Psychology

Pew Teaching Excellence Award 2000

Outstanding University Service Award 2010

Clinical/Personality Psychology, Scholarship of Teaching

PSY 303 - Psychopathology
PSY 311 - SWS Controversial Issues Psych
PSY 405 - History and Systems
PSY 492 - Advanced General: The Capstone

My research examines how individuals think, feel, and regulate themselves under conditions of pressure, with a particular focus on perfectionism, affective instability, and overvalued ideas. I am especially interested in conceptual and theoretical questions, such as: What distinguishes adaptive from maladaptive forms of perfectionism? What “is” narcissism when disentangled from related constructs such as vanity, pride, and empathy? How do fluctuations in emotional experience shape self-regulation and psychological well-being? Methodologically, my work is grounded primarily in quantitative approaches, including correlational designs, multiple regression, and multivariate analyses (e.g., MANOVA), often paired with scale development and validation efforts. Across projects—including recent work on the Overvalued Ideas Scale (OVI), studyholism, and positive and negative perfectionism—I aim to refine psychological constructs so they more accurately capture the lived complexity of human motivation and self-evaluation.

Plominski, A. & Burns, L. R. (2018). Troubled Minds of the Gifted: An Investigation of the Psychological Well-Being of Grand Valley State Honors Students. Journal of Advanced Academics, 29(1), 5-28.

Sederlund, A., Burns, L., & Rogers, W. (2020). Perfectionism and procrastination: Seeking determinants of both. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17, 5099.

Meadows, A., Rose, M., Burns, L., & Bellamy, K. (2021). Using discussion to teach Capstone courses in Psychology. Creative Education, 12(1), 122-139 

Phillips, N., Carpenter, R., Mangan, E., & Burns, L. (2022). Predictors of relationship satisfaction: What's perfection got to do with it? Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Science, 10(1), 39-56.

Carpenter, R., Wheeler, M., Burns, L., Dueling, J., & Rogers, W. (2023). EFA, CFA, convergent and discriminant validity of the PNP-SF. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 13(1).