Louise Meilleur, Research, Psychology, Graduate and Undergraduate, and Thought Influences
Louise Meilleur is a friend and colleague, who works with me in the Lifespan Cognition Lab. Here we talk about undergraduate education, work prior to psychology, work with Dr. Bernstein, and controversial research topics.
Louise Meilleur is a friend and colleague, who works with me in the Lifespan Cognition Lab. Here we talk about undergraduate education, work prior to psychology, work with Dr. Bernstein, and controversial research topics.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you gain
interest in psychology? To date, where have you acquired education?
Louise
Meilleur: I was first
interested in Psychology in high school, but I knew that I wasn’t interested in
counselling as a profession and, like many, I didn’t really realize that
Psychology involved much more than counselling. In 2004, I looked for a
career change. I decided to attend an information session on the Bachelor of
Applied Arts in Psychology and the whole world of applied and experimental
psychology was opened up to me. I could see how I could pursue
Psychology, but also leverage my experience working with technology.
Before that, I felt held back by the idea of “starting from scratch”, but when
I realized that I could build off of my past experiences, rather than leave
them behind altogether, returning to school to pursue a BA didn’t seem quite so
over whelming.
I received my Associate of Arts and my
Bachelor of Applied Arts (Hons) from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I
am currently working towards a PhD at Ohio State University. I will
receive my MA in Psychology in December 2012. I’m also working on a Master’s
of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Promotion which I’ll receive in
May of 2013. If things continue as planned, I should be finished my PhD
in May of 2015.
While I was still working I also completed a couple of programs that helped to further my telecommunications career. I received a certificate in Telecommunications Management from Vancouver Community College and a Data Network Administration certificate from Langara College.
Jacobsen: What did you pursue prior to your interest in Psychology?
Meilleur: I spent 12 years working in telecommunications. I
started in a Call Center, providing bilingual (French/English) customer service
for long distance customers. From there, I started night school to move
ahead and ended in management positions at companies like Bell Canada, Telus,
and Best Buy Canada.
Jacobsen: What kind of research did you pursue as an undergraduate
student?
Meilleur: I worked in Dr. Bernstein’s Lab for two and a half years
studying various aspects of social cognition. The B.A.A. at Kwantlen
allows you to experience a lot of hands-on research. I was able to pursue
projects in many different domains, which helped to refine my interest and led
to my honours project – studying the effects of perceptual fluency on risk perceptions.
More broadly, I became interested in how our judgments and decisions, and
subsequently our behavior, are influenced not just by pertinent information,
but erroneous sources that “rationally” should not affect our behavior.
Jacobsen: What have you specialized in at Ohio State
University? What do you currently research as a graduate student?
Meilleur: Officially, my specialty is Quantitative Psychology but
my focus is in Judgment and Decision Making, which is grouped together with
Quantitative Psychology at Ohio State University. What that means is that
my required coursework is mostly in stats, while I pursue my own
interests/research. I’m in the CAIDe (Cognitive and Affective Influences
on Decision making) working with Ellen Peters. My main interest is in
Medical Decision Making and I have been studying how we can manipulate
attention to improve health decisions. One of the ways to measure
attention is through eye movements. Therefore, much of my data is
collected using eye tracking equipment.
Jacobsen: Since you began studying psychology, what controversial
topics seem pertinent to you? How do you examine the controversial topic?
Meilleur: To be honest, I am not terribly concerned with
controversial topics. I am much more interested in the application of
psychology to improve people’s lives. For example, how can we change the
way that information is presented so that it actually changes behavior?
In my area of research, the biggest controversy that I perceive is the ability
to use what we learn to impact people’s behavior, specifically their health
related behaviors. The question is, “where do you draw the line between
libertarianism (free choice) and paternalism (influencing people to do what you
think is best)?” We want to construct an environment that leads to people
making the best choice, but who decides what is the best option? As a
scientist, my interest is predominantly in how I can affect behavior, but I
also need to consider the ethics of using my knowledge in a way that might
impede free choice, as well as consider any unintended consequences of any
intervention I might construct.
Jacobsen: How would you describe your philosophical framework for
understanding psychology?
Meilleur: In general, I am a pragmatist. I am open to using
any reliable methodology that allows me to answer the questions I want to
ask. I ask questions with a pragmatic nature. In that, they have a
clear application with the intention to improve or “fix” a real life problem.
Jacobsen: If you had sufficient funding for any topic of research,
what would you like to research?
Meilleur: I am in the enviable position to have the necessary
resources available to conduct the research most interesting to me at this
time. Later on in my career, I hope to apply my training in psychology
and public health to conduct research in order to develop public policies and
programs that can successfully improve people’s health. We focus so much
of our attention on disease, but the major causes of death and disease are due
to health related behaviors (e.g., tobacco use, over eating). I would
like to continue to research ways to help people improve their negative and
positive health behaviors.
Jacobsen: What advice do you have for undergraduate students
intending to pursue graduate-level studies and research?
Meilleur: The most important thing is start early. Get
involved in as much research as possible, go to as many conferences, and if
possible present. Start studying for the GRE early; it took me at least
100 hours of preparation. There are dozens of reference books that will
tell you what you need to do to get into grad school. Read them because
they are mostly correct. The thing that cannot be stressed enough is the
importance of selecting an advisor. This is true in undergrad for your
honours thesis, but it is critical for graduate school. In a sense, I was
lucky when applying to graduate schools; I did not have a clear understanding
which schools were good, bad, or average – particularly the American
schools. Specifically, I focused on finding people I was interested in
working with rather than schools I wanted to go to. I contacted all of
the people I wanted to work with via email, phone, and in person where
possible. When it comes to the selection process, as much as they are
interviewing you, you need to interview them to make sure you can work with
them for the next five plus years. Regardless of how great a program,
student, or advisor is, if the fit is not right, everyone loses. Even at
Ohio State, where the competition to get in is fierce and the faculty are
amazing, I have peers who are stagnating, partially due to mismatch with their
advisor and, as a result, a number of them have left the program. I am
lucky in that my advisor and I have very similar interests and we work well
together. It has made all the difference in my research productivity.
Jacobsen: If you have any books to recommend for people, what would
you recommend as seminal/influential/required reading?
Meilleur: For a general overview of judgment and decision-making,
the Blackwell handbook is quite good. It is a collection of chapters
written by leading experts in various topics within judgment and
decision-making.
The Blackwell
Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making.
Eds Derek Koehler & Nigel Harvey, 2007
Heuristics and
Biases is another collection of
papers by various researchers, but it focuses on intuitive judgments, which is
to particular interest to me.
Heuristics and
Biases, The Psychology of Intuitive
Judgment. Eds Gilovich, Griffin & Kahneman, 2002
A couple of more commercial books that deal
with intuitive decision making that I really enjoyed:
Blink: The
Power of Thinking without Thinking.
Malcolm Gladwell 2007
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness. Thayler & Sunstein 2009
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