Erica Masi '09 Photo by Brian MacDonald

Erica Masi, a senior psychology and biology double major from New Hartford, N.Y., was awarded a $1,500 research grant from Psi Chi, the national psychology honor society that gives only 12 to 16 of these highly competitive grants each semester to students across the country, and those primarily at large universities.

When she learned that she received the full amount requested from the national organization, she went right to work, testing volunteers to determine whether having a friend along alleviates symptoms in stressful situations.

Her project, titled "The Impact of Different Types of Friend Support During Psychological Stress on Cardiac Reactivity and Salivary Cortisol Levels," is in process now. Masi is enlisting student volunteers to be tested to see if having a friend with them, either in the room, outside the room, or absent, affects their stress level. Assistant professor of psychology, Dr. Melissa VanderKaay Tomasulo, is her adviser on the senior honors thesis project.

Each volunteer subject, Masi hopes to test 60 in all, will be given a cognitive task that lasts eight minutes. His or her blood pressure and saliva content will be monitored at specific intervals. All data will be recorded into categories of male and female, with or without a friend in the room, a friend nearby or no friend present.

While determining which setting alleviates stress better, Masi is also learning how to set up and administer a carefully controlled scientific study. She has already learned quite a lot about writing a research grant, developing a CV or curriculum vitae, and detailing a research project budget. She did those parts so well that her grant was funded in the highly competitive Psi Chi atmosphere.

Masi and her four research assistants, Anna Campbell '11, Jenny Pietroski '10, Elizabeth Couser '09 and Erika Johnson '10, are carrying out the study in a Saint Michael's psychology department lab-a 'double-sided' room that allows the researcher to observe the subject, who cannot see the observers.

The subject will have a blood pressure cusp on his or her arm which is attached to a computer. The subject will also give saliva samples, at a specific hour of the day, before and after the test. Timing will be precise in order to control for normal fluctuations that occur at various times in a person's body rhythms. The subject will also agree not to eat or exercise for a certain period before being tested.

The study mimics a real health setting, Masi explained. She hopes to publish the results of her work at the end of the study, and in the future she hopes to become a physician's assistant, and possibly pursue health care opportunities abroad.