James Friedrich

Professor Friedrich received his B.A. degree from Oberlin College. He completed an M.Ed. in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Michigan. After teaching at Mount Saint Mary's College (MD) and the University of Puget Sound (WA), Professor Friedrich joined the faculty at Willamette University in 1992. His teaching interests include social psychology, personnel and industrial psychology, judgment and decision making, and statistics. His research, basic and applied in nature, concerns attitude formation and change, social inference, and decision making. Professor Friedrich occasionally misses the Midwest prairies that he called home for 20 years but finds the outdoor opportunities in Oregon's mountains, forests, and ocean beaches to be a "real slice of heaven."

Recent Scholarship

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Friedrich, J., Lucas, G., & Hodell, E. (in press). Proportional reasoning, framing effects, and affirmative action: Is six of one really half a dozen of another in college admissions? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Friedrich, J. (2005) Naturalistic fallacy errors in lay interpretations of psychological science: Data and reflections on the Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998) controversy. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27, 59-70.

Lucas, G. M., & Friedrich, J. (2005). Individual differences in workplace deviance and integrity as predictors of academic dishonesty. Ethics & Behavior, 15, 15-35.

Friedrich, J., & Camac, M. K. (2003). Psychologist as scientist or intuitive judge?: Assessing student perceptions and associated reasoning strategies. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 27, 1-10.

Friedrich, J., Buday, E., & Kerr, D.(2000). Statistical training in psychology: A national survey and commentary on undergraduate programs. Teaching of Psychology, 27, 248-257.

Friedrich, J., Barnes, P., Chapin, K., Dawson, I., Garst, V., & Kerr, D. (1999). Psychophysical numbing: When lives are valued less as the lives at risk increase. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 8, 277-299.

Friedrich, J., & Douglass, D. (1998). Ethics and the persuasive enterprise of teaching psychology. American Psychologist,53, 549-562.

Friedrich, J., & Smith, P. (1998). The suppressive influence of weak arguments in mixed-quality messages: An exploration of mechanisms via argument rating, pretesting, and order effects. Basic & Applied Social Psychology, 20, 293-304.

Fetherstonhaugh, D., Slovic, P., Johnson, S., & Friedrich, J. (1997). Insensitivity to the value of human life: A study of psychophysical numbing. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 14, 283-300. [** Also adapted as a chapter in The psychology of peacekeeping, 1998, H. J. Langholtz, Ed., Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.]

Friedrich, J., Fetherstonhaugh, D., Casey, S., & Gallagher, D.(1996). Argument integration and attitude change: Suppression effects in the integration of one-sided arguments that vary in persuasiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 179-191.

Friedrich, J. (1996). Assessing studentsÃ¯Â¿Â½ perception of psychology as a science: Validation of a self-report measure. Teaching of Psychology, 23, 6-13.