The congress is a wonderful opportunity to gather information about the current direction of Irish psychological research and based on the information from the timetable for presentations it appears that the majority of the research to be presented is coming from the traditional mainstream topics of scientific psychology. From almost 200 presentations taking place only about 10 of these are related to I.T in some way, which personally is a big disappointment, especially considering the ubiquity of communications technologies in Ireland and the number of I.T companies based here.

Applying psychological studies to technology has always been a niche in this country, which is surprising because it has so many positive and negative impacts upon Irish working life, home life, education etc. It is something that I feel passionately about, especially the importance of applying scientific methods to research in I.T – rather than the current climate of unreliable surveys and the media shaping public knowledge and ideas about how we use and interact with one another through technology.

I did however note an increase in the areas of research related to gay men and lesbians (though it is still a tiny percentage of the 200 presentations). There are of course many other areas of research that I have an interest in and below is a list of the selected presentations which I will aiming to attend.

9am Eoin Golden (NUIG) Undergraduate: Same-Sex Affection in Public: A Qualitative Study.

9.15 Sarah Kilroy (TCD) Undergraduate: Personality, rape myth beliefs and prejudiced instructions: Effects on decisions of guilt in a case of date rape.

9.30 Maccon-Fionn Macnamara (NUIG) Undergraduate: The role of attentional bias in emotional vulnerability.

9.45 Caroline Bergin-McLoughlin (NUIM) Undergraduate: Investigating the Effects of Brain Training on Spatial Memory.

10.00 Niamh Hanrahan (IADT) Undergraduate: The Effect of Humour in Advertising Stimuli on Attitude towards the Ad (Aad) and Purchase Intention (PI).

10.15 Miriam O’Gorman (MIC) Undergraduate: Background Music: a help or a hindrance?

11.00 Deirdre Delaney (UCD) Undergraduate: An assessment of quality of life in adults over 65 Years in Ireland and its relationship to anxiety and depression.

11.15 Mary Christina Joyce (UCC) Undergraduate: Gender Differences and Course Differences in Internet Attitudes amongst an Irish University Sample.

11.30 Sandra von Bergen (IADT) Undergraduate: Comparing the effectiveness of e-learning to the presentation method of teaching in a college setting.

11.45 Michael Malone (IADT) Undergraduate: The physiological correlates of ‘Flow’ states within an I.T. environment.

12.00 Anne O’ Donoghue (UCD) Undergraduate: Language and Cognition: A Study of Grammatical Gender Effects.

12.15 Claire O Driscoll (NUIG) Postgraduate: Factors influencing psychological well being and treatment outcome of couples planning or receiving in-vitro fertilisation (IVF): A self regulatory model perspective.

14.00 Ellen Brady (UCD) Undergraduate: Social Support on the Internet: A Qualitative Analysis of an Irish Parenting Website.

14.15 Geraldine Campion (MIC) Undergraduate: The potential of the dynamic medium of video instruction using the cognitive architecture of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.

14.30 Colin Gallagher (IADT) Undergraduate: CHI 2008 The iPod Generation, Living in Musical Isolation?

14.30 Eoin Pluinceid (TCD) (Undergraduate): Client Satisfaction and Perception of Alliance in Online Asynchronous Counseling in a University Setting: An Exploratory Study.

14.45 Anna Burke (NUIM) Undergraduate: “Body Image, Psychosocial Well-being and Risky Sexual Behaviour: An Investigation Among Gay Men”.

15.00 Sarah Halpin (AMCD) Undergraduate: The Effects of Verbalisation on Object Recognition.

15.15 Ms Katrice Sheridan & Dr Tim Trimble (TCD) Postgraduate: Services and Supports used by Students to obtain Information about a Further Education College.

16.00 Clair O’Connor (UCC) Undergaduate: “That’s going on Bebo”: An examiniation of the relationship between Bebo use and self-reported global self esteem in Cork University students.

16.15 Áine O’ Callaghan (NUIG) Undergraduate: The Associations among Old-fashioned and Modern Prejudice and the Individual Difference Variables of Extrinsic/Intrinsic Motivation, Social Dominance Orientation, Right-wing Authoritarianism, and the Protestant Work Ethic.

16.45 Alan Forrey (MIC) Undergraduate: Sex differences in attitudes to gay men and lesbians: an Irish perspective.

17.00 Lisa Gorry, Tim Mc Nichols, Gráinne Kirwan (IADT) Undergraduate: Employers’ Implicit Theories of Intelligence
in the Recruitment of Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome.