Listeners perceive foreign speech as faster than native speech, even when both are the same speed. This phenomenon is called the ‘Gabbling Foreigner Illusion.’ This illusion may occur because language-specific experience is necessary to temporally parse speech into intelligible units as it unfolds over time. Similarly, one study reported that people tap faster to music that is culturally unfamiliar than to music that is culturally familiar. Like the gabbling foreigner illusion, lack of cultural expertise with music might interfere with listeners’ capacity to find temporal units (the beat), leading them to perceive the tempo of the music as faster. We directly addressed the question of whether listeners are less accurate at perceiving the beat and tempo of culturally unfamiliar music as compared to culturally familiar music by asking them to rate the tempo of music from various cultures (West African, American, Indian, Turkish, and Latin). Musical excerpts were presented in pairs and listeners chose which of the two was faster. We also asked listeners to tap along to the music and examined if their tapping speed corresponds to their perceptual judgments of tempo. We hypothesize that listeners systematically rate culturally unfamiliar music as faster than familiar music, suggesting that listeners experience a “gabbling foreigner illusion” for music. In summary, this research is a first step towards investigating how our culture-specific experiences influence our temporal perception of music.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by severe dietary restriction that results in significant malnourishment and weight loss. Regions in the brain related to appetitive drives and interoceptive awareness could be key biological factors that contribute to this severe dietary restriction. The insular cortex may be a particularly important region, as it is thought to be involved in a neural network that processes gustation and the integration of emotional valence with visceral input. A systematic review was conducted to explore links between AN and the insula using the following inclusion criteria: peer-reviewed fMRI studies that incorporated only adult samples of the AN population, were published in the last ten years, and measured activation in response to food-related stimuli. Eleven fMRI studies that addressed patients with current or past anorexia nervosa and the insula met inclusion criteria and were reviewed for qualitative analysis. Studies used a range of different methods, including different task paradigms, making it difficult to make between-study comparisons. Thus, although the insular cortex has been linked in the past to AN, if or how the insular cortex is implicated in restrictive eating in AN remains unclear. Additional studies are needed to clarify links between the insular cortex and AN to distinguish between disturbances that are present during the ill-state versus those that may occur prior to illness onset or following recovery. Studies that use larger sample sizes from both ill and recovered groups with AN will be necessary to further elucidate the potential insula dysregulation in AN and its role in food motivation.

Everyday, human beings engage in prosocial behaviors, which are behaviors intended to benefit others. These include simple acts, such as holding doors for others, and costlier behaviors, such as donating money. Even young children help, share with, and comfort others. To gain insight into why human beings engage in prosociality from such an early age, it is critical to examine individual variability in children’s prosocial behavior. That is, why are some children more prosocial than others? One factor that may influence prosociality is social anhedonia, which is the reduced capacity to experience pleasure from social interactions. Adults with high social anhedonia are less prosocial; however, no work has explored if children’s capacity to experience pleasure from social interactions motivates their prosociality. The current work develops a measure of social anhedonia in early childhood and examines if variability in the capacity to experience pleasure from social interactions is related to children’s tendency to engage in prosocial behavior. To explore this question, parents of 4- to 8-year-olds report their child’s prosociality. They also report their child’s social anhedonia using the Child Social Anhedonia Scale, which I created based on a questionnaire assessing adulthood social anhedonia. This work is ongoing, but an analysis of 134 participants (57 females) revealed a significant negative correlation between children’s social anhedonia and prosociality, r=-0.32, p<0.001. This finding suggests that children who are less likely to experience pleasure from social interactions are also less prosocial, implying that perhaps enjoying social interactions serves as a motivation for children’s prosociality. This study is the first step in understanding the relation between pleasure from social interactions and children’s prosocial behavior. Future studies could further examine if this relationship is causal.

