also be able to earn credit for Independent Research (4970) after completing one quarter of Psy 2361.