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Grading: Prizes

A number of prizes are available for outstanding thesis research. These include both College and Departmental prizes.

The Department of Psychology offers two prizes for distinguished honors theses, the Psychology Faculty Prize and the Gordon W. Allport Prize.

Psychology Faculty Prizes are presented for honors theses which in the judgment of the Prize Committee are of special distinction. The award intends to provide an incentive for high-quality undergraduate research and to honor those students who undertake such exceptionally fine work. Course grades are not taken into account in making the award. The Prize Committee will consider all theses that were given highest grades in the normal thesis grading process, but will make its own independent judgment of thesis quality. The Committee is not bound to make an award each year; on the other hand, the Committee can make more than one award if it feels that more than one thesis qualifies for special distinction.

Gordon W. Allport Prizes are awarded for honors theses offering research of exceptionally high quality in those scholarly areas to which the late Gordon W. Allport was himself dedicated—personality psychology, the study of prejudice, social psychology, rumor, and social ethics. As in the case of Faculty Prizes, the Prize Committee will consider all theses that meet the above criteria and that were given highest grades in the normal thesis grading process. But, again, the Prize Committee will make its own independent judgment in the granting of the award.

Departmental prizes are nonmonetary; each recipient will receive a letter confirming their receipt of this award, and will be honored at the Senior Party during commencement week.

The College also offers prizes for distinguished theses and research. Full details about College prizes can be found in the booklet Prizes, available in University Hall. Several prizes seem especially relevant for students in Psychology, including the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, awarded for excellent scholarly work or research, and the Bowdoin Prize, awarded for any topic suitable for treatment in literary form.

