Plenary Sessions

Plenary sessions will highlight prominent speakers and current issues and topics in psychology. The Board of Convention Affairs and its Central Programming Working Group have organized sessions that encompass a broad range of interests. Topics and sessions are listed here. All plenary sessions are scheduled in the Orange County Convention Center on Friday, Aug. 3, 12-4 p.m. and on Saturday, Aug. 4, 2-6 p.m.

Topics and Session Highlights

Development in Social Context

Laurence Steinberg, PhD, Temple University
Friday, Aug. 3, 3-3:50 p.m.

"Should the Science of Adolescent Brain Development Influence Public Policy?"
Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly interested in adolescent brain development and ways society views and treats young people. This session summarizes what we know about brain development and behavior during adolescence, and ways it could be used to inform public policy

Janet Mann, PhD, Dept. of Biology, Georgetown University
Friday, Aug. 3, 12-12:50 p.m.

"Growing Up Dolphin"
Bottlenose dolphins live in a large, dynamic and complex society. This presentation focuses on how a dolphin calf navigates the social and ecological complexity of dolphin life from birth to adulthood, with a focus on sex differences, social networks and tool use.

Decisions, decisions: Decision-making in social context

Valerie F. Reyna, PhD, Cornell University
Saturday, Aug. 4, 3-3:50 p.m.

"Risk Perception and Risky Decision Making: From Viruses to Vaccines"
This session describes a novel approach to risky decision making, based on fuzzy-trace theory that places educated intuition at the center of prevention programs and clinical decision making, such as HIV-prevention and vaccination decisions.

Drew I. Westen, PhD, Emory University
Saturday, Aug. 4, 2-2:50 p.m.

"The Psychology of Dysfunctional Democracy: Where’s Franklin Roosevelt When You Need Him?"
This session offers an insider's view of historical and psychological factors that led to the world's oldest democracy becoming dysfunctional through the pervasive influence of money in politics and absence of a compelling, coherent narrative to provide a sense of how to get America moving again.

Elke U. Weber, PhD, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University
Saturday, Aug. 4, 4-4:50 p.m.

"Query Theory: Knowing What We Want by Arguing with Ourselves"
Query Theory describes decision making by drawing on memory and attention principles. By explaining status-quo bias, impatience to delay consumption and political polarization, it suggests ways to reduce loss aversion and impatience, and perhaps avert financial and environmental crises.

Robert Hogan, PhD, Hogan Assessment Systems, Fernandina Beach, Fla.
Saturday, Aug. 4, 2-2:50 p.m.

"The Modern Manager: Money Maker or Mental Health Menace"
An emerging consensus now exists on incompetent leadership, which affects over half of managers in all organizations. This presentation identifies some of the common reasons managers fail, especially dysfunctional interpersonal style. Data-based suggestions are made for fixing the problem.

The lively mind

Teresa M. Amabile, PhD, Harvard University
Friday, Aug. 3, 1-1:50 p.m.

"Creativity, Productivity, and Commitment: Revelations from the Work Diaries"
Nearly 12,000 diary entries, from dozens of professionals in several organizations, revealed what makes the difference between great days at work and terrible ones. Further analysis revealed the consequences for performance — creativity, productivity, commitment to the work and collegiality.

Howard Gardner, PhD, Harvard University
Saturday, Aug. 4, 3-3:50 p.m.

"Theory of Multiple Intelligences: Reflections on the First 30 Years and Speculations About Future Developments"
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is one of the best known and most discussed contributions to psychology of the last 30 years. He will describe the theory, its major claims, the ways it has been misunderstood and future directions of the theoretical and applied work.

Interdisciplinarity: Dissemination and implementation

Antonette Zeiss, PhD, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Washington, D.C.
Friday, Aug. 3, 3-3:50 p.m.

"Psychological Services for Veterans: Integral to Interdisciplinary VA Health Care"
The VA provides health care to over six million veterans. Almost two million receive care for mental health and other health problems. This session reviews VA's comprehensive health and mental health care, with emphasis on the roles psychologists play as members of interdisciplinary teams.

Dean L. Fixsen, PhD, National Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Friday, Aug. 3, 1-1:50 p.m.

"The “Evidence-Based Program” Movement is Dead: Long Live the EBP Movement!"
There is little evidence EBPs have resulted in socially significant outcomes in human services. Some policymakers have called for a moratorium on funding research to develop new evidence-based programs until we use the ones we have.

Bonnie J. Spring, PhD, Northwestern University
Friday, Aug. 3, 12-12:50 p.m.

"A Science of Team Science to Optimize Research and Practice"
High-impact science and integrated health care require effective collaboration by interdisciplinary teams. An emerging science of team science sheds light on trends, challenges and resources to help negotiate this new landscape.

Frontiers in eating and exercise

Barbara J. Rolls, PhD, Dept. of Nutritional Sciences, Pennsylvania State University
Friday, Aug. 3, 12-12:50 p.m.

"High Satiety: Avoiding Obesity in a Super-Sized World"
Eating more to weigh less. Learn how to manage your weight while eating satisfying portions.

Paul Rozin, PhD, University of Pennslvania
Friday, Aug. 3, 1-1:50 p.m.

"Eating and Food Choice: Biological, Psychological, and Cultural Perspectives"
This session covers research on acquisition of food preferences, the meaning of food in life within a cultural and evolutionary framework, differences in the way French and Americans deal with food, attitudes to natural things, disgust and development of likings for innately negative experiences.

Wendy A. Suzuki, PhD, Center for Neural Science, New York University
Friday, Aug. 3, 2-2:50 p.m.

"Exercise Education and the Brain"
This talk describes findings from recent experiments examining both the effects of long-term increases in aerobic exercise as well as a single acute bout of aerobic exercise on learning, memory and cognitive EEG functions of college students.

Hurting & healing

Matthew K. Nock, PhD, Harvard University
Saturday, Aug. 4, 4-4:50 p.m.

"Why Do People Hurt Themselves? Recent Advances in the Understanding of Suicide and Self-Injury"
Self-harm is a leading cause of death worldwide, and many questions remain unanswered. This presentation describes recent advances in the understanding, assessment and treatment of self-harm behaviors, as well as some promising directions for future research on this devastating problem.

Albert “Skip” Rizzo, PhD, Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California
Friday, Aug. 3, 2-2:50 p.m.

"Virtual Reality Goes to War: Innovations in Military Behavioral Healthcare"
The physical, emotional, cognitive and psychological demands of war place enormous stress on military personnel. This talk presents an overview of research, development and implementation of Clinical Virtual Reality application applied to prevention, assessment, and treatment.

Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, Pain Management Division, Stanford University School of Medicine
Saturday, Aug. 4, 3-3:50 p.m.

"The Strain in Pain Lies Mainly in the Brain"
Chronic pain affects over 100 million Americans and costs a half trillion dollars per year. This plenary focuses on information learned from brain neuroimaging to understand individual differences in pain percention and cognitive and emotional factors that modulate pain.

Discussion: Concussion and Repetitive Subconcussive Brain Trauma: Consequences for Athletes, Troops, and Legislation
Friday, Aug. 3, 12-1:50 p.m.

Participants: Robert A. Stern , PhD, Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical and Research Program, Boston University; David X. Cifu, MD, Dept. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University; Gerard A. Gioia, PhD, Children’s National Medical Center, Rockville, Md.
Chair: Rodney Vanderploeg, PhD, VA Medical Center, Tampa, Fla.

This session dispels misconceptions about long-term effects of concussion and subconcussive brain trauma. A review of scientific evidence for neuropsychological and neuropathological sequelae associated with mild traumatic brain injury in youth and adults is presented by three leading experts.

Fairness & justice

Anthony G. Greenwald, PhD, University of Washington
Saturday, Aug. 4, 4-4:50 p.m.

"What Role Will Race Play in the 2012 Presidential Election?"
In addition to the presentation's title question, this talk addresses the following: What role did race play in the 2008 election? What is the present status of racial attitudes in America?

Frans B. M. de Waal, PhD, Yerkes Primate Center, Emory University
Friday, Aug. 3, 2-2:50 p.m.

"Ape to Angel: Primate Evolution and Moral Building Blocks"
Human morality would not be possible without an ancient psychological and biological foundation shared with other primates. These include cooperative nature, capacity for empathy, a sense of fairness and sensitivity to social rules. Observations and experiments on primates will be described.

Isaac Prilletensky, PhD, School of Education, University of Miami
Saturday, Aug. 4, 3-3:50 p.m.

"Wellness as Fairness: Individual, Interpersonal, Internet, and Institutional Interventions"
Isaac Prilleltensky discusses synergy between wellness and fairness and presents online games and organizational interventions he designed to promote personal, organizational and collective well-being.

Recurring features

Up Close and Personal with Janet E. Helms, PhD
Friday, Aug. 3, 12-1:50 p.m.

A "Q and A" with Janet E. Helms, PhD, Boston College, conducted by Richard M. Suinn, PhD, Colorado State University. Dr. Helms is internationally known for her ground-breaking Racial Identity Theory relevant to White, Black and "womanist" identity evelopment. Her measures of racial identity provides a means to quantify racial identity (White, Black & "womanist") as a psychological construct. She is a leading multicultural counseling psychologist and expert on cultural equivalency in standardized testing.

Guide for the Perplexed—Mixed Methods Research in the Service of Social Justice
with Donna M. Mertens, PhD, Dept. of Educational Foundations and Research, Gallaudet College
Friday, Aug. 3, 3-3:50 p.m.

Mixed methods research has the potential to enhance psychologists’ abilities to contribute to social justice in the communities in which they work. The transformative paradigm is used as a framework for examining philosophical assumptions and methodological implications in such settings.

Debut features

What Every Psychologist Needs to Know About… Epigenetics
Emilie Rissman, PhD, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia School of Medicine
Saturday, Aug. 4, 4-4:50 p.m.

"Lessons from Sex Differences in Mice and Their Translation to Mental Illness"
Emilie Rissman discusses data from genetically engineered mouse models that inform sex differences in brain and behavior. She focuses on behavior in juvenile animals and draws parallels to several human neurobehavioral diseases that are highly skewed in their sex distributions.

The Late Show: For LCPs “Late Career Psychologists”
Nancy K. Schlossberg, PhD, Transition Through Life, Sarasota, Fla.
Friday, Aug. 3, 3-3:50 p.m.

“I Don’t Need Your Rockin Chair” – New Adventures in Retirement
Retirement is a career change requiring one to figure out a new life. The excitement of finding a new path—either paid or unpaid—and strengthening one's psychological portfolio provides possibilities to live out alternative dreams.