Rate My Professor Marie Walker

A. Marie Walker is a Professor of Psychological Science at Gustavus Adolphus College, where she joined the faculty in 1998 and was promoted to full professor effective 2014–2015. She serves in the Department of Psychological Science, located in Beck Hall 257. Walker earned her B.A. from the University of Western Ontario in 1989, M.A. from McGill University in 1993, and Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario in 1998. As a social psychologist, her research examines identity development and political self-regulation in emerging adult political attitudes and behavior, emotional self-regulation, the theory of uncertainty orientation and its implications for individual differences across cultures, creativity and depression linkages, control motivation and uncertainty processing in depressives, childhood parenting experiences' impact on adult creativity, and personality correlates of depressive styles in creative achievers. Her scholarship has accumulated 373 citations and emphasizes undergraduate student involvement in research projects, leading to conference presentations including at the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood.

Key publications by Walker include “Identity Development and Political Self-Regulation in Emerging Adult Political Attitudes and Behavior” in Emerging Adulthood (2015), “Harnessing the Undiscovered Resource of Student Research Projects” (2012), “Measuring School Spirit: A National Teaching Exercise” (2004), “A Theory of Uncertainty Orientation: Implications for the Study of Individual Differences Within and Across Cultures” (2004), “The Theory of Uncertainty Orientation: A Mathematical Reformulation” (2003), “Control Motivation and Uncertainty: Information Processing or Avoidance in Moderate Depressives and Nondepressives” (2000), “Childhood Parenting Experiences and Adult Creativity” (1999), “Personality Correlates of Depressive Style in Autobiographies of Creative Achievers” (1995), and “Creativity and Depression: Personality Correlates of Depression in Autobiographies of Creative Versus Non-Creative Achievers.” She teaches courses such as PSY-232: Social Psychology, PSY-257: Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination, PSY-244 and PSY-246: Psychological Science in the World, PSY-344: AT: Youth Mental Health Inequities, PSY-290: Research Apprenticeship, PSY-389: Directed Research Project I, PSY-390: Directed Research Project II, and PSY-368: Internship. Walker has chaired the Department of Psychological Science, co-chaired the Nobel Conference 58, co-chaired the Provost search committee, initiated the annual Mental Health Wellness Fair in 2012, and hosted the Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference. Her contributions enhance student research engagement and advance social psychological understanding.