mind over matter

Overview

Community Profile

Blog Plan

Consider the following:

• Looks are the number one thing women are looking for in a romantic partner.
• Scratching feels good because it pacifies a part of the brain responsible for unpleasant or aversive emotions and memories.
• Men are much more likely than women to engage in sex without kissing.
• The longer a couple is together, the more irritating and demanding they find one another

Did any of those tidbits pique your interest in the least?

Psychology is one of the most popular courses of higher-education study in the nation. While the decision to study psychology must vary among the more than 340,000 student majors, I came across one simple reason for its popularity over and over again in my reporting: psychology is fascinating to a broad range of people.

“I found it really interesting,” says Becky Pelnar, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse in December with a B.S. in psychology. “I love learning about how the mind works and why we think or behave the way we do. I can relate it to things I see in real life, and it’s just interesting to me.”

Based on feedback I’ve received on my blog, people are reading it for the same reason: to many people, psychology is just plain interesting. My friend Marissa Conrad, a journalist in Washington, D.C., told me she enjoys the blog’s content.

“Honestly, a lot of times what made me read it was your very intriguing Gchat away messages!” she wrote in an email. “The interesting Gchat teasers, however, indicate that you were picking interesting content to begin with. A lot of times I’m too lazy to sort through the news (and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way), so I always appreciate sites that bring me interesting cocktail party conversation at little to no work on my part.” (View more reader comments here.)

Not to get all self-effacing, but I can take little credit for people’s compliments – they’re into the content, perhaps more so than the style. (Granted, I could select boring topics and present them in a dull way a la my undergrad Behavioral Psychology class, but that’s another story.) My targeted readership therefore includes anyone who’s interested in psychology, but for the purposes of this assignment, I will tailor my Web site so that my community is composed of undergraduate psychology students.

Blog Goal

I will continue do what I’ve been doing from the start: providing an easy-to-digest, slightly snarky look at how psychology is treated and covered in the mainstream media. I’ll analyze and explore how the media affects public understanding of mental disorders, and I’ll include plenty of interesting research in the field.

But beyond that, I want Mind Over Matter 2.0 to be an unmatched resource for undergraduate students majoring in psychology. By targeting information for information-hungry students and adding networking and research features specifically for undergrads, I will make “Mind Over Matter” a useful resource for all undergraduate psychology majors. By tailoring the content and applications to the specific needs of a young, computer-savvy, psychology-literate audience, I will boost my Web site’s utility and increase audience size and engagement.

Community Snapshot

Based on figures from 2005, there are about 340,000 undergraduate psychology majors in the U.S. Nearly all these students use the internet regularly, and about 40 percent regularly use the internet for news and research. They are interested in keeping abreast of psychology new and research, learning about developments in the field, reading advice on possible career paths and connecting with psychology students across the nation. I interviewed undergraduate psychology majors from several schools to learn what exactly they want out of a website and used that reporting to inform my blog plan.

Plan Highlights

• Categorize blog posts into bodies of research and fields of psychology

Some students love social psychology, others are into behavioral psychology, and still others are totally into abnormal psychology. Instead of lumping all studies into one “Research” category, I’ll sort them according to their specific fields.

• Include information about psychology education or psychology as an overall field

Students don’t just want to read a slew of research. They also want to read about psychology as a field, put into context. How is psychology changing attitudes? How is it perceived in the media? How is psychology doing as a profession – what are the job outlooks? What sort of ethical quandaries do psychologists find themselves in? What are student psychologists up to these days, and what are some trends in psychology education? I’ve been doing a little of this with my “Mainsteam Media” category, but I’d like to expand this aspect of the blog.

• Add interactive pages for different categories of readers.

Yes, I’m identifying “undergrad psych majors” as my target demographic, but to think that they all have the same needs would be a huge mistake. Therefore, I’d include pages linking to outside resources and providing internal resources for the following groups of people:

• Those looking to major in psychology
• Those looking to apply for grad school
• Those looking to find related employment

All three pages would be heavy on trend information, original and external advice, and public message boards. Students unanimously said they’d be interested in communicating with psychology majors from other colleges about ideas, advice and research.

• Include more original content

A major draw to my Web site is the fact that it aggregates much information in one easy-to-digest forum. But another big draw to Mind Over Matter could be original content – interviews and profiles readers can’t find anyone else. One thing I’d like to include is a weekly profile of a person who majored in psychology and now uses it in a seemingly unrelated profession. Another regular feature I’d like to include is a short feature of Q&A with a lead researcher about the applicability and implications of his or her most recent findings.

Another regular feature could be original reporting on the real-life applications and service elements of new studies. Several students indicated that they wished professors spent more time explaining the implications of their findings. By contacting researchers about their published studies, I could press them for information about how their findings could be applied to everyday life. Perhaps I could pursue about one study a week in a regular feature or Q&A that breaks down a study’s methods, findings and real-world implications.