Infants with predominantly female primary caregiver experience show a visual preference for female faces and process female faces with relative ease in comparison to male faces. Yet, little is known about infants with male primary caregivers. The proposed study will examine how predominant male caregiver experience in infancy influences the development of implicit gender associations in early and middle childhood. Additionally, parents will complete a week-long survey of experience and behavior scales examining the caregiver-child relationship. We predict that children with predominantly male primary caregiver experience will show fewer implicit associations towards females and warmth and males and power. The primary caregiver-child relationship might also modulate the development of implicit biases related to biological sex. This study will be the first to investigate the development of implicit association related to biological sex in children with a male primary caregiver.

Family size matters. As a family grows, parents dedicate less time as well as financial and emotional support to each child. Siblings often have to compete for parental resources whereas only children receive full support from parents throughout their lives. Previous research has found that competition leads people to adopt performance goals (i.e., motivation to perform better than others). In big families, competitive environments may signal that being more successful than others is important, making performance goals more salient than in a family where one is the only child, where mastery goals (i.e., motivation to master new skills) may be more salient. In an exploratory study, we examined whether family size shapes people’s motivations for learning. We predicted that students with siblings would be more motivated to learn by competing with others (performance orientation) while only children would be more motivated by honing their skills (mastery orientation). To test this hypothesis, we recruited 328 participants (166 only children and 162 with siblings) for an online study in which they completed the Achievement Goal Questionnaire and provided information about their race and number of siblings. As predicted, only children more strongly endorsed mastery orientation (M=3.93, SD=.58) compared to students with siblings (M=3.80, SD=.62, t(326)=1.99, p=0.5). Students with siblings endorsed performance orientation (M=4.05, SD=.78) marginally more than only children (M=3.90, SD=.73, t(326)=1.90, p=.06). While further research is needed to understand why these differences emerge (e.g., due to competition or other differences in family environments), our study lends insight into how people’s family experiences shape their academic motivation. These findings many help educators learn how to best motivate students from different types of families.

Patients with Type 2 diabetes have insulin resistance, which continues to manifest as hyperglycemia and results in the cells failure to absorb insulin. Insulin resistance in the brain affects cognitive abilities such as learning, memory and also alters synaptic plasticity. The purpose of this study is to investigate cognitive impairments in rodent models of T2 diabetes. Minimal doses of streptozotocin (STZ), which is toxic to insulin producing beta cells, were given for 9-10 weeks. Once glucose levels reached above 250mg/dl which is considered indicative of a hyperglycemic state similar to Type 2 diabetes injections would stop. Weights were takes consistently for appropriate injection volume. We utilized a spatial working memory task known as delayed alternation to test cognitive impairments. We found a significance between control and experimental rats in working memory accuracy using a one-way ANOVA p=.05. Similar to diabetic patients, we saw weight fluctuations in experimental rats, but weights were stable for the control group. This type of task requires strong working memory demands on subjects, which may be compromised by a hyperglycemic state. Additionally, previous research shows that elevated glucose levels and chronic neuroinflammation are also found in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Neuroinflammation might be a pathological similarity in the progressions of Type 2 diabetes and AD.

Past work have examined children's understanding of race, including their categorization of others based on race, racial preferences, and racial attitudes. Almost all of these studies have only investigated children's racial understanding based on Black and White individuals. In the current study, we wanted to examine whether 4- and 5-year-old White children categorize and hold preferences on the basis of race comparing Asian, Black, and White individuals. Participants were asked "Who do you like the best?" to determine whether they held preferences for individuals based on race, between paired pictures of different-race children. To assess categorization, participants were asked to match pictures of children to exemplars they thought looked most like the children in the pictures. Results demonstrate that children categorize based on race significantly greater than chance t(47) = 5.569, p < 0.001. In terms of preferences, children significantly preferred White over Black children, t(47)=2.801, p=0.007. However, they did not have a preference for Asian versus White children, t(47)=1.219, p=0.229 or Asian versus Black children, t(47)=1.070, p=0.290. Taken together, these results suggest White children have a fairly sophisticated understanding of race; not only do they differentiate between members of their in-group and out-group (significantly differentiating on race between White/Black and White/Asian comparisons), but they also differentiate between other racial groups (significantly differentiating between Asian and Black individuals). Although children categorize and recognize race, this does not mean they always form preferences based on race.

