Brief position title description
Mindfulness Lab Research Assistant

Research Advisor(s) and Affiliation
Dr. Ellen Langer, Harvard University

Minimum Time Commitment/ Start date
10 hrs per week, minimum two semesters/ Start: Fall 2011

Part-Time

Compensation: Unpaid Position

Position Description
The Langer Mindfulness lab is seeking a research assistant to assist with several projects investigating the impact of mindfulness on health, perspective, and behavior.

Commitment and Compensation: The position is on a volunteer basis and would require approximately 10 hours per week. Days and times are flexible.

Requirements: No experience necessary. Must be able to come to William James Hall on Harvard main campus. Preference given to applicants who are able to attend lab meetings Tuesday mornings from 9-11.

Application instructions: To apply, please submit your CV to Andrew Reece using the application form below.

Website: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~langer/research.html

WITH: Gabriel Kreiman -- Harvard Medical School
COMMITMENT: Minimum one semester; Fall 2011
COMPENSATION: Volunteer or Course credit (see description below)

POSITION DESCRIPTION:We are developing Artificial Intelligence algorithms for pattern recognition. We need people interested in helping push the frontiers in the field by helping annotate datasets used for training the algorithms. The work involves watching movies and using our custom software to annotate content in the movies. 
To apply, please send CV to Gabriel Kreiman (email below).
We have multiple open positions for undergraduate students to conduct research projects in our lab. There are several possibilities including:
-- senior thesis
-- summer research
-- research during the academic year
The specific topics include visual object recognition, visual consciousness, artificial intelligence and computer vision.
The laboratory combines computational modeling, neurophysiological recordings and psychophysical measurements to study the neuronal circuits involved in visual perception.
For more information, visit klab.tch.harvard.edu

APPLICATION/CONTACT:
gabriel.kreiman@tch.harvard.edu.

WITH: Emily Cosdill and Christelle T. Ngnoumen, Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji, Psychology/FAS
COMMITMENT: 10 minimum hrs/wk (see description below)
COMPENSATION: Volunteer or Course credit (see description below)

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
About Us: Cosdill and Ngnoumen are two doctoral students in the Banaji Lab interested in face perception of adults and children. We are recruiting a research assistant to help us on the following projects.

Projects Description: The first project will be looking at how children learn to infer traits from faces. In the past decade there has been a wealth of research looking at how adults judge whether a face looks "trustworthy," "competent," or "dominant." However, this work has yet to be extended to children, and the question of how these processes develop in childhood remains theoretically interesting and important. The second project is to investigate how face perception affects social judgment. More specifically, you will be involved in a study that explores the degree to which trustworthiness and untrustworthiness judgments (and similarly, judgments concerning competency and incompetency)--inferred from faces--are implicitly associated with various forms of positive and negative stimuli, respectively.

Duties and Time Commitment: RA must work in the lab at least 10 hours per week. Duties involve collecting data, recruiting subjects, and attending project meetings.

Location: William James Hall on FAS campus.

Training: You will learn several aspects of social and developmental psychology research, such as how to administer the IAT, how to collect and manage data etc. Compensation: Volunteer or for course credit. Qualifications: (1) Moderate computer background --e.g., PC Windows; Macintosh; MS Word; Excel; (2) Concentrator in Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Neuroscience, or related fields.

APPLICATION/CONTACT:
To Apply: Please email Emily Cogsdill ecogsdill@fas.harvard.edu or Christelle Ngnoumen cngnoumen@gmail.com to express your interests in the projects.
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WITH: Professor Jim Sidanius
COMMITMENT: Fall term (see description below)
COMPENSATION: Course credit; See description below

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
The Lab: Members of the Sidanius Lab in Intergroup Relations are a collection of scholars interested in the interface among intergroup relations, conflict, inequality, social hierarchy, stereotyping, ideology and prejudice. The goals of the lab group are to examine the social psychology of power and intergroup relations from an integrative and multi-disciplinary perspective, producing research that speaks to real world social and political issues.

