Sabbatical Application and Report
2014-2015
Laurie Desiderato, Ph.D.
Professor
Psychology Department
Bemidji State University
Report submitted 9/1/2015 is in red below original application content.
Description of Activities
I dedicated my last sabbatical to teaching and conducting two small research projects in Malaysia. That was a
fantastic experience that I would recommend to any faculty member. I plan to stay closer to home this time, but
would be delighted to take part in one of the CIEE study abroad courses if I have an opportunity. I plan to use
this sabbatical to continue my research in two different areas. Both are projects I have been involved in during
the past five years and that I look forward to having more time to focus on them. The two areas are:
1. Conservation psychology is new area of psychology that applies principles of community behavior
change towards the aim of promoting environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviors. My
lab students and I have conducted several studies in this area in the past focusing on reducing
consumerism, parking on the lake, and investigating the cognitive effects of spending time in nature.
This year the focus is on the question: what particular strategies of behavior change promote broader
pro-environmental changes? Conservation programs target individual pro-environmental behaviors
(energy use reduction, composting, recycling), but there is little ‘slippage’ that occurs across behavior
categories. My lab students and I are conducting a study that examines how various strategies aimed at
reducing student printing impact both the targeted behavior (printing) and other pro-environmental
behaviors and the development of an environmental identity. I plan to continue this avenue of research
in another project in the Spring semester and use part of my sabbatical to write them up for
presentation and publication – depending on the outcomes.
The project my students and I conducted during last spring semester did not result in significant changes
making it difficult to accomplish this goal. The project was a multi-tiered effort to reduce trash in the dining
Hall through community behavior change strategies including signage and education, incentives, and gaining
commitment. It was a great student project in that we demonstrated how intransigent community level
behavior is and that structural changes are more effective in large group change than individual level social
norm change.
Instead of publishing in this area, I co-authored an article with a graduate student, Carissa Erikson, that
resulted from data she collected for her thesis. We submitted an article on the relationship between
enjoyment of sexuality and self-concept in adolescents living in a rural setting to the journal, Sex Roles. The
article was rejected, but based on reviewer comments we revised the article substantially and submitted it
to the Journal of Adolescence. It has been sent to the reviewers and we are waiting their response. I would
be happy to furnish a copy of this manuscript.
2. For the past five years I have consulted with a strengths-based organizational effectiveness program
called UnlockingStrengths, which has grown from a small Bemidji based business into a successful
international company with a large client base. My role on the research team has been to help develop
and test items for measures of strengths use, teamwork, productivity, communication, and engagement.
These measures are used by employees as part of the strengths use training programs and to evaluate
the program’s effectiveness. Our current project involves validating these measures in order to be in a
position to use them to test our theoretical approach to promoting organizational effectiveness through
strengths training. I look forward to turning our ‘white pages’ into articles suitable for submission to
professional peer-review journals.
Our team has worked diligently on preparing an article titled, “Development and Validation of the Strategic
Performance Audit: A Self report Measure of Team Performance Constructs of Teamwork, Engagement,
Creating Trust, and Proactivity” which will be submitted to the Journal of Organizational Behavior by the end
of September. This article (available on request) provides a summary of individual level attributes that we
believe influence team performance and reports on our validation of a measure to monitor these attributes
in a series of four studies. In addition, our team has continued to develop research projects related to the
next steps of validating and using this scale for individual and team development in the workplace.
Other Sabbatical Activities:
1. Evaluation of NICE RIDE Bicycle program grant funded by MN BlueCross/BlueShield
 PI in collaboration with Carla Norris-Raynbird & Erika Baily Johnson
2. Attended 4 day workshop - Meditation and Psychotherapy: The Power of Mindfulness in
Boston Harvard Medical School. (for licensure).
3. Completed an EdX course (MOOC) 6 week online course on understanding Climate Change
Denial and obtained certificate of completion – for prepping for teaching on-line this year and
for teaching a new course – People and the Environment
4. On the local planning committee of the UMACS conference here at BSU in June
Upper Midwest Association of Campus Sustainability
.