Increased racial tensions in America should be considered in evaluating current psychotherapeutic and social structures. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) argues that divulging vulnerable information about oneself is essential for emotional intimacy. When vulnerability is responded to with attempts to build safety, vulnerable behavior is reinforced (strengthened). This reciprocal process of vulnerability and building safety aids in the development of intimate relationships across social and psychotherapeutic settings. The interaction model of FAP has never been examined through an interracial lens. In interracial interactions, people may be less comfortable being vulnerable, which may contribute to increased social anxiety. These communication differences may partially explain lower rates of efficacy in cross-cultural psychotherapy. Our study analyzed the effect of race on vulnerability and anxiety as important elements in the well-established model of intimate relationship development. During same-race and interracial mock therapeutic interactions, undergraduate participants (representing clients) were asked questions intended to elicit vulnerability by research assistants. Heart rate (HR) data were recorded from participants as a physiological measure of anxiety throughout the interaction. Participant vulnerability was assessed through self-report and behavioral coding by blind, independent research assistants. We hypothesize that participants in the interracial interactions will show higher levels of anxiety, as measured by HR data, and lower levels of vulnerability, as measured by self report and behavioral coding, compared to participants in same-race interactions. This project may reveal that developing organic interracial connections is more difficult than developing same-race connections. This would indicate a need to modify current social and psychotherapeutic structures to facilitate the creation of effective and meaningful interracial relationships.

Within the dimensions of temperament, effortful control (EC) is the ability to regulate urges over certain actions and adapt to the demands of an environment.  EC is salient to study for its contributions to socio-emotional development, regulations, and child adjustment. It is instrumental to further examine the role of EC as it allows the caretaker to handle the child and take actions to alleviate their undesired dilemma. In this secondary correlational study, we examined the positive association between children’s (N= 301) EC levels from kindergarten to second grade and adjustment to school, including their academic performance and peer relationship quality. Measures include reports from both parents and teachers of children’s peer relationship, effortful control, the relative level of chaos in the classroom, and children’s standardized assessment of academic achievement. We analyzed whether classroom chaos based on teacher reports modified the relations between EC and children’s adjustment. We predict that for children in low chaos classrooms, EC would correlate to stronger academic performance than for children in high chaos classrooms. For children in high chaos classrooms, we predict that EC has a stronger association to peer relationships than children in low chaos classrooms.

Color blindness is defined as a perspective understanding one’s racial identity is irrelevant and it is best to ignore the importance of race and skin color. This ideology is embraced by whites who deny their prejudice through this modern form of racism by diminishing other’s race and culture and claiming to view all people as equal. Although white people may believe their intentions behind color blindness are good by not judging people by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character, alternately the true motivation behind the color blindness ideology may be white people’s discomfort around black people, which causes them to avoid color all together. We believe that color blindness is a modern form of racism in which individuals suppress their discomfort among blacks. Therefore, we predict higher levels of color-blindness will correlate with lower levels of allophilia, which represents positive attitudes, feelings, and demeanor towards minorities. We tested this prediction in a survey study in which UW undergraduate students completed measures of color-blindness and allophilia towards Black people. The current study also seeks to investigate how social desirability influences this relationship between color blindness and allophilia. Social desirability is a biased response in which the respondent answers the survey question in a way that would be generally accepted and favored by society rather than being truthful. We hypothesize that if we account for social desirability, the correlation between color blindness and allophilia will be stronger because we predict that social desirability masks the real relationship between the two variables. Thus, people with higher social desirability will be more untruthful, resulting in a higher score of allophilia, when in reality their allophilia score should be lower. Our study explores the relationship between color blindness and allophilia and the role in which social desirability plays.

