Neal Outland, a senior Psychological Sciences major, was awarded  “Best Oral Undergraduate Presentation" for his senior research thesis at the Louisiana Academy of Sciences.  The presentation was entitled, "Understanding the moderating effects of racial identity on the association between race-related stress and hypermasculinity." This research is being done in conjunction with Dr. Charles Corprew in Psychological Sciences.  Although Neal’s hypotheses were not supported, in part due to sample size, several important one-to-one relationships were observed.  Parsimoniously, Neal’s results at this point suggest two aspects.  First, African American males who report high levels of perceived race-related stress (e.g. individual and collective racism) also report high levels of hypermasculine attitudes.  Second, African American males who report high levels of racial identity also report high levels of race-related stress.  These results taken together imply that African American males who view race as central to their identity may perceive more incidences of racism and my cope by adopting more exaggerated forms of masculinity.  Neal’s research is ongoing, with final data collection and results to be completed by the end of the semester.