Elisabeth Hollister Sandberg, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Psychology Curriculum
A. B. (Psychology), A. M. (Cognitive Psychology), Ph.D. (Developmental Psychology) University of Chicago; Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard University.

Contact Information

Suffolk University
Department of Psychology
41 Temple Street
Boston, MA 02114
Donahue 615
617-573-8775 (Office)
617-3672924 (Fax)
elisabeth.sandberg@suffolk.edu

Elisabeth Sandberg’s website

Courses Taught

PSYCH 215 Behavioral Statistics
PSYCH 765 Cognitive Development
 

Specialty Area

Health psychology, physician-patient communication, learning & memory in health care settings, children’s cognitive development, developmental variability.

I have a series of ongoing projects concerning the information-giving behaviors of health care providers.  Students in my Health Care Communication Lab are exploring the limits of patient memory for verbally presented medical information, how memory varies across different medical populations, and what techniques facilitate memory for critical medical information.  We combine results from highly controlled, laboratory-based experiments with parallel field data to develop causal theories that are validated in real health care environments.

Also employing cognitive psychology as a tool in medical settings, I collaborate with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital who are using basic principles of learning and reinforcement to augment their efforts to shape the safety and efficiency behaviors of medical professionals.

My other primary line of research is in the field of cognitive development; specifically the development of spatial representation and planning skills in early and middle childhood.  Current projects include microgenetic analyses of the development of map building skills, social modeling and linguistic instruction as potential facilitators of map orientation skills, and developmental variability in spatial decision making strategies. 

Another key intellectual focus for me is the integration of developmental science and clinical practice.  Because the field of cognitive development exists in a rather insular bubble within the broader field of psychology, clinicians often lose sight of the normal developmental landscape that underlies behavior.  Becky Spritz and I have recently completed a book for clinical professionals that provides an accessible set of descriptions of normal childhood cognition, accompanied by suggestions for how to think about normal development in clinical contexts.

Selected Publications

Hirsch, P. & Sandberg, E. (2009). Developmental Variability in Completing a Complex Spatial Decision Making Task. Manuscript in preparation.

Sandberg, E.H., Paul, D., & Sandberg, W.S. (2009). A controlled study of the effects of patient information-elicitation style on clinician information-giving. Communication and Medicine, 6, 73-82.

Sandberg, E.H. & Spritz, B.L. (Eds.) (in press). A clinician’s guide to normal cognitive development in childhood. New York, NY: Routledge.

Spritz, B.L., Sandberg, E.H., Zajdel, R.T., & Maher, E. (in press). Emotion Skills and Social Competence in the Head Start Classroom: Implications for the Active Ingredients of Early Childhood Interventions. Early Education & Development.

 Sandberg, E.H., Sharma, R., Wiklund, R., & Sandberg, W.S. (2008). Clinicians consistently exceed a typical person’s short term memory during preoperative teaching. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 107(3), 972-978.