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Overview
Faculty Courses
Major
Student
Research
Opportunities
& Activities
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Research
and Opportunities
The
Psychology Department offers a number of opportunities for
both its undergraduate and graduate students. Current and
past students have been involved in faculty directed and
independent research projects, internships, and a host of
other programs. Psychology students have been involved
in the college’s Summer Science Research Institute, the
HNGR program, and participated in a number of programs at
HoneyRock (Northwoods Campus of Wheaton College). Students also have opportunities through
faculty member involvement in the Center for Rural Psychology, and the Urban Partnership
Initiative (Big Idea Foundation). The department maintains
close ties with the college’s Counseling Center to help
meet the needs of the campus. The department also maintains
a Latin American Interest Group was developed to sculpt
a shared vision for the establishment of an ongoing dialogue
with Christian mental health professionals in Central and
South America.
Two
research laboratories are maintained in the department and
practicum, internship, and counseling opportunities are coordinated
through the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Robert
G. Vautin Memorial Laboratory
Dr.
Robert (Bob) Vautin (June 11, 1936 – March 16, 2000) was
a faculty member of the Psychology Department at Wheaton
College from 1986-2001. A New Jersey native he served in
the Navy from 1954-1958 and received his doctorate in Psychology
from Florida State University. Prior to coming to Wheaton
he worked as a researcher at the State University of New
York at Buffalo where he was involved in single-cell recording
in the macaque monkey visual cortex. During his time at
Wheaton, Dr. Vautin served the campus by teaching courses
in introductory psychology, sensation and perception, the
history of psychology, and experimental psychology, and by
serving as faculty advisor to the Psychology Department’s
chapter of Psi Chi. It was his commitment to the ethical
treatment of animals in research that led to his chairing
of the college’s Animal Care and Use Committee and maintaining
the animal learning laboratory in the Psychology Department.
In addition to his scholarly activities as a researcher
in the area of color vision, Dr. Vautin modeled a spirit
of humility and faith to his students and colleagues. Diagnosed
with a rare and aggressive brain tumor during the fall of
2000, he passed away nearly 6 months after the diagnosis
of his cancer. In the wake of his passing, the Psychology
Department renamed the laboratory in which he spent a significant
portion of his time in his honor during the fall of 2002.
The
laboratory houses a variety of experimental equipment for
analysis of animal behavior, neuroscience research, and
human experimentation and observation. Some examples of
the equipment housed in the Vautin Memorial Laboratory include:
rodent modular and 8-arm radial mazes, fluorescent microscope*,
digital microscopy imaging system*, animal housing facilities
for over 100 rats, operant chambers, SMART behavioral tracking
software*, cryostat* for sectioning frozen tissue speciments,
stereotaxic surgical apparatus*, computer simulation/human
experimentation, observation rooms, Munsell color judging
system, EEG, and a SuperLab computer testing station*. (*denotes
recent resources)
Child
Development Lab
CURRENT
STUDIES
Title: Emergence
of Understanding Intentionality of Others’ Actions
Dates:
October 2002 – January 2003
OVERVIEW
Where
does moral functioning begin? Although this answering this
question would seems to be fundamental to our understanding
of moral development, only recently have researchers interested
in early childhood have begun to examine specific topics
such as the perception of events and actions as morally
salient, the ability to make judgments about “right” and
“wrong,” and the evaluation of self and others as moral
(and immoral) agents. One of the functions of our lab is
to explore recent empirical and theoretical work in developmental
social cognition that centers on the appearance and elaboration
of understanding intentionality in others (e.g., Tomasello,
1999) in early childhood.  The
Human Development Lab at Wheaton College is currently seeking
children between ages 2 and 6 and their parents to participate
in a research study of moral understanding in early childhood.
The study takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes and involves
providing basic background information from a parent and
the assessment of intellectual and social reasoning skills
of the child. Results of the study will be made available
to participants via our website.
Directions
to our Lab: Maps and directions for the Wheaton College
campus are available via the Wheaton College website at
www.wheaton.edu. Our lab is located on the Mezzanine Level
of the Billy Graham Center, Room 224. The easies way to
find the lab is to park on the west side of the BGC (nearest
the corner of Washington and College) and enter using the
stairwell near the south end of the building. Go to the
top of the stairs and exit to the left on Mezzanine level.
Our lab is located midway down the hall on the right.
Contact
Information: For information about our research, please
contact the lab by phone at 630-752-5753 (mailbox 2) or
via email at Trey.Buchanan@wheaton.edu
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