Kathleen Harring
Provost; Professor of Psychology | Muhlenberg College
Allentown, PA, UNITED STATES
Psychology Professor &Dean of Institutional Assessment and Academic Planning Statistics, Health Psychology, Issues in Public Health
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Biography
Dr. Harring is a social psychologist with a minor in quantitative psychology. After many years as a respected and beloved full time professor in the department, she now serves as the Dean of Institutional Assessment and Academic Planning. Luckily for us, she will continue to teach one course in the Psychology Department each year, including statistics and health psychology.
She writes: As a psychology professor, I teach students how to think more critically about their own and others' behavior. Because there are so many areas and situations where we can apply psychological concepts, we always have new questions to answer and new ideas to examine. I try to share my excitement for psychology with my students and it is quite rewarding when they tell me that they talk about psychological theory and research with their friends and roommates.
Teaching at a small liberal arts college like Muhlenberg gives me the opportunity to get to know my students at a personal level. Our classes are small and many students take more than one course with me. In addition, I usually have several students who work with me as research assistants.
Another plus about teaching at Muhlenberg are my interactions with faculty and students from other disciplines. Having a biology or business major in my health psychology course adds a different perspective and enhances the learning experiences for both the students and me.
Also -- since Muhlenberg places a high priority on excellent teaching -- the faculty spend a great deal of time thinking and talking about teaching. I enjoy being part of a community that places such a high value on undergraduate teaching!
Areas of Expertise (3)
Music and Social Bonding
Preconscious Processing
Gender Studies
Accomplishments (1)
2012-2013 American Council on Education Fellow. (professional)
2012-01-01
2012-2013 American Council on Education Fellow.
Education (2)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.: Ph.D., Social Psychology 1984
Franklin and Marshall College: B.A., Psychology 1980
Affiliations (1)
- Faculty Center for Teaching
Links (1)
Articles (5)
Right hemisphere positivity bias in preconscious processing: Data from five experiments
Current Psychology
2004 ABSTRACT: Using a signal detection paradigm, participants’ sensitivity to emotionally toned stimuli was evaluated in five experiments. A tachistoscope was used to present stimuli to one hemisphere at a time, too rapidly for conscious identification. Pictures, words, and faces were pretested for emotional valence and familiarity...
The relationship of social comparison to rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and affect
Basic and Applied Social Psychology
1990 ABSTRACT: The relationships among symptom severity, symptom exacerbation, negative affect, and social comparison processes were examined among 71 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Social comparisons were operationalized by means of multiple measures derived from ...
Minimal conditions for real groups: Mere categorization or competitive between category behavior
Representative Research in Social Psychology
1987 ABSTRACT: 1. Tested the hypothesis that mere categorization will produce between-category competitiveness if Ss are given information indicating that a belief in between-categories competition is appropriate. In each of 2 experiments this information was conveyed ...
Competition and cooperation between groups and between individuals
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
1985 ABSTRACT: Groups and individuals were compared in two experiments. In the first, two same-sex individuals or two same-sex dyads played 10 trials of a Prisoner's Dilemma matrix game (PDG) for money. Play between individuals was more cooperative and less competitive ...
On the measurement of social orientations in the minimal group paradigm
European Journal of Social Psychology
1983 ABSTRACT: Four procedures for measuring between-group orientations were described and evaluated. These include the procedures developed by Tajfel and his associates, Brewer and Silver, Locksley et al., Ng, and a revised procedure. The revised procedure was ...
Social