FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 14, 2015, 4:00 p.m. CDT

Contact Jason Hogue, Peru State College Marketing and Communications, 402.872.2429

 
Crete, Nebraska – Peru State College faculty members Dr. Darrin Coe, Dr. Kelli Gardner and Dr. Jim Nevitt took 15 students majoring in psychology to the 2015 Nebraska Psychological Society Undergraduate Conference. The annual conference was held at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska.

Gardner writes, “NPS holds this conference at a different college or university every November, and it provides a small, friendly environment for students to get experiencing delivering both oral and poster presentations.”

Two Peru State College students presented at the conference. Devin Edds is a senior psychology major from Farragut, Iowa. Paige Meyer is a senior psychology and criminal justice major from Elmwood, Nebraska.

Edds developed a poster titled "The Dark Side of Conscientiousness." In this poster, Edds integrated published research about highly conscientious people. Although conscientiousness is generally considered a positive characteristic, some highly conscientious people exhibit perfectionism, which is associated with negative outcomes. Next semester, Edds will be collecting data to help better understand the well being of conscientious people with perfectionist tendencies.

Meyer presented a poster called "Attitudes of Students at Universities." She was interested in how the experience of taking a gender studies course might change students' beliefs about gender roles and endorsement of feminist values.

Meyer found professors from other area colleges and universities who are teaching gender studies courses and got their permission to measure the attitudes of their students at the beginning of the gender studies course and again at the end. Paige will be analyzing her data and writing up her results in the spring.

Dr. Nevitt writes, “The students’ posters showcased the work of Peru State psychology students to the Nebraska psychology community. I am glad we can recognize student work in this way.”

Nevitt adds, “A good time was had by all. We had an extremely interesting keynote speaker during our lunch. Dr. Anne Schutte spoke on how environmental factors play into spatial working memory and executive function.”

Schutte’s presentation was entitled "Let's Take a Walk: The Influence of Natural Environments on Cognitive Functioning.”  She is an Associate Professor of Psychology and works at the Center for Brain Biology and Behavior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The psychology faculty at Peru State College first began taking students to the NPS Undergraduate Conference in 2011.

Devin Edds with with the poster she presented that the conference.

Devin Edds with with the poster she presented that the conference.

Paige Meyer with the poster she presented at the conference.

Paige Meyer with the poster she presented at the conference.

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For more information, visit www.peru.edu or call 1-800-742-4412.

About Peru State College: Peru State’s “Campus of a Thousand Oaks,” an arboretum, is nestled in historic southeast Nebraska. The state’s first college, Peru State offers a unique mix of innovative online and traditional classroom undergraduate and graduate programs, including online graduate degrees in education and organizational management. It is a college of choice fostering excellence and student achievement through engagement in a culture that promotes inquiry, discovery and innovation.