The Position: The Sidanius Lab is seeking a set of strongly motivated research assistants to support its varied research program during the Fall 2011 semester. Research assistants will be involved in a range of projects across the lab, supervised by faculty, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. Tasks will include research design, participant recruitment and management, data collection and analysis, and hands-on experience as an experimenter or confederate in lab-based experiments. We expect you to gain skills in online survey design, running studies in a lab, and statistical analysis. The research assistants are also invited to attend and participate in fortnightly lab meetings in which we discuss the lab’s research relating to the social psychology of power and inequality; if interested, research assistants are also invited to present and receive feedback on their own research ideas. Research Assistants are welcome either on a volunteer basis or for course credit, and are required to commit to a minimum number of hours per week depending on their enrollment. The lab is based in William James Hall, though occasional research tasks may require short trips off-campus to access community samples.

The Research: Below is an outline of the main projects taking place at the lab this semester. 

• Professor Jim Sidanius: Prof. Sidanius is commencing a new research project exploring the relationships between neurotransmitters and hormones on the one hand, and socio-political outgroup attitudes, on the other hand. This project will investigate the associations with a set of physiological measures and political psychological constructs such as right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. Tasks may include assembling and integrating the research in this area, along with other ad hoc research tasks as required.
  
• Arnold Ho: Many have argued that the increasing rate of intermarriage between racial minorities and Whites and patterns of biracial identification will lead to the dissolution of the American racial hierarchy (e.g., Alba & Nee, 2003; Lee & Bean, 2004; 2007a; 2007b; Sears & Savalei, 2006; Thornton, 2009). Yet, little empirical evidence exists on perceptions of new racial identities that diverge from older notions of race purity and the “one drop” rule. My research examines how biracial individuals are perceived, and what this implies for racial hierarchies. Having accumulated evidence that both Asian-White and Black-White biracials are seen as relatively more minority than White, I am now examining whether stereotypes of biracials are consistent with stereotypes of their minority parent group, and what attitudes and beliefs may predict the view that biracial people are closer to their minority parent group. I am also working on projects to understand individual differences in support for social hierarchies and inequality (social dominance orientation), and ideologies and beliefs that are related to this orientation. For additional information about some of this research, see http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-eye-the-beholder/201104/the-one-drop-rule-how-black-is-black and http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/12/%E2%80%98one-drop-rule%E2%80%99-persists/.
• Nour Kteily: Nour is primarily interested in investigating the dynamics of intergroup relations between high and low power groups. In particular, he is interested in understanding more about the experience of members of low-power groups, exploring questions such as the conditions under which they accept versus challenge the status quo. Currently, he is conducting experimental research in the United States to follow up on his findings in the Israeli/Palestinian context exploring the psychological factors that influence high and low power group members’ willingness to accept or reject negotiations with one another. Related work in the Middle East is investigating the predictors of support for various forms of protest against the United States in four Arab countries. In a second stream of research, Nour is investigating predictions from Social Dominance Theory’s evolutionary framework, which suggests that prejudice towards other groups is driven by fundamentally different factors amongst men and women. Nour will only need limited research support this semester.
• Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington: What are the psychological effects of inequality in society? Does power really corrupt those at the top? Jennifer’s research is interested in the effect of being in a group that is given high or low power on how one thinks, feels and behaves. Her research has focused on the tendency of those in high power groups to take greater risks, and the importance of power differences being seen as legitimate by those whom they affect. In the fall semester, Jennifer will be running lab-based and survey experiments exploring the effect of observing or imagining a member of your ingroup being in a position of high or low power, to see whether power’s effects extend along the lines of group membership, and what this means for social change in unequal societies. In a separate strand of research, Jennifer is exploring the social psychology of institutional corruption, looking at why peers retaliate against whistleblowers in an organizational setting. RAs may be asked to provide input to study design, to act as lab experimenters or confederates, to manage online data collection, and to assist in data cleaning and analysis.
• Diana Ramos de Oliveira: Members of high-status groups display in-group favoritism shown to favor social inequality, but little research has investigated the contribution of perceived inter-group threat and maintenance of dominance, or the relationship of dominant group members with beneficiaries and minority groups and willingness (or lack thereof) to support them. Diana’s current research project investigates whether threat perception (e.g. economic, sexual, and physical) might affect in different ways variables such as social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, and Schadenfreude - the idea that individuals take pleasure in the misfortunes of out-groups or individuals. This project will be carried out between Brazil and the United States in the first phase, and possibly extended to Spain and Portugal in a second phase with different target groups. Diana will be seeking RA support to act as lab experimenter, to manage online data collection, and to assist in data cleaning and analysis, some text corrections and data coding.
• Sarah Cotterill: While social inequality is sometimes maintained through physical force, Sarah is interested in how ideology might also perpetuate and legitimize differences in group status. This fall, Sarah will launch a project that explores whether mere exposure to these ideologies is sufficient to influence support for policies with implications for the distribution of resources. She also hopes to investigate how exposure to certain ideologies shapes interpretation of history, with a broader goal of understanding how these variables interact to determine support for policy outcomes. Future projects may also examine the way in which ideology generates competition between low-status groups. Sarah will need an RA to act as a lab experimenter, and to help with data management and analysis.

