{"id":517,"date":"2018-12-27T21:03:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T21:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nau.edu\/undergraduate-research\/?page_id=517"},"modified":"2024-08-26T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T22:32:44","slug":"jacob-coutts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/student-research-stories\/jacob-coutts\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Coutts: Math and social science collide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Math and social science collide<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To understand human behavior, you need to know your numbers. That intersection of social science and statistics fuels Jacob Coutts to look for mediators that influence a person\u2019s self-compassion. \u201cWe posit that greater self-compassion leads to greater sense of self-concept clarity,\u201d the NAU senior in the psychological sciences said. \u201cYou know yourself better when you are self-compassionate because you\u2019ve worked through your faults, your flaws. It\u2019s composed of mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. When you express all three of those, you have a high level of self-compassion. I think it\u2019s one of the ways of the future in research. The reason I like that study is because I get a greater look at statistical analyses like mediation and moderation. It\u2019s the most statistically savvy project I\u2019m working on right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coutts has worked on many. To him, psychology and math are intertwined and a constant source of discovery. It is why, as an undergraduate, he has been able to research a construct that has only been studied for the past 15 years. It is why he has worked in four labs, and been involved in projects analyzing anxiety, grit, and sexuality. \u201cI am spoiled getting to work with a number of different people because they want to know how to use a program or how to do that certain analysis. That\u2019s what drives me the most. I love so many topics within psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coutts will begin a graduate career in quantitative psychology in the fall armed with a strong research foundation: \u201cWhat NAU has is faculty who care about their students. You get to meet professors who teach graduate courses your very first semester if you want. In 2,500-person classes, you don\u2019t get that experience, this one-on-one that we kind of take for granted. I ended up with a better CV than friends who graduated from other programs just because I was able to talk to professors and get in labs and do what I really wanted to do and work with. Research opportunities have definitely, unequivocally changed me for the better. I don\u2019t think I could have gotten this experience at another university just because I wouldn\u2019t have had that interaction. What you can do at NAU far exceeds what you can do at another institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Student spotlight<\/h3>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n

Jacob Coutts, Spring 2018<\/p>\n

Major:<\/strong> Psychological Sciences<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Mentors:<\/strong> Dr. Dana Donahue, Dr. Daniel Weidler, Dr. Andrew Walters, Matt Anderson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Math and social science collide To understand human behavior, you need to know your numbers. That intersection of social science and statistics fuels Jacob Coutts to look for mediators that influence a person\u2019s self-compassion. \u201cWe posit that greater self-compassion leads to greater sense of self-concept clarity,\u201d the NAU senior in the psychological sciences said. \u201cYou […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":455,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","ring_central_script_selection":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-517","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1305,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517\/revisions\/1305"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/office-undergraduate-research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}