2011 Northern Lights Conference
Saturday October 14 marked the occasion of the Northern Lights Psychology conference sponsored each year by the UND Psychology Department. The conference offers UND students and faculty and others from regional colleges and universities an opportunity to present their work. This year's conference exposed participants to 10 presentations, 27 posters, and a panel discussion focused on the role of academic psychology in responding to public needs.
The conference has a history of featuring some of the most prominent psychologists as keynote speakers. This year's presentation was from Dr. Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of Developmental Psychology. Dr. Greenfield studies the connections between cultural and developmental change. What happens as culture changes? Included in her model of cultural change is a focus on the role of media - television, video games, social media. She made special mention of the possibility that cultural changes are not always in the same direction and she proposed several possible consequences of a general economic down turn. As was the proposed case with her general model, changes are both positive and negative.
