SPSP 2009

I'm officially back from the conference in Tampa. What an adventure that was! All in all it was an amazing experience. I felt a bit overwhelmed and a little out of my league at first, but I had some great support while I was there. It's kind of funny that I've only ever flown to Tampa. I've been there twice for rowing training trips. Don't get me wrong -- I like Tampa, but hopefully my next plane ticket have a different destination printed on it.

A quick rundown of the trip -- I flew out Thursday morning. My roommate drove me to the airport in Indy (which is fabulous now that they have redone it!) and I met up with Ed, Sam, and Lile. For those who dont' know, Ed (Dr. Hirt) is my former adviser and chair of my honors thesis. More importantly he's a really good friend. Sam and Lile are second year PhD students in the social program at IU who work in Ed's lab. We had a blast flying down together and catching up. We met up with Abbey who also did an thesis with me last year under Ed. It was great to see her and catch up.

The HirtLab Gang. Sam, Ed, Me, and Lile

Thursday night was Abbey's poster session. I was glad she got to go first and I could see how it went. It was very casual and fun, but I was still nervous for mine on Saturday. In the meantime, I went to talks and heard all about the upcoming research that's being done in social psych. Very cool stuff. I got to hang out with some IU peeps and went to dinner. Had a great time.

Abbey at her awesome poster!

Trying on some awesome sunglasses at a vintage store in Ybor City before dinner.

Ed tryin on a hat! It's a good look for him.

Saturday afternoon was my poster session. I was nervous, but it went better than I could have imagined. I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Mark Muraven who did some of the early ego-depletion work which is what I based my research on. Very cool to meet him and discuss my work. I got a lot of very positive feedback and response to my stuff. I recently just sent my poster to about 10 earger researcher all around the country and one in Canada and one in the UK. :) That just made all the blood, sweat, and tears worth it.
Me and my poster!Like a proud papa. :)

It was a great trip, and I didn't want to leave, but it's also nice to be back home in Muncie. I appreciate the routine here, and it's good to be back.

Awesome!!!

Tampa Bound

I'm headed to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference tomorrow morning. I'm presenting the work I did for my undergraduate honors thesis there. I'm pretty excited about heading to some warmer weather and being able to catch up with my IU pals. Should be a great 4 days of social gatherings and social psychology! More updates to come after I return!

Here is the abstract from my poster submission to give you an idea of what it's about...

ILLUSORY FATIGUE IN THE MARKETPLACE: THE EFFECTS OF
PERCEIVED RESOURCE DEPLETION ON CONSUMER CHOICE
Marla B. Alexander, Edward R. Hirt, Joshua J. Clarkson; Indiana University-
Bloomington—Recent research within the domain of self-regulation
has demonstrated the importance of perceived resource depletion in
overcoming actual resource depletion (Hirt & Clarkson, 2008). The
purpose of the current research was to investigate the impact of
perceived mental resources on the quality of consumer decision-making.
Participants first performed a modestly or highly depleting task before
receiving feedback regarding the supposedly replenishing or fatiguing
effects of an aromatherapy candle in the experimental room. Under
modest depletion, participants took the aromatherapy feedback at facevalue,
such that individuals given the replenishing (versus fatiguing)
feedback perceived less resource depletion. Under high depletion,
participants misattributed their depleted state to the aromatherapy
candle, such that individuals given the fatiguing (versus replenishing)
feedback perceived less resource depletion. After manipulating people’s
perceptions of their mental resources, individuals were presented with a
series of product choices as well as the Smith/Brown department store
task (cf. Sanbonmatsu & Fazio, 1990). Individuals who perceived
themselves as more (versus less) depleted made more errors in choosing
objectively better products and performed more poorly on the Smith/
Brown department store task, irrespective of individuals’ actual level of
depletion. Furthermore, this pattern of effects on choice behavior was
observed only for individuals who enjoy and engage in effortful thought
(i.e., high in Need for Cognition: Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), suggesting
aspects of this perceptual process may be metacognitive in nature.
Implications for the role of metacognition in perceived resource
availability, as well as future directions regarding illusory fatigue in
other phenomenon, are discussed.