Psychology Research Laboratories on Facebook

I believe that one of the major purposes of psychological science is to promote that science to the public – that is, after all, one of the reasons that I write this blog.  But scientists vary in the degree to which they agree to this statement.  One one side, some researchers will argue that the purpose of science is to make meaningful contributions to knowledge alone, i.e. furthering the frontiers of human understanding and nothing else.  To these people, research is for researchers.  On the other side, we have people like those appearing in the list below, who work to actively promote their work on Facebook and elsewhere.

This is certainly not the only purpose of a lab Facebook page.  I also use our lab’s page for community-building: to congratulate graduate students on major accomplishments, to announce new publications and presentations, and to share jokes that academics and graduate students would find funny.  Some labs use it for recruiting undergraduate research participants.

In creating this list, I came to several surprising conclusions:

1. Psychology lab Facebook pages are relatively uncommon. There are literally thousands of psychology labs, yet I could only locate 28 with Facebook pages (although there were some restrictions to my search – see below).
2. Psychology lab Facebook pages don’t have a whole lot of likes.  A few hundred at the high end, almost all had less than 30, and most had less than 10.
3. Psychology lab Facebook pages often aren’t maintained well.  I only saw pages with my purposes (community-building with graduate students, lab announcements, etc.) in two or three pages.  Most post quite infrequently.  Unsurprisingly, the pages with the highest numbers of posts are also those with the most likes.

Now for the list.  I’ve included only pages that have at least 2 likes and 1 post, for which I can clearly identify that it’s a lab, and for which posts are in English.  We’ll start with the best (wink), and the rest will be alphabetical!

Facebook Page Name	PI	Location	Area of Psychology
Technology iN Training Laboratory – TNTLab	Richard N. Landers	Old Dominion University	industrial/organizational
Arcadia University: Social Psychology Lab	(unknown)	Arcadia University	social
Arkin Lab	Robert Arkin	Ohio State University	social
Carter Adolescent Interpersonal Relationships Lab	Rona Carter	University of Michigan	developmental
Cogpsy Lab	Maria Viggiano	University of Florence	physiological
CSUN Sport Psychology Lab	Mark P. Otten	California State University, Northridge	sport
Dr. Tom Ford’s Social Psychology Lab	Tom Ford	Western Carolina University	social
Early Learning Lab (ELLA)	Annette M. E. Henderson	University of Auckland	developmental
Environmental Psychology, Interpersonal Attachment and Relationships Lab	Kerry Anne McBain	James Cook University	social
Evolutionary Psychology Lab at Oakland University	Todd K. Shackelford	Oakland University	evolutionary
Evolutionary Psychology Lab of SUNY New Paltz	Glenn Geher	SUNY New Paltz	evolutionary
Exercise Psychology Lab	Edward McAuley	University of Illinois	exercise
Forensic Psychology Lab	Don Dutton	University of British Columbia	forensic
Gender, Sexuality & Critical Psychology Lab RU	Maria Gurevich	Ryerson University	social
Lab of Evolutionary Psychology – Research Participation (MQ)	(unknown)	Macquarie University	evolutionary
Loyola University Psychology Lab	(unknown)	Loyola University	(unknown)
NEU Psychology Laboratory	(unknown)	New Era University	(unknown)
Psychology of Social Justice Lab (PSJL)	Phillip Atiba Goff	University of California, Los Angeles	social
SIUC Dr. Yu-Wei Wang’s Psychology Lab	Yu-Wei Wang	Southern Illinois University, Carbondale	counseling
Social Attitudes Psychology Research Lab	(unknown)	St. Mary’s University	social
Social Psychology Lab – University of Innsbruck	(research group)	University of Innsbruck	social
Social Psychology Lab (SPLAB)	(unknown)	University of Kwa-Zulu Natal	social
Social Stress and Health Psychology Research Lab	Elizabeth Brondolo	St. John’s University	health
TCNJ Organizational Psychology Lab	Jason Dahling	The College of New Jersey	industrial/organizational
UGA Infant Research Lab	Janet Frick	University of Georgia	developmental
UMSL Multicultural Psychology Research Lab	Matthew J. Taylor	University of Missouri, St. Louis	multicultural
University of Queensland Evolutionary Approaches to Psychology Lab Group	(unknown)	University of Queensland	evolutionary
UWM Anxiety Disorders Lab	Han-Joo Lee	University of Wisconsin, Madison	clinical

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