While one group of Psychology students presented lie-detection research to members of Congress, another told an international audience of experts how parental guidance helps and hurts when it comes to teen dating.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Wendy Morris, with Chelsea Phillips ’07 and Jillian Hoffman ’07, presented their research “Improving Lie Detection through Indirect Cues: Paying Attention to our Internal Barometers,” April 25 on Capitol Hill. A Student Research and Creativity Grant funded the travel.

Their study found that people are more easily able to detect a lie when they tune in to their own feelings while hearing a story. Those hearing a lie are more likely to feel suspicious and uncomfortable during the story’s telling.

“An education becomes so much richer when students apply what they’re doing in class, and flex those critical thinking skills in the lab,” says Morris of her students, who created surveys and videos and tested more than 70 college students for the project.

The McDaniel group, along with 60 others, was selected by the Council on Undergraduate Research from a pool of 400 applicants representing independent research projects in science, mathematics and humanities.

“When Representatives and staffers asked questions about our project, it felt like all the hard work we put in for the semester came to fruition,” says Hoffman of the poster presentations the groups held in the Rayburn House office building.

She and Phillips say that by teaching juries or interrogators to pay attention to their internal barometer, they may better perform their jobs. Future research could explore this possibility.

“It’s great to realize your work can make an impact and be applied in real world settings,” says Phillips.

Morris will next present the study at a scholarly conference on deception research this fall at the University of Texas, and it will subsequently be published as a chapter in a book about the conference’s proceedings. Phillips and Hoffman will be co-authors of this chapter.

While on Capitol Hill, the group met with Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), and sat in on a subcommittee funding a bill for the National Science Foundation.

Meanwhile, five Psychology students presented a poster March 29th at the meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development in Boston. The conference is attended by researchers worldwide who study developmental science and psychology.

“I don’t have graduate assistants, so our students step up, and by doing, learn what psychology is really about,” says Assistant Psychology Professor Stephanie Madsen, who led the study. “They get to be pioneers in research.”

The study, “Parent regulation of adolescent dating activities,” is based on information collected in 2002 from the McDaniel College class of 2006. It examined how the dating rules parents enforce reflect the quality of their child's romantic relationships.

The group found the healthiest relationships among parents who set supervisory rules, such as a requirement to meet the date or know what time the teen will return home. When parents limited dating behavior (i.e., curfews, age restrictions or rules about where the teen can and can’t go), teens developed a greater alliance and closeness with their romantic partners (what Madsen calls the Romeo and Juliet effect.)

“If we can take our understanding and turn it into valuable suggestions for parents, it gives our work meaning,” says Colleen Gray ’07.

The study was conducted as part of an ongoing project on the subject of adolescent dating. During the conference, the McDaniel students were approached by experts from across the country and around the world.

“People assumed we were graduate students,” says Ellen Inverso ’07. “The fact that we can jump in and do research like that right away, when we go to apply for a job or graduate school, professors have a lot more to say in recommendations for us.”