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Using Your Experimental Psychology Skills...(R) [ The Happy Hour Archive | obereed.net ]
El Nino is gone, but La Nina is here, bringing a whole new crop of
natural disasters. Florida is burning down. Saline got
flattened in a tornado. Hurricanes are on their way. What can you, and
experimental psychologist, do to help?
Friday, June 26, 4:00 pm at Good Time Charlie's, Cognition and Perception
presents the first in a series of "Using Your Experimental Psychology
Skills... (R)" workshops:
USING YOUR EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY SKILLS...(R)
...TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM NATURAL DISASTERS.
For example:
"Grant-Writing"
After every disaster, there is one thing on everybody's mind: How
to get as much money from the government as possible. If there is one
important skill you possess as a scientist, it is grant writing. We will
provide ideas for how you can use this to give back to the community. For
our first discussion, we will talk about how you can use your
grant-writing skills to help the freeze-plagued avocado farmer get
millions from FEMA, or help the rain-soaked kayak outfitter retire early.
It will put a warm feeling in your heart, the kind that even p<.001 can't
give.
"Organization"
As any Boy Scout will tell you, the thing you should do
immediately, when arriving at the sight of a natural disaster, is to not
panic. Anyone who remembers Jurgen Prochnow screaming "Reports! I must
have the proper Reports!" as his U-boat was falling apart in Das Boot can
understand the importance of this. In our second workshop session, we
will discuss how to employ your hard-won conference skills of
Standing-Around-And-Looking-Confident, and Making-Things-Up-When-
You-Don't-Understand-The-Question, as well as laboratory and teaching
skills like Reassure-Student-As-Their-Life-Crumbles and
Delegate-Authority. These are invaluable during any disaster. Perhaps
you can make the biggest difference organizing relief.
"Labor"
One oft-forgotten resource available to the experimental psychologist
is the Undergraduate Research Assistant. Another is the participant
volunteer. By clever experimental design, you can get a publication AND
help save the world. We will discuss the types of reaction time
measurements commonly used in the SBFP (SandBag Filling Procedure) and the
current controversies of the so-called Army Blanket Distribution Effect.
This makes for a great counter to the businessperson or engineer who asks
you "What good is THAT experiment?" You can brusquely reply, "It saves
lives, you monster! It saves lives."
"Counter-Balancing"
Many disasters have ended in disaster because they lacked someone
who could properly counterbalance. The Great San Francisco Earthquake
was, in reality, only a 3.1 on the Richter Scale. Unfortunately, because
of some improperly designed latin squares, one degree of freedom, and an
unexpected four-way interaction, thousands of people lost their lives and
homes. We will help you brush up on the standard counter-balancing
techniques, plus introduce you to some that are specially designed for the
field of disaster-relief, including the "Bermuda Triangle Latin Square"
and the "Night the Lights went out in Georgia Split-Plot Technique". You
may be the unsung hero of the next disaster that never was.
"Meteorite"
As the disaster films of this summer will have you believe, a
giant asteroid/meteor may be hurtling towards the earth, and it could be
up to a group of renegade scientists to launch into space, destroy
the projectile, and save the earth. While the team will likely be made up
of a ragtag bunch of nuclear engineers, computer scientists, geologists,
and Bruce Willis, there will undoubtedly be one spot left for an
unspecified scientist. We believe that this spot should be filled by an
experimental psychologist, and our final discussion will center on how you
can hone your skills in order to fill that role. Although it may involve
spending hours of each day pumping iron, learning how to pilot the space
shuttle, or doing something even more difficult, like Latent Time Series
Analysis, we will identify where you should attempt to enhance your CV in
order to be chosen for this prestigious mission. After all, the most
famous disaster film of all time, "Titanic", really happened. This might
happen too.
Remember: Your country and your fellow man is counting on you, so come to
Happy Hour.
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