My ultimate career goal is to be an academic psychologist ...

Application Statement
My ultimate career goal is to be an academic clinical psychologist conducting research and
teaching at a major university. My interest in psychology first began to emerge during pre-adolescence
as I began paying close attention to the interactions of friends and family. When I started college,
however, several very influential people in my life pushed me to major in business rather than
psychology because it promised a more lucrative future. After a year and a half in a business program, I
found that I had no real passion for business. After taking a year off to work in a law firm, I returned to
school and took a seminar class in Lifespan Development with the most motivating and inspiring
professor. With my passion for psychology renewed, I quickly focused on pursuing a career in the field.
A number of different experiences have shaped my research interests. For over a year I have
worked as a research assistant in Dr. Marion Underwood’s lab. We have been studying anger and
aggression in adolescents’ peer and family relationships. Last summer, we conducted an experiment
observing adolescents and their mutually nominated best friend interacting over Instant Messenger and
face-to-face after a mild conflict generated by giving friends moderately negative false feedback. My
honors thesis, which was based on this data, is titled “Preadolescents’ Computer Use and the Quality of
their Friendships.” I hypothesized that those who spend more time on the computer at home and on
Instant Messenger will experience a reduced quality of friendship compared to those who spend less
time on the computer and IM. I expected this result because I think the more time spent online would
mean less time for face-to-face interaction resulting in a less intimate exchange between friends. I
coded and entered the data received from the friendship qualities measure and from questions on the
computer use questionnaire and conducted correlational analyses to assess computer use and each
quality. Correlational analyses showed that although time spent on the computer was not clearly
related to negative friendship qualities, enjoyment of IM was associated with relational aggression
within friendship, overt aggression within friendship, and exclusivity. I also helped to conduct a pilot
study in Dr. Underwood’s lab looking at how a participant and his/her mutually nominated best friend

and a participant and his/her primary caregiver relate when given interaction tasks to complete. In a
large percentage of the participants, social aggression was present in both interactions. It has been
fascinating to observe interactions with the purpose of answering specific questions and to learn
accurate methods of gathering and analyzing the data. From these experiences I have developed keen
research interests in the influence of peer interactions on children’s social and emotional development,
social aggression exhibited by girls in preadolescence and adolescence, and the growing rate of
depression among adolescents.
My clinical interests have grown out of experiences at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas where
I work on the Inpatient Psychiatry Unit as a Milieu Therapist. I have worked at the hospital since the
beginning of July 2002 assisting in the care of 2- to 17-year-olds struggling with bipolar disorder,
depression, suicide, eating disorders, behavior problems and a myriad of other issues. This opportunity
to work in direct patient care helped me to better define my approach to psychology. While children
and adolescents are in the hospital working to change their behavior and improve their coping skills, we
also work to educate their parents about their children’s problems and help them improve their
parenting skills. Working closely with parents has increased my clinical interest in parent-child
interaction as well as marital interaction and how these relationships may contribute to maladaptive
functioning in both the parents and their children. This experience has also increased my research
interest in family interactions. Moreover, although I love clinical aspects of my job, I find myself wanting
to find out more about what may contribute to certain psychological phenomena such as depression
and how to better help a struggling population.
Duke University’s doctoral program in clinical psychology appears to be well aligned with my
goals and interests. After investigating doctoral programs in clinical psychology across the country, I
have chosen to apply to your school for several reasons. First is your commitment to a multi-system
approach to researching psychological phenomena. Second is your significant emphasis on research.
Third, are the outstanding faculty members and the match of their research interests with my interests.

Specifically, I am fascinated by Professor Putallaz’s work on parent and peer social systems and how
they influence children’s social competence and social relationships. I am also interested in her research
on social aggression in middle childhood girls. Professor Asher’s research on children’s conflict
responses, studies of peer acceptance and rejection and how this contributes to children’s development
of interpersonal skills is also very interesting. Finally, I am interested in Professor Curry’s research on
clinically depressed adolescents and effective therapies for treating depression in childhood and
adolescence.