Professor Uses Training in Social Psychology to Help Students Examine, and Solve, Conflict by Sue Kropp
Biographical Information: • B.A., Williams College; • M.S., University of Massachusetts, Amherst; • Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst (social and personality psychology); • Frantz also spent two years as a Mellon Fellow at Amherst College. Related Links: Cynthia Frantz's Home Page Faculty Profiles Faculty & Staff Page		DECEMBER 4, 2002--Assistant Professor of Psychology Cynthia Frantz stumbled into her line of research almost by accident. "After I got out of college and went to work in the 'grown-up world,' I realized that grown-ups weren't as mature as I had thought," says Frantz. "I worked for a small business that was embroiled in a conflict between the owners and the employees, and it was horrifying to watch how the conflict hurt people and ultimately destroyed the business." Frantz learned from her experience that conflict was a way of life, but began to wonder if there was a way to help people respond more productively to negative situations. "Ultimately, I want to use my research to create a way of coding open-ended data for perspective taking, which is a tool that can be used to help mediators solve problems more productively," Frantz says. "Because conflict is everywhere, I think the applications of this research are very big." A Q&A with Cynthia Frantz: Research Interests: Perspective-Taking and Conflict Statistics for a Psychology Major Oberlin Students: What Does Everyone Mean by 'Different?'
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