VIRGINIA E. O'LEARY
 
 




     Welcome to my web page. I am pleased to have an opportunity to tell you a bit about myself and my research. I am a social psychologist. I obtained my M.A. and Ph.D. at Wayne State University in Detroit.  For much of my career my research focused on women's achievements from a variety of perspectives.  I wrote on of the early textbooks in the psychology of women and I did research on women in management for the first decade of my career. In the late 1970s I collaborated with a colleague, Randy Hansen, on a number of studies that explored "sex-determined attributions."  Attributions for the cause of identical behaviors performed by women and men. During the last decade my interests have shifted to resilience and thriving among individuals facing profound life challenges, such as loss and life threatening illness. My early work in this area underscored the importance of the meaning to which people attribute the challenges they face and this led me to my current interest in cultural differences in meaning-making.
   Since I first visited Nepal in 1993, I have been captivated by the people of this poor but beautiful Hindu Kingom in the Himilayas.  I spent a semester sabbatical there in 1997 and have returned at least once a year since.  I am particularly interested in the way in which different world views affect the way in which people respond to challenge. There are many Buddhists in Nepal and one of the primary tenants of Buddhism is the belief that the only universal is change. It thus seems plausible to suggest that loss or changes in one's health status would be viewed quite differently in Nepal, than in the west, where the changes accompanying loss or declines in health are often both unanticipated and unwelcome. My recent research focuses on the origins of the differences in reactions to challenge between easterners and westerners.

     My teaching interests have become increasingly cross cultural as well.  In 1998, 2000, and again this year, I have taken students to Nepal, where I have taught a course on cross-cultural social psychology. We spend several hours a day in a traditional seminar format, but the rest of the time is devoted to experiential learning. We explore the temples and monesteries of the Kathmandu Valley. We travel to Chitwan to see the white rhinos and ride elephants through the tall grass. We take a 3-day trek through rural villages. We visit the Kumari (living goddess) in Durbur Square, tour the local craft centers where we see stone carving, the lost wax process of making bronze statues, pottery fired with rice grass in the same kind of kilns that have been used for over a thousand years. We have dinner with a Nepali family in their home and even do a short 3-day trek into the hills above Kathmandu to see village life as it has been lived for centuries.
The course is open to both advanced undergraduate and graduate students.



    At the undergraduate level, I teach social psychology. This fall I will also be teaching I/O psychology. Ocassionally I teach a seminar on Liking and Loving: The Psychology of Intimate Relations.  I teach the graduate course in Social Psychology that is required by APA Committe on Accreditation for the clinical and counseling doctoral students.
     My research team meets once a week. Both graduate and undergraduate students are involved in designing and conducting research studies. Right now we are finishing a cross cultural study of anxiety and depression in the US and Nepal. We have samples of both college students and clinic patients in both countries.
We will be presenting some preliminary results of this study at the upcoming meeting of the American Psychological Society in New Orleans in June. I encourage my students to be actively involved in research and publication and frequently coauthor papers and/or posters with them.
     My leisure pursuits include travel, reading and horse back riding (I own two horses and ride often).
     Please drop by my office to chat. I enjoy getting to know students personally (and getting them involved in research and writing).

To see my CV click here.