Psychology Space

Welcome to the Careers in Psychology page. My primary motive in developing this site is to help undergraduate students learn what they can do with a degree in psychology. (Graduate students may find information of interest in the section, “Selected Web Sites Containing Career and Graduate School Information of Interest to Psychology Majors.”) The resources on this page focus on: (1) careers in psychology at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level and (2) academic information about psychology at the bachelor’s and graduate levels. Much of this material was developed for use in Careers in Psychology, a one-credit, required course for psychology majors at Georgia Southern University (see an old course syllabus).

I retired from the Georgia Southern University Psychology Department in 2004, so the GSU-only portion of this web site has been retired also. However, you can check out the current faculty, curriculum, honors, and related information about the psychology program at Georgia Southern here at the Georgia Southern University Psychology Department web site.

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For almost all the couples I provide divorce mediation services to, ongoing quarrels and differences over money are frequently cited as one of the primary reasons for their marriage problems. I also find that couples are even more uncomfortable talking about their differences with regard to money than almost any other issue, including sexual dissatisfaction. For these reasons, I think it is worth exploring the psychology of money, both within the context of relationships and marriage, and in the context of the process of divorce.

We inherit money behaviors and attitudes from our families and other influential people in our lives. According to social learning theory, spending behaviors can be viewed as learned behavior that is passed from generation to generation. Some of these behaviors may be influenced by religious teachings or cultural norms.

According to psychologists D’Astous and Forties, spending behaviors and their patterns have been conceived as existing along a continuum running between two poles. One pole represents the “holding on” behaviors, or a preoccupation with the acquisition and hoarding of money while the other pole represents the obsessive spending of money:

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For almost all the couples I provide divorce mediation services to, ongoing quarrels and differences over money are frequently cited as one of the primary reasons for their marriage problems. I also find that couples are even more uncomfortable talking about their differences with regard to money than almost any other issue, including sexual dissatisfaction. For these reasons, I think it is worth exploring the psychology of money, both within the context of relationships and marriage, and in the context of the process of divorce.

We inherit money behaviors and attitudes from our families and other influential people in our lives. According to social learning theory, spending behaviors can be viewed as learned behavior that is passed from generation to generation. Some of these behaviors may be influenced by religious teachings or cultural norms.

According to psychologists D’Astous and Forties, spending behaviors and their patterns have been conceived as existing along a continuum running between two poles. One pole represents the “holding on” behaviors, or a preoccupation with the acquisition and hoarding of money while the other pole represents the obsessive spending of money:

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When it comes to matters of the heart, what you know about yourself may be your best guide to finding, and keeping, the relationship to last a lifetime.

Just as you have a personality type when it comes to your everyday existence, you also have a love personality, the personality that takes over when you’re in love. Why is that? Because once love takes hold - filling your stomach with butterflies and your head with thoughts of that special someone - you may not act quite like yourself.

What’s your love personality type? Take the Love test and find out now!

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Marital satisfaction is sought, or expected, by most married individuals. Unfortunately, the U.S. Bureau of Census in 1992 reported that 52% of marriages end in divorce (Fowers, Montel, and Olson p. 103). This fact, along with other stimulants, has caused researchers to investigate the influences on marital satisfaction. Many predictors of stability and satisfaction in marriage do, in fact, exist. Among the various possibilities explored by researchers, conclusive studies have been done on the influences of past and present satisfaction with one’s spouse’s personality and living conditions, the effect of autonomy and relatedness on marriage, the Empty Nest Syndrome, as well as types of premarital relations and their effect on marital satisfaction.

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In the world of relationships, the most important numbers to learn are: five to one. That is the ratio of positive interactions to negative ones that predicts whether a marriage will last or become one of the sad statistics of divorce.

It isn’t that you can’t argue with your spouse. But the couples that make it also manage to deliver positive emotional messages even when they don’t see eye to eye.

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Patty Canale didn’t know what to think when she signed her name to a list of participants for an upcoming psychology experiment.

“I thought maybe I was performing an experiment,” said Canale, a freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences. I didn’t know that I’d be hooked up to electrodes and have to fill out a waiver when I got there. I thought I’d be looking at pictures.”

Like Canale, many students taking PSY 205 and PSY 209 don’t know what the individual experiments they sign up for will entail and how researchers are able to take advantage of this student requirement. Students have questioned the extent to which their participation in other peoples’ experiments has educational value for them.

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Our newspapers and televisions are rife with stories of crisis, violence and crime, echoing common concerns across the nation. As first responders and primary caregivers we are often confronted with situations calling upon personal skills and coping abilities which may be taxed by an onslaught of competing demands. Navigating those incidents which challenge our abilities and training can produce stress related disorders likely to manifest in psychological and/or physical symptomology resulting in burnout.

A review of the literature suggests that there is limited understanding of the role which desperation plays in the precipitation or expansion of crisis situations. As casual observers we are all familiar with newsworthy events concerning incidents which became unmanageable and explosive when participants became desperate subsequently losing the ability to focus and/or make effective decisions. Once the line of desperation has been traversed it is likely that the crisis has been elevated in an exponential fashion. The resulting shifts in perceptions are likely to promote decisions which are largely ineffectual and may produce life-threatening situations for those involved.

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Our newspapers and televisions are rife with stories of crisis, violence and crime, echoing common concerns across the nation. As first responders and primary caregivers we are often confronted with situations calling upon personal skills and coping abilities which may be taxed by an onslaught of competing demands. Navigating those incidents which challenge our abilities and training can produce stress related disorders likely to manifest in psychological and/or physical symptomology resulting in burnout.

A review of the literature suggests that there is limited understanding of the role which desperation plays in the precipitation or expansion of crisis situations. As casual observers we are all familiar with newsworthy events concerning incidents which became unmanageable and explosive when participants became desperate subsequently losing the ability to focus and/or make effective decisions. Once the line of desperation has been traversed it is likely that the crisis has been elevated in an exponential fashion. The resulting shifts in perceptions are likely to promote decisions which are largely ineffectual and may produce life-threatening situations for those involved.

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Poets rave about beauty. Brave men have started wars over beauty. Women the world over strive for it scholars devote their lives to deconstructing our impulse to obtain it. Ordinary mortals erect temples to beauty. In just about every way imaginable, the world honors physical beauty. But I hate beauty.

I live in what is likely the beauty capital of the world and have the enviable fortune to work with some of the most beautiful women in it. With their smooth bodies and supple waists, these women are the very picture of youth and attractiveness. Not only are they exemplars of nature’s design for detonating desire in men, but they stir yearnings for companionship that date back to ancestral mating dances. Still, beauty is driving me nuts, and although I’m a successful red-blooded American male, divorced and available, it is beauty alone that is keeping me single and lonely.

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