APPLICATION/CONTACT:
To apply for a fall RA position, contact Sarah Cotterill (scotterill@fas.harvard.edu) with your CV or resumé (with details of relevant classes taken) and a paragraph on the reasons for applying to the lab, and which projects interest you most, and why.

WITH: Caroline Wilmuth, Elizabeth Baily, and Professor Amy Cuddy, Harvard Business School
COMMITMENT: 8-10 hr/wk; 2011-2012
COMPENSATION: Not listed

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
We are seeking a research assistant to help with several projects on the origins and outcomes of how we perceive and are influenced by other people, taking into account the roles of variables such as emotions, gender, culture, race and ethnicity, and nonverbal behaviors. Examples of current lines of research that we are pursuing include the effects of nonverbal expressions of power/status and connecting or engaging with others, perceptions of working mothers, and the social-cognitive effects of oxytocin. In addition to self-report and behavioral data, the research conducted in this lab often employs psychophysiology measures, hormone assays, facial action coding, and eye tracking.

Expected time commitment is between 8-10 hours per week and duties will likely include attending lab meetings, contributing to study design, running participants, coding qualitative data, and performing literature reviews. No research experience or background in psychology is required, though all applicants should possess a motivation to gain research experience, a strong work ethic, and an enthusiasm for social psychology.

APPLICATION:
To apply or inquire about the details of the position or the research that is conducted in Professor Cuddy’s lab, please contact Caroline Wilmuth at cwilmuth@fas.harvard.edu.

Research Assistant Position in Social Psychology: Unconscious Moral Cognition WITH: Paul Meinshausen and Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji
COMMITMENT: 10-12 hr/wk; Fall term (see description)
COMPENSATION: Course credit available

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
Description of Research:
How do subtle cues and nonconscious processes inform the moral and ethical decisions we make on a daily basis? How are our moral attitudes and decisions shaped and influenced by our peer groups and by the social settings we operate in? Much of my work this semester will address this question, with particular emphasis on the institutional effects of nonconscious cognition. Using studies conducted online and in the lab, we will explore questions such as: How do the small and implicit biases of individual persons combine and emerge as the social phenomena we recognize as institutional corruption? When are financial dependencies and conflicts of interest likely to exercise a corrupting influence upon actors and when might they be safely ignored? In addition to this research on unconscious cognition and institutional corruption, RAs may be asked to assist with several other projects. These include work on developing educational modules that concisely convey the findings of cognitive and social psychology regarding the cognitive and social biases that can consistently affect our personal and professional decisions and behavior. This work will involve literature reviews and well as thinking innovatively about how ideas can be best presented using pictures, videos, games, and other dynamic media.
Duties:
I am looking for a research assistant to work 10-12 hours/week during the Fall 2011 term. Duties will likely include design of experimental stimuli, participant recruitment, data collection and coding, and literature searches.
Experience: Previous coursework in psychology is preferred. Experience with computer and web programming and/or social media would be helpful. Compensation: Fall Research Assistant positions are offered on a volunteer basis. Additionally, course credits and work-study funding may be possible for those who qualify. Location: William James Hall.

APPLICATION:
To apply: Please contact Paul Meinshausen (meinshausen@fas.harvard.edu).

CONTACT/APPLICATION: Paul Meinshausen (meinshausen@fas.harvard.edu).

