April 9, 2008

 

Contacts:

Brent Roberts, MSU Billings Library, 657-1655
Dan Carter, University Relations, 657-2269

 

MSU BILLINGS NEWS SERVICES — Much has been made lately of the intelligence of a person’s unconscious, but can those influences really be trusted?

 

That will be the focus of the next faculty presentation in the Montana State University Billings Library Lecture Series.

 

The lecture “Should We Trust Our Unconscious?” will be presented by Dr. Matt McMullen, a professor of psychology at MSU Billings. It will be Thursday, April 17 from noon to 1:30 p.m. in LA 205 on the university’s main campus.

 

The presentation is free and open to the public. It is part of an ongoing effort sponsored by the MSU Billings Library to showcase the research and scholarship of faculty at the university.

 

Writer Malcom Gladwell wrote extensively about the intelligence of the unconscious in his recent book “Blink.” And while recent research demonstrates the influence of the unconscious in perception, learning, memory and behavior, McMullen will ask if those perceptions are trustworthy.

 

A Fulbright Scholar, McMullen said that while the unconscious is a powerful influence, it is also the source of bias and inaccuracy that only conscious, rational thought can overcome. His talk will review the psychological research on the pros and cons of trusting our unconscious.

 

McMullen received his PhD from Indiana University in 1995, and has been with MSU Billings since 1996. He has numerous publications in journals such as Personality and Social Psychology Review and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

 

He received an Academic Research Enhancement Award from the National Institute of Mental Health for 2001-2004, an MSU-Billings Faculty Achievement Award in 2006, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Heidelberg University, Germany, in 2007.

 

For more information on the MSU Billings Library Lecture Series, contact Brent Roberts at 657-1655.