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Personal Statement

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I want to work in the laboratory of intergroup relations and the social mind because of my desire to gain more research experience and because of my passion for the research topics examined in this lab- including social identity threat and intersectional invisibility. In the future, I aspire to attend graduate school for either social psychology or applied psychology and social intervention research. I can contribute the research skills I have developed thus far as well as my passion for psychological research. Through my research at The College of New Jersey, I have gained research specific skills such as developing a theoretical argument that supports my hypotheses’, constructing and conducting a study, acting as an experimenter and interacting …show more content…

I continually strive to improve my writing, communication, and analytical skills. In addition, I hope to learn more about the research process and gain more experience in relation to methods and data analysis. This opportunity will allow me to build on my previous undergraduate research lab experience. Dr. Jeanine Vivona asked me to serve as a research assistant in the Psychodynamic research lab at the College of New Jersey. The goal of the lab was to assist my professor, Dr. Vivona, in writing her book on language and psychotherapy. As a research assistant, I read theory and literature in a variety of areas of Psychology, including language development, language and memory, embodied cognition, and consciousness. Due to my Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) classes and experience, which enhanced my drive for social justice, I shifted my research focus. Dr. Shaun Wiley asked me to participate as a research assistant in the Social Change and Collective Identity lab at the College of New Jersey with Dr. Wiley. We studied some of the reasons why members of groups engage in collective action as well as how advantaged group members offer help to disadvantaged group members. As an extension of the same lab, I am currently conducting a research project with Dr. Wiley for my Senior Honors Thesis. This semester, I conducted a study which focuses on the influence of racial and heterosexual privilege awareness of white, heterosexual women on their perceived gender discrimination; questioning whether privilege awareness accounts for the difference between racial and both gender and sexual

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