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:
- 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).
- 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.
- 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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