WITH: Project leaders, Dr. Yuval Feldman and Sabrina Sun; Supervising Professors: Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji and Dr. Yuval Feldman
COMMITMENT: Varies (see description)
COMPENSATION: Course credit available

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
Areas of Research: Social Psychology and Law
Who are we and who are we looking for?
We are a team of legal scholar and psychologists interested in the social cognitive factors in legal and moral decision making, and we are looking for an undergraduate research assistant for Fall 2011.
If you are a motivated student with great ideas in social sciences, we invite you to join our team on an exciting project in psychology and law.
What are our topics?
Topics core to our research are institutional corruption, ethical and legal decision-making, legal ambiguity and compliance, motivated reasoning and self-deception, as well as behavioral approach to law. Currently, we are investigating processes influencing people's honesty and compliance in the face of legal ambiguity, as well as the level of consciousness such processes are rooted in.
What will you do?
As a member of our team, you will be exposed to all aspects of research, including but not limited to literature search on topics of your interest, brain storming about experiment design, and possibly participant recruitment and data collection. We are happy to train you on any aspect of the research with which you are not familiar.  Should you have original ideas about the project, we will greatly appreciate and value your input. Depending on your level of commitment and motivation, you may also lead your own project in the course of the semester.
Compensation, Time & Location
Besides the state of the art training in social psychology and behavioral legal analysis, you may choose to receive course credits for PSY 1556r or PSY 2352r.  To receive course credits, 8-10 hr/wk of work will be expected; and yes, we will work around your class and exam schedules. Should you choose to volunteer with us, hours per week are more flexible. All our meetings are held on the Cambridge campus.

APPLICATION:
If you are interested in joining our team, please send an email to Sabrina Sun [sun@wjh.harvard.edu] with a brief description of yourself.

CONTACT/APPLICATION: Sabrina Sun, sun@wjh.harvard.edu

WITH: Larisa Heiphetz and Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji, Psychology/FAS
COMMITMENT: Fall Term, approx 10hours/week
COMPENSATION: For Credit

POSITION DESCRIPTION: How do children develop a preference for and identification with the groups to which they belong? How do children and adults learn to think about different kinds of ideologies and belief systems? I am looking for a research assistant that will help me explore these questions. The main project this fall will look at the development of belief-based social preferences. We will test children and adults to see how they reason about people who share and do not share their beliefs, particularly their religious beliefs. We may also examine additional questions, such as how informative and important children and adults think religious beliefs are in comparison with other types of beliefs.
Duties: I am looking for a research assistant to work approximately 10 hours/week during the Fall 2011 semester. Duties will include working with participants (both adults and children who are in elementary school), coding data, and helping with literature reviews.
Location: Research assistants will work on Harvard’s campus and may also have the opportunity to collect data in Boston museums.
Compensation: Research assistants may receive course credit or, in special cases, volunteer.
To apply: Submit a copy of your CV/resume and a brief paragraph about why you are interested in this opportunity to Larisa Heiphetz using the form below.

CONTACT: Larisa Heiphetz

WITH: Professor Ken Nakayama, Dr. Maryam Vaziri Pashkam, and Jon Freeman, Psychology/FAS
TIME COMMITMENT: Fall term
COMPENSATION: Paid and For-Credit positions available

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
This position will involve assisting with research that attempts to understand human interaction and decision making in the context of full body movement interactive games. The experiments involve collecting data with a motion tracking device (Polhemus Liberty) which records two people's 3D hand movements while playing a competitive game. We are trying to mimic the goalie and attacker roles in a soccer game and see how player’s hand movements coordinate during the game and what role facial cues and other social factors play in the context of a game.

Several positions are available, some require technical background (computer programming) and some require running experiments, interacting with the subjects,and collecting data. You will be supervised by Prof Ken Nakayama, and Maryam Vaziri Pashkam (postdoctoral fellow) and Jon Freeman (Graduate Student) at Harvard Vision Sciences Laboratory.

Requirements: Background in Computer Science/Neuroscience/Psychology or related field is preferred. The candidate must have experience in programming. The candidate is expected to be organized, self-motivated, reliable and punctual. If interested, please send an e-mail including a statement of interest and a resume to Maryam Vaziri Pashkam using the form below.

CONTACT: Maryam Vaziri Pashkam