Michele Acker

Professor & Director of the Honors Program

Dr. Michele Acker is a professor of psychology, with emphases in social psychology, industrial organizational psychology, and gender studies. She received her doctorate in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Acker’s areas of expertise are in close personal relationships, social stereotyping, trust and suspicion, and gender issues in the workplace. Some of her research examines perceptions of intimacy between relationship partners and the role that suspicion and trust play in relationships. She teaches courses in general psychology, social psychology, industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology, psychology of women, research methods. She is interested in how social psychology can contribute to our understanding of human interactions with the natural world which she explores in a class on conservation psychology. She teaches a seminar in the honors program and has advised over 20 senior theses. She teaches travel courses in the May term looking at culture and gender (in Italy), and at culture and environmental issues (in Belize). Her current research project is the “Letters to Juliet” project looking at cultural and social issues through the lens of advice letters written to “Juliet” over the last twenty years.