Features Reporter
Courtesy photo by: CMU Psychology Club
On the weekend of April 12, 32 CMU students traveled to Denver for the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association to talk about sex. Students from all over the Western United States joined them for a weekend-long conference on psychology-related research and presentations.
“Who’s not interested in sexual behavior?” Psychology Club Vice President Michelle Newhall said. “It’s an interesting topic for anyone as far as implications.”
Newhall, who has presented twice before at the conference, noted that her team had been working hard to develop a significant psychological study since last August.
“We played around with a ton of different ideas,” Newhall said. “It was hard to find something that was interesting but also realistic.“
Newhall explained that undergrads can face difficulties in topic selection because the conference has ethical standards to uphold. Luckily for them, those ethical standards generally relate more to at-risk populations like youth under 18 rather than consenting adults engaging in sexual behavior.
“Several of us decided we wanted to do a symposium on sex,” Newhall said.
The group then expanded its horizons with a variety of topics, including sexual self-efficacy, risk-taking, education and behavioral patterns in relationships.
Using a variety of on-campus surveys, the research team input its information into a statistics program.
“Even if you’re not really into statistics, the process is really rewarding, because you get to see how ideas get started,” Newhall said.
Together, the students tested seven hypotheses, and many of them yielded interesting conclusions. Among other findings, the group discovered that as safe-sex practices increase, so does sexual risk-taking behavior. Men are also more sexually promiscuous than women and, in general, have higher sexual self-confidence.
Submitting its abstract back in January, the group actively fundraised, and, with the support of ASG, were able to take their results to the conference.
Much like science fairs in middle school and high school, the students had to present their findings through either an oral presentation or by constructing a poster.
“I hate presenting,” Newhall said. “It was a great experience, but my heart was beating out of my chest.”
Even though their results didn’t earn them a reward, recognition was more than enough.
“I think it’s a great way to get involved in research,” Newhall said. “It’s a good experience all around, and it’s nice to share something you did. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.”
In the same way that their studies were conducted off of previous psychological work, Newhall hopes their findings can be further developed to explore the prevention of STIs and STDs.
“I think people look at psychology as a soft science, but there’s so much data behind it,” Newhall said. “Some of us could go on to get our research published if we wanted to, but I think I’m going to save my energy for graduate school.”
cferganc@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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