Early-life stress (ELS) has been found to increase the risk of mental illness and physically alter brain structures and cognition. Research shows that exposure to acute ELS leads to enhanced fear learning later in life. There is some evidence that serotonin signalling mediates anxiety-induced increases in adult fear learning. Specifically, 5HT-2C serotonergic receptors appear to […]
C49-P: The Nature of Disaster: The Effects of Natural Disasters on Climate-Related Behavior Depends on Individuals and Political Beliefs
Sustainability psychology focuses on the determinants of pro-environmental behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. An important question is how emotions and morality lead to behavioral outcomes, as it provides insights on how to best promote pro-environmental behaviors. In this study, we focus on how exposure to awe-inducing stimuli and an individual’s moral ideology influences pro-environmental behavioral outcomes; […]
C41-P: The Effect of Stressor Predictability on Stress Enhanced Fear Learning
While fear can be adaptive by inhibiting pain and eliciting defensive behavior, long lasting fear can have negative effects on overall health, including psychological disorders, such as PTSD (Harris & Seckl, 2011; Bolles & Fanselow, 1980). Unpredictability of an aversive event can sensitize the fear circuitry causing an increase in one’s stress response later in […]
B25-P: A Novel Circuit Controlling Motivation
To maximize rewards, one must learn what specifically causes those rewards. This learning process is disrupted in numerous psychological disorders, including depression and substance use. Understanding the systems responsible for these processes is key to developing future treatments for psychological diseases. The serotonin and dopamine systems play critical roles in learning and motivation. While these […]
C36-P: Does Early Life Stress Inhibit Discrimination of Fear in Adulthood?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by severe anxiety-like symptoms that are the result of experiencing one or more traumatic events. Currently, in the United States, PTSD has a prevalence rate of 8.3% indicating that there are over 8 million people living with this disorder (Goode et al, 2020). This experiment investigated the possible effects […]
A24-P: Too Small to Ignore: Adverse Health Outcomes of Childhood Food Insecurity
For the Global Health Studies (GHS) minor, we are required to do an immersion experience to delve deeper into a topic we are interested in and give us hands on experience in the field of global health. For my immersion experience I volunteered at La Soupe, a private nonprofit in Cincinnati, Oh, which provides healthy […]
B43: Are We Changing Children’s Lives? The Effects of an Early Intervention Program on Parenting Attitudes and Child Wellbeing
For the Global Health Minor immersion experience, I spent Winter Term volunteering with Baby University, a nonprofit attempting to close the education gap in South Toledo by equipping parents of children ages 0-5 for the vital role they play in their child’s development and early education. Baby U carries out this mission via free, ten-week […]
BRII-02: Does Late Bilingualism Impact Cognitive Flexibility?
Executive functioning encompasses all the cognitive processes that are involved in conscious thought and action (Anderson, 2002). Research in bilingualism has suggested that those who know a second language have certain advantages in these cognitive processes (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). However, it has also been suggested that those who learn their second language […]
B55: Gaslighting: Manipulating an Individual’s Ability to Recognize Abuse
After interning for four weeks at the EVE, a domestic violence shelter in Marietta, Ohio, this past J-term, I was exposed to group counseling sessions and the term gaslighting. After researching the epidemiology of gaslighting and domestic violence, three apparent gaps emerged for further research: How does the victim recognize the cycle of abuse?; How […]
B79: The Viral Nature of Distraction
Though much research has been done on the topic of distraction, little has done so in the view of a group setting, and moreover, its spread. Jonathan LeNeveu and Dr. Leonard J. Smart of the Department of Psychology wanted to view how the state of being distracted was spread throughout a classroom. The aim of […]
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