After completing a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Southampton (UK) and a fixed-term position at St Andrews University (Scotland), I worked for several years at Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia). I joined Okanagan College in 2020, and I currently teach courses on introductory psychology, research methods and design, perception, human information processing, qualitative methods and design, and program evaluation. My research interests include the reconstructive nature of memory (e.g., subjective experience of remembering, false/recovered memory), the strategic regulation of accuracy (e.g., knowing when to act on a piece of information or when to keep quiet), and judgment and decision making across a variety of situations. One of my most recent lines of research has focused on understanding anomalistic (i.e., extraordinary) and other non-evidence based beliefs, which includes belief in the paranormal, extra-terrestrials, conspiracy theories, motivated rejection of science, et cetera. Previous work in this area has typically shown that there are performance differences, such as reasoning ability, between people who hold such beliefs and those who do not. My research has concentrated on understanding these differences, as well as on how other variables may be related to anomalistic belief, such as delusion-proneness and thinking style (i.e., intuitive vs. analytical styles).
Credentials:
PhD, Cognitive Psychology, University of Victoria
MSc, Cognitive Psychology, University of Victoria
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Arnold-4