Dr. Stephen Want
Biography
Dr. Want is Director of the Media and Social Development Lab at Ryerson and currently serves as the Teaching Chair for the Faculty of Arts. Before joining Ryerson in 2005 he worked at The University of British Columbia and The University of Sheffield and completed his training at The University of Birmingham (undergraduate) and The University of Oxford (graduate).
At Ryerson, Dr. Want has taught Introductory Psychology (Psy102/202) as well as upper-level courses in both Developmental (Psy302, Psy908, Ps8502) and Social Psychology (Psy918, Ps8504). In 2013 he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching First-Year Classes Award from the Faculty of Arts.
Dr. Want’s research interests concern questions about the use and effects of various forms of mass media (e.g. magazines, television, the internet). He is also interested in the psychology of teaching and learning, and the psychology of psychological experiments (e.g. demand characteristics, replication, p-hacking).
Selected Publications
Zannella, L., Vahedi, Z., & Want. S.C. (2020) What do undergraduate students learn from participating in psychological research? Teaching of Psychology, 47, 121-129. doi: 10.177/0098628320901379
Vahedi, Z., Zannella, L., & Want, S.C. (2019). Students' use of information and communication technologies in the classroom: Uses, restriction, and integration. Active Learning in Higher Education. doi: 10.1177/1469787419861926
Saiphoo, A. & Want, S.C. (2018). High cognitive load during attention to images of models reduces young women's social comparisons: Further evidence against cognitive efficiency. Body Image, 27, 93-97. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2018.08.012 (external link)
Want, S.C. & Saiphoo, A. (2017). Social comparisons with media images are cognitively inefficient even for women who say they feel pressure from the media. Body Image, 20, 1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.10.009 (external link)
Want, S.C., Botres, A., Vahedi, Z. & Middleton, J.A. (2015). On the cognitive (in)efficiency of social comparisons with media images. Sex Roles, 73, 519-532. doi: 10.1007/s11199-015-0538-1 (external link)