Psychology
Fran Sessa has a PhD in clinical psychology,
and a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology. Her teaching interests include abnormal psychology, theories of personality, and the introduction
to clinical psychology.
Interesting concepts and
research interests include:
- · Happiness and the self: the role of realistic and unrealistic control beliefs
- · Self-reported adulthood
- · Mental illness stigma
- · Healthy and risky behaviors in the transition to adulthood
- · Self-perceptions of adulthood among college students
- · The framing of decisions among college students
- · Development of psychosocial maturity among developing adults
- · Along with an influence of stigma and culture, expressions of psychopathology
- · Personality factors relating to mental health/risky behaviors of college students
Healthy
and risky behaviors during the transition to adulthood is the most interesting
to me because college students are at that point of transitioning from high
school teenagers to actual adults who are on their own. There is lot of
“growing up” that happens in college and choices that are made solely on your
own as a college student. I think I would like to study why college students
make the choices that they do and if they know what the right and wrong things
are in certain situations. I think people at the college level know the
difference between right from wrong, but I want to study what makes them choose
and what factors go into their decision-making process. I’m curious to find out
if its primarily their environment that influences them, internal factors, or a
combination of both.
With this question I believe that you could look at both the external pressures like peer pressure, and the want to fit in. You could also go the direction of looking at the neurological responses that occur in college students and the changes the brain goes through at this age as a reason for the choices they make.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting topic, with a lot to look in to. I think while researching what makes college students choose the decisions they make, you could really get into it and even maybe interview some students on campus. Another key point to have could also be how their home life is and if the way their parents raised them or how their parents are, could have influenced them in anyway.
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