Racism on college campuses is an unfortunate issue in higher education, and the UW system is not immune from this issue. Analysis of qualitative data from the longitudinal Social Issues Study (SIS) at UWT identified that some UW students experience racism on campus. To understand how to address students’ experiences of racism, I will conduct a substudy in Wave 3 of the SIS investigating students’ experiences of caregiver ethnic-racial socialization (e.g. discussion of stereotypes facing their racial/ethnic group) and its relation to racial attitudes, respect for diversity, and critical consciousness (CC). CC is defined as becoming aware of inequalities in society (i.e., critical reflection (CR)) and taking actions to address them (i.e., critical action (CA)). Ethnic-racial socialization and its relation to CC has infrequently been investigated in psychology. However, research on ethnic-racial socialization suggests it may be linked to CR and, possibly, to CA (as well as to more positive interactions with diverse groups). There is also a need to identify factors that can help explain the common finding that people who are high in CR are often low in CA. Furthermore, previous studies of caregiver ethnic-racial socialization have thus far taken a racialized approach in participant samples. In the proposed study, ethnic-racial socialization, CR, CA, racial attitudes, and respect for diversity will be quantitatively assessed in a diverse sample of UWT students (43% Caucasian; 21% Asian; 13% Hispanic/Latino; 10% African American; 2% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; 2% American Indian; 6% International) (n=140). Qualitative interviews (n=20) will also be used to explore students’ racial ideology formation and their relation to CC. Implications regarding promoting positive cross-cultural relationships on campus and CC, as a potential means for addressing racism, will be discussed.

We studied Betta fish and their aggressive behavior in reaction to a perceived threat stimulus at two different distances. Betta fish have been known to display aggressive behaviors when in the presence of other fish and at their own reflection. We hypothesize that the Betta fish will display more aggressive behaviors when a mirror is present and at a closer proximity because a close mirror may replicate the experience of a more immediate threat. To test this, we placed mirrors at one or eight inches away from their tanks and observed. If the Bettas flared their fins and rubbed their faces against the side of the tank, we characterized their behavior as aggressive. We found that our hypothesis was incorrect and there was no signficant difference between aggression presentation at one or eight inches. Additionally, we compared aggressive behavior in Delta Tail Bettas and Veiltail Bettas. We hypothesized that there would be a difference in aggression between the two betta species. Our hypothesis was supported, and we found that Delta Tail Bettas were significantly more aggressive than Veiltail Bettas. For breeders and owners of novelty fish, knowing what stimlui results in aggressive behavior can be beneficial for preventing stress and choosing what species to breed and own. Furthermore, studies on aggression in bettas allows researchers to study how aggression relates to survival and mating, and how bettas compared to related species.

Neural plasticity is a prominent feature of brain anatomy that is prevalent through various stages of development. However such plasticity is not maintained through the entirety of an organism's lifespan and diminishes at varying rates in different brain regions. As regions of the brain become less plastic, perineuronal net fibers increase, and can be taken as an indicator of the end of the critical period of plasticity. The presence of these fibers have been connected to numerous neurodegenative disorders and appear to be a prominent feature of the disorder group. I hypothesize that different neural regions follow different biological timelines and retain their neuroplastic properties for varying amounts of time. By measuring the growth and development of these fibers in the auditory centers of Eptesicus fuscus, I can establish a comprehensive timeline of their development. This allows me to develop a timeline of the pattern of plasticity within the different structures of the auditory system. This could provide helpful insight into the conditions under which neurodegernative disorders are more likely to occur. 

The ease at which we appear to recognize and assess faces belies the difficulty underlying face recognition. Faces possess similar features (i.e. eyes, nose, mouth), yet we are able to identify separate individuals based on their featural configuration (i.e. T-shaped arrangