LOOKING FOR LIFE'S ANSWERS; PROFESSOR SURVEYS HUMAN EMOTIONS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- To psychology professors and students, research often is the icing on the cake of the psychology program offered at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We are not a heavy research program," said Dr. William Snell, psychology professor and researcher. "Our major concern is providing students with a broad based and useful preparation in psychology. Our first responsibility is to the education of our students.

"But we're all scholars," he said of his colleagues in the psychology department. "We all have areas of expertise and we like to do research."

Much of the research the professors do, alone or with students, is completed on their own time.

"It's fun for me," Snell said. "And doing research gives me a lot of satisfaction."

Snell received the College of Social Sciences' Outstanding Faculty Award for Research in 1988.

Snell is developing a survey to determine empathy toward abused children. "I think in society there is some variation in how people feel about abused children. Some may feel a lot of empathy and others may not," he said.

A scale will attempt to determine how well a person can imagine what it would be like to be an abused child. It also will survey respondents' emotional reactions to abuse. Demographics, like education levels, marital status and socio-economic status, also will be collected.

The survey has taken about a year to develop. He is working with psychology department colleague Dr. Gail Overbey. It will be used to collect information and hopefully draw conclusions about how different people respond to the issue of child abuse, he said.

"This is a long process," Snell said. "We hope in the future to involve students in this research."

Working with students is another aspect of research at the university. Students are not required to conduct research unless they choose to.

"I have worked with a number of students," Snell said. "I have published with students. These are undergraduate students who are involved in research. For the most part, when we do research with students, it's truly a collaborative effort.

"Psychology professors "make ourselves available to students who are interested in doing a research project," Snell explained. In fact, a newsletter published by the Psychology Club and Psi Chi honor society lists professors who are willing to do projects with students and their areas of special interest.

Snell, for example, does research in empathy, self-disclosure, intimate relationships, stressful life experiences and psychology of gender, among other areas.

This semester Snell also teaches a course in which students conduct their own research. "I'm the resource person. They choose their topics and how they design their study."

Students are studying self-esteem, stress and coping, and war anxiety.

To students who go on to graduate school, research experience is very beneficial, Snell said. "In a way, they have already done a thesis-type project," he said.

"The courses in our major also teach skills for research and statistical analyses, which are marketable skills," Snell said. "Our students can get jobs with a B.S. degree doing marketing research, for example."

Snell has been teaching at Southeast for almost five years. In addition to experience in the classroom, Snell worked with the Texas Department of Mental Health for a time. I did some research reports there with mental-health indexes. After that job I realized teaching is what I really want to do. We have a great group of students here; they are enthusiastic, interested and ask a lot of questions."

But he said research offers another type of job satisfaction.

"Sometimes we do research to attract attention to the topic. That is what we're trying to do with the child-abuse research," he said.

"Sometimes the research is intended to educate. I did some research with stress and coping to help find different ways of coping. The research was published, and I hope that a therapist might look at that and get some ideas.

"We are not a research institution," he said. "But the opportunity is available to students if they are interested."