Prize Theses in Psychology: 2001-2012

* = also available in the Psychology Undergraduate Office

	Faculty Prizes			Gordon W. Allport Prizes
Year	Student	Title	Advisor(s)	Student	Title	Advisor(s)
2011-2012	Caitlin Carey	An fMRI Investigation of Automatic Simulation in Schizophrenia	Christine Hooker Sarah Hope Lincoln Reader: Dara Manoach	Jocelyn Karlan	Bilingual Bi-personality: How Language Shapes Implicit Attitudes and Self-concept	Mahzarin Banaji Reader: Liz Spelke
	Whitney Fitts	Spontaneous Verbal Labeling During Object Processing	Jesse Snedeker Manizeh Khan Reader: Felix Warneken	Sophia Scolnik-Brower	Holy Crap!: The Role of Disgust in Religious Beliefs	Steven Pinker Amitai Shenhav Reader: Joshua Greene
	Westley Resendes	The Dissociation between Language and Early Theory of Mind Reasoning in Toddlers	Susan Carey Kathryn Hobbs Reader: Jennie Pyers
	Leslie Rith-Najarian	Was That Stressful?: Performance Ability, Stress Reactivity, and Stress Appraisals in Adolescents	Kate McLaughlin Matt Nock Reader: Shelley Carson
	Matthew Sachs	Functional and Structural Neural Connectivity Associated with Individual Differences in the Chill Response to Music	Josh Greene Psyche Loui Reader: Josh Greene
	Alexander Tancredi	Choice Size, Value, and Perceived Freedom of Choice: Effects on Choice-related Stress and Regret	Amitai Shenhav Jason Mitchell Reader: Jason Mitchell
2010-2011	Henrietta Afari LS/Soc&Cog Neurosci	The neural correlates of aversive feelings: Anterior Insula responses to route obstructions during virtual navigation	R. Buckner F. Krienen	Alexander McNaughton	How children think about right and wrong, rules and punishment	S. Carey N. Winkler-Rhoades
	Nicholas Purcell	Induced arousal increases the desire to end a suffering person's life	D. Wegner A. Jenkins	Jay Musen MBB/ Psy&Neurosci	The moral psychology of oblications to help those in need	J. Greene
				Andrew Olsen MBB/ Psy&Neurosci	Moral bootstrapping: Perceiving the minds of moral patients	D. Wegner A. Ward
				Emily Orlins	It's not bad, it's modern!: Children tell white lies for prosocial purposes	F. Warneken
				Katherine Ransohoff LS/Soc&Cog Neurosci	Patients on the trolley track: The moral cognition of medical practitioners and public health professionals	J. Greene
				Sophie Wharton MBB/ Psy&Neurosci	Thou shalt versus thou shalt not: The neural processes underlying decisions to help versus decisions to avoid doing harm	F. Cushman J. Greene
2009-2010	Nicholas Navarro	Conflict management in global virtual teams: Eastern and Western approaches	R. Hackman	Roy Cohen MBB/Cognitive Science	Different positive contacts for different groups: Asymmetric effects of interaction in Palestinians and Israelis	J. Greene R. Saxe
2008-2009	Yuliya Nikolova LS/Soc&Cog Neurosci	The effects of naturalistic stress and serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype on reward responsiveness: Implications for depression	D. Pizzagalli R. Bogdan	Haiwen Chen LS/Soc&Cog Neurosci	Crossing the "Uncanny Valley" to assess long-term perceptual adaptation to facial attractiveness	M.Livingstone /HMS K. Nakayama
	Rachel Reardon MBB/ Psy&Neurosci	Does it matter where we come from? Representations of sources in infants' event prepresentations	S. Carey L. Lakusta P. Muentener	Teresa Knickman	More dead than dead: Perceived mind of the persistent vegetative state	D. Wegner K. Gray
	Daniel Valenti	Extentions and implications of future anhedonia	D. Gilbert K. Kassam	Katherine Koh	Humanization and helping behavior: How does mind perception affect willingness to help the homeless?	A. Heberlein D. Wegner
	Elizabeth Weiss	Forewarned is forearmed: The role of forewarning in should/want decision making	M. Bazerman K. Milkman
2007-2008	Konika Banerjee PSY/HEB	Evidence for a general intelligence factor (g) in a non-human primate species	M. Hauser /Psy/HEB	Harrison Greenbaum	“Did you hear the one about the…?”: The effect of racial humor on prejudice	J. Sidanius L. Thomsen
	Erin Blackstock MBB/PN	Leveling the playing field: Examining the relationship between performance goals, stress responses, and stress appraisal on standardized exams	W. Mendes M. Akinola	Eric Reavis	High-level stimulus characteristics affect the stability but not the initiation of binocular rivalry	K. Nakayama S. Afraz
	Amit Kumar	The impact of outcome valence on perceived duration	D. Gilbert K. Kassam	Jillian Swencionis SocSt/Psy	Perception of defendant memory and its societal implications	T. Aladjem /SocSt D. Gilbert /Psy K. Kassam
	Carina Martin Life Science	Evidence for vagal regulation as an index of endocrine sensitivity to social feedback	W. Mendes K. Koslov	Rocksheng Zhong	The trouble with trolleys: Intention and causation in moral dilemmas	J. Greene F. Cushman
2006-2007	*Frankie Chen MBB/CN	A study of language and thought: Object-substance interpretation among the Tsotsil Mayan	S. Carey P. Li	*Judy Herbstman HistSci/Psy	A 'special relationship'?: Responsibility and the development of mental health resources at Harvard 1900-2007	M. Nock P. Barreira
	*Aline Flodr	To be or not to be ill: How choosing labels affects physical, emotional and mental symptoms	S. Carson	*Oludamini Ogunnaike AfAm/Psy	The language of prejudice: The influence of language on implicit attitudes	M. Banaji Y. Dunham J. Murgane
	*Katrin Gerlach MBB/CN	Autonomic nervous system responses to different tempi in music	G. Schlaug E. Hannon
	*Sarah Heilbronner MBB/CN	The evolution of risk-sensitive preferences in non-human primates	M. Hauser
	*Jori Pearsall MBB/CN	Sleep and the facilitation of human emotional memory over time	M. Walker R. Buckner
2005-2006	Krupa Bhojani MBB/PN	Hands as causal agents: Seven-month-olds and the development of causal perceptions	S. Carey	Virginia Borges	Children's responses to gender-based inequalities	E. Spelke K. Olson
	Kathleen Lee	When it is best to expect reality: Optimism predicts biased risk perception under conditions of stress	W. Mendes	Caitlin McKee MBB/CN	The effects of social information on infants' food preferences	E. Spelke K. Kinzler
	Caroline Pemberton MBB/CN	Young children's reasoning about the influences of social categories on friendship	E. Spelke K. Shutts
	Lisa Shu Ec/Psy	Is the endowment effect due to loss aversion or mere ownership?	D. Gilbert C. Morewedge S. Mullainathan
2004-2005	*Butler, Lucas	Children's early understanding of pictures and words as symbols	S. Carey	Crum, Alia	Think and grow fit: The mind-body connection between excercise and health	P. Stone T. Ben-Shachar
	Cowman, Erika	Effects of pramipexole, a D2/D3-receptor agonist, on reward responsiveness	D. Pizzagalli A. Eden-Evins	Riley, Caitlin	Infants' preference and engagement as predictors of problematic behavior in preschool at age five	M. Nock K. Lyons-Ruth
	Iguina, Carmen	Primate vocal communication: Evidence for vocal adjustment in response to auditory feedback	M. Hauser R. Egnor
	Powell, Lindsey	Thinking about thoughts: The neural correlates of belief attribution	S. Carey R. Saxe
	Rosati, Alexandra	Context-sensitive discounting in two non-human primates, the cotton-top tamarin (Sanguinis oedipus) and the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)	M. Hauser J. Stevens
2003-2004	Chen, Jennifer	Correlates of anosognosia in Alzheimer's patients: The roles of false memory and the distinctiveness heuristic in awareness	Budson, A.	Canose, David	Chasing a mirage: An investigation into the conditions under which perfectionism facilitates or inhibits task performance	Carson, Shelley
	Christie, Stella	Inferring the nonovbious: Infants' knowledge of correlation between structure and function	Spelke, Elizabeth and Markson, L.	Kenser, Hannah	Cognitive effects of priming in biracial individuals	Nakayama, Ken and Chiao, Joan
	Ferriter, Caitlin	Distinguishing between general and specific family correlates of eating disorders	Keel, Pamela	Poon, Bonnie	Upward advice transmission: Who gives and who gets?	Hackman, Richard and Pittinsky, Todd
	Zalta, Alyson	Homogeneity of eating patterns in collegiate peers: A longitudinal study	Keel, Pamela
2002-2003	Kim, Stephen*	Contribution of Prefrontial Contical Areas To Spatial Learning and Navigation in the Rat	Baxter, Mark	Chen, Frances*	The Evolution of Cooperation: Finding the Requisite Cognitive Mechanisms in Cottontop Tamarins (Sanguinus Oedipus)	Hauser, Marc
	Lai, Tiffany*	RetrivialInstructions and False Recognition: Testing the Limis of the Distinctiveness Heuristic	Wiseman, Amy and Schacter, Daniel	Jordan, Alexander*	Obsessionality, Distraction Strategy, and the Accessibility of Suppressed Thoughts	Wegner, Daniel and Kozak, Megan
	Murphy, Emily*	The Effect of PDE 10A Inhibition on Frontal Cognitive Performance in a Subchronic Phencyclidine model of Schizophrenia	Baxter, Mark	Whitchurch, Joseph*	Guilty by Association: An Empathic Model of Biased Anticipated Self-Evaluations as the Result of an Associate's Behavior	Epley, Nicholas
	Naragon, Kristin*	The Perception of Timbre as an Organizational Structure in Twentieth Century Nontonal Music	Fineberg, Joshua and Spelke, Elizabeth
2001-2002	Hutcherson, Cendri	The Effect of Stressful Mental Imagery on the Cortisol Response of Females with and without a History of Childhood Sexual Abuse	Stickgold, Robert	Gavrieli, Dana*	Gender and Leadership in the Israeli Defense Forces	Hackman, Richard
	Liston, Conor	Self-Recognition, Language, and the Origins of Long-term Event Memory: Implications for Infantile Amnesia	Kagan, Jerome	Tamara, Spiewak	The Effect of Acting Training On Social Skills	Hackman, Richard
	Rosenfeld, Andrew	Who Could Ask for Anything more? A Behavioral Study on the Role of Syncopation In Human Rhythm Perception	Fitch, Tecumseh	Tomb, Ian	Emotion and Decision-Making: A Critical Test of The Somatic Marker Hyphothesis	Hauser, Marc
2000-2001	Clifford, Erin	Interactions Between Attentional Set, Feature Characteristics and Explicit Capture	Simmons, D.	Chan, Grace	The Impact of Violence on Cortisol Secretion and the Associated Cognitive Performance in Children	Kennedy, B. and Leichtman, M.
	Luskin, Daniel	Practice Does not Make Perfect: The Time-Course of Change in Performance on a Sleep-Dependent Perceptual Learning Task	Stickgold, R. and Baxter, M.	Edwards, Kelly	Pathways To Hope: Strategies Used By Inner-City Families To Cope Successfully With Childhood Asthma	White, S.
	Moulton, Samuel	Implicit Measures of Ganzeld Success: An Experimental Assessment	Kosslyn, S.
	Tobey, Rachel	MS/VDB Lesions Blunt NMDAR1 Upregulation in Rat Dentate Gyrus Following Bilateral Perforant Path Transection: A Potential Model For Alzheimer's Disease	Baxter, M. and Morrison, J.

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	© by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Last updated 1 August, 2012