Tag Archives: funding

#StopSkippingClass! The need for social class stories in psychology education

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” yet inequality is at an all-time high in the United States.

Within the field of psychology we continue to perpetuate middle class ideology in terms of clinical practice normed for middle class people, research subject selection, and theory development. Socioeconomic status (SES) as an area of cultural competency lags behind other multicultural areas. The SES literature currently does not even have congruent language for describing SES. Terms such as social economic status, cultural capital, tax bracket, and social prestige–along with others–are used interchangeably to describe and measure a spectrum of social class variables.

Within psychology, we continue to perpetuate middle class ideology.

Empirical issues aside, psychology has many social class issues within its training process. Graduate students have now lost access to their Subsidized Stafford Loans, which pragmatically translates to an $8,500 pay cut for graduate students across the country (prior to 2011, this was the amount allotted to all graduate students for a subsidized loan). Students previously had access to both subsidized and unsubsidized loans and could take out both or either in order to pay for school. Students are now only left with the unsubsidized option, which begins accruing interest the second the loan is taken out.

Students pursuing clinical, counseling, or school psychology continue to take on years of unpaid or underpaid internships and practica while attending school full time. In an era of an internship crisis, the application process has become outrageously expensive with some students spending thousands of dollars between interviewing and relocating. It is reasonable to conclude that those that can afford it are able to apply to more sites, visit more sites, and have in-person interviews, which may be substantively different than ones conducted virtually.

If this was not enough to squeeze psychology grad students, APPIC increased the cost of applying to internship sites this year, a 228% increase for clinical, counseling, or school psychology students applying to 15 potential sites. If you apply to 15 sites ($400) and obtain a match number ($110), you will have spent $510, which does not include travel or other fees. Similar to when affirmative action was struck down in my home state of Michigan, I worry that these financial barriers will continue to exclude individuals from low-income backgrounds from becoming psychologists.

The biggest issue for me as a member of the APA Committee on Socioeconomic Status and former APAGS Regional Advocacy Coordinator is the perpetual silence on this issue from students. The Budget Control Act of 2011 passed with little more than a peep from graduate students across the country.

The biggest issue for is the perpetual silence on this issue from students.

This blog post is an effort to break the silence. As the future of psychology, students need to begin openly discussing social class issues. If you feel strongly, please begin a dialogue about:

  1. Your own social class story/financial difficulties in graduate school.
  2. Clinical stories of how your work is impacted by social class variables.
  3. Discussions of how to incorporate social class into your research.

You can do this by responding to this post, submitting your own story to this blog, or tweeting using the hashtag #StopSkippingClass.

Kipp Pietrantonio
Kipp Pietrantonio

Editor’s Note: This blog was written by Kipp Pietrantonio, Ph.D. Please visit the Committee on Socioeconomic Status to learn more about efforts at APA to raise awareness of SES.

 

 

Education should not be a “debt sentence”

Yesterday, on my fourth day of my high school fellowship in APAGS, I was able to sit in a Senate hearing about student debt and the adversities that come with it. Student debt is at a staggering $1.2 trillion which is highly unacceptable.

APAGS High School Fellow Damani Jasper outside of a Senate hearing on student debt.

APAGS High School Fellow Damani Jasper outside of a Senate hearing on student debt.

At the hearing, a social studies teacher was emphasizing the financial struggles he is trying to overcome; he felt it was already bad enough that the cost of living in Washington, D.C. is so expensive, and now the loans he has to pay back only make his financial situation even worse. While his car loan has a 1.9% interest rate, his student loan interest rates are much higher.  He also stressed his concerns about going into his thirties and not being able to start a family nor buy a house because he has so many student loans to pay back.

If you think that this high school teacher is struggling financially at a median salary of $55,050, then you can only imagine how much psychologists are struggling with more debt and an average salary of $69,280. Depending on the type of graduate degree, 48 to 89% of psychology students will graduate with debt. By the time they graduate, they will owe up to $120,000 if not more. That is a lot for someone who isn’t fully engaged into their career yet.  Over 10 years, that $120,000 becomes $170K, and over 30 years of paying back loans, that becomes $280K (to add insult to injury, the interest rate is approximately 6.8%).

The debt sentence for psychologists can be up to 30 years—which is very overwhelming.

The setbacks that the student loans are bringing to people like this teacher and maybe some psychologists seem as if they are becoming unbearable. I hope that something can be done about the staggering debt of graduates.

My own thinking has led me to offer some possible solutions to reduce student debt:

  • Lowering interest rates to decrease the amount of money that a student will have to pay back. Congress should be proactive in lowering interest rates as well as tackling many other factors that play a role in student debt. I don’t believe it is appropriate for the government to make a profit off of students trying to get an education.
  • Misplaced money in the budget can be used to decrease student debt and even possibly to increase the amount of money that graduate students receive for campus work. (For example, it bothers me that the executive branch of the government plans to spend $640 billion on nuclear weapons that will probably never be used.)

It will be very wise to approach student debt as quickly as possible because it will only get worse with time. Hopefully, the people that make the decisions in our government will quickly do what is right and beneficial.

The cost of education should not be a debt sentence.

The hearing yesterday gave me a lot of insight on problems that I will encounter a decade from now if something isn’t done about student debt. It will cause too much financial stress on me and my family, and reluctance for my family to send the next generation to college, given what it is likely to cost. The cost of education should not be a debt sentence.

Editor’s note: Damani Jasper is a rising senior at a local high school that emphasizes public policy. He aspires to be an orthopedic surgeon. During his fellowship at APA he will be examining student debt and the connections between psychology and physical health.

Research Spotlight: Where are they now?

In order to acknowledge all of the great psychology research APAGS members have conducted recently, we asked our funding recipients to share with us all of the important progress they have been able to accomplish with the support of the of APAGS and the APA Science Student Council (SSC).  

In the upcoming months we will be showcasing outstanding students whose research was made possible with the help of APA and SSC funding. The following students have demonstrated the utmost passion and creativity that APA looks for in its members and we love to see how their personal interests are inspiring the entire psychological science community.

 

spikeleeSpike Lee: Mind over Matter

“My colleagues and I have been exploring a number of quirky effects linking the mind and the body. What we consistently find is that social psychological processes are influenced by incidental bodily experiences that have no more than metaphorical relevance. For example,

  • Literally smelling something fishy makes people suspicious and invest less money in a trust game
  • After doing something unethical with their mouth, people want to rinse their “dirty mouth”; but after doing something unethical with their hands, people want to purify their “dirty hands”
  • People can metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” — an antiseptic wipe is sufficient to eliminate the classic free-choice dissonance effect

In addition, a few years back when swine flu was all over the place, we did a couple of fun studies by walking around town, sneezing and coughing. That was enough to change how people wanted the government to spend a billion dollars. The logic wasn’t new but the effects were surprisingly strong, given that it was “just a sneeze.””

 

Logan Fiorella: Learning by Teaching: The Role of Expectations and ExplanationsLogan Fiorella Bio Pic

It is often said that the best way to learn something new is to teach it to someone else.  My research aimed to explore this idea by testing the relative effects of preparing to teach and actually teaching on short- and long-term learning.

  •  In four experiments, college students studied a multimedia lesson on how a scientific process works with the expectation of later teaching or being tested on the material; some participants actually taught the material, whereas others only studied the lesson.
  •  Participants then completed a comprehension test either immediately or following a one-week delay… when tested following a one-week delay, only participants who actually taught the material experienced better learning outcomes.

These findings suggest that while preparing to teach leads to short-term learning benefits, the act of teaching is critical for long-term learning.

 

Michael Alosco: Where the Heart Is

mike alonso photoEarly research of mine has examined the impact of cognitive function on activities of daily living in older adults with heart failure. Support from APAGS has provided the opportunity to expand upon this line of research to help better understand the association between cognitive function and functional independence in cardiovascular disease patients.

  • For instance, recent work from our team suggest that heart failure patients may be at risk for unsafe driving and treatment non-adherence due to impairments in attention and executive function.
  •  In response to these findings, additional studies from our group have sought to identify possible mechanisms for cognitive impairment in persons with cardiovascular disease using advanced neuroimaging.

These students got authorship and a trip to Hawaii. What are you waiting for?

The saying goes that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Correct! For this prize, write a compelling ethics paper and then you can treat yourself to many delicious lunches.

APAGS and the APA Ethics Committee have teamed up for the 13th time to award a prize to a graduate student whose winning paper successfully examines psychology and ethics.  Applications are due January 3rd.

If you win, you are entitled to

  • $1,000
  • A round trip ticket to our 2014 Convention in Washington, D.C.
    • with free registration
    • three night of hotel accommodations
    • a session to present your paper and receive your award
  • The chance to get your work published in a peer-reviewed journal

Angela Haeny, M.A. from the University of Missouri and Christine Paprocki, M.A. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill were APA’s 2013 winners. Angela wrote a paper on Ethical considerations for psychologists taking a public stance on controversial issues, and Christine wrote on Trainee perspectives on tensions between religious beliefs and affirming treatment of LGBT clients (follow the links to their articles in Ethics and Behavior).

From L-R: Dr. Nabil El-Ghoroury, head of APAGS, stands with winners Ms. Angela Haeny and Ms. Christine Paprocki, and Dr. Steven Behnke, head of the Ethics Office, on the balcony of the APAGS Suite in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Source: APAGS).

From L-R: Dr. Nabil El-Ghoroury, head of APAGS; winners Ms. Angela Haeny and Ms. Christine Paprocki; and Dr. Stephen Behnke, head of the APA Ethics Office. On the balcony of the APAGS Convention Suite in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Source: APAGS).

For an inside track on why you should apply, I spoke recently with Angela and Christine.

Eddy:  Please tell me, how did you arrive at your topics?

Angela:  I have personal interest in being involved in controversial issues and wondered what that might look like as a psychologist in training.

Christine:  My paper dealt with the ethical implications of “values conflicts” in which psychologists or trainees feel that their own beliefs would prevent them from working with a certain type of patient. I wanted to further explore the tricky ethical dilemmas that arise when this occurs within a training context.

Eddy:  What benefits—obvious or not-so-obvious—did you get from being involved in this process?

Christine:  It was a great way to delve into the details of a thorny ethical issue and write a more theoretical piece—as graduate students, we get much more training in research-oriented writing, so this was a wonderful growth experience! Also, I had a fantastic time at the APA convention. I had never been to this conference before, and was really impressed by the breadth and diversity of topics explored—it also didn’t hurt that it was in Honolulu! [Ed. note: We hope D.C. isn’t too shabby an alternative for 2014 attendees.]

Angela:  Writing the ethics paper caused me to become more intimate with the Ethic’s Code and to think more deeply about ethical issues and considerations for psychologists taking a public stance on controversial issues.

Eddy:  What advice would you have for 2014 applicants?

Angela:  Choose a topic that interests you and have fun writing the paper! This is a great opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge on the APA Ethic’s Code and raise an issue that is important to you.

Christine: Definitely apply if you are thinking about it—it is an excellent way to engage more deeply with an important ethical issue affecting our field. As with any writing submission, have plenty of people read it and offer suggestions. Write about something that you feel passionately about and that really sparks your interest.

Consider working on your application over Winter Break!

Applying for APA’s Minority Fellowship Program

The APAGS Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs hosted a conversation hour today to answer students’ questions about applying for APA’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP). Did you miss this great opportunity to get information on the MFP? Download the MP3 audio file of the conversation which will be available until 1/15/2014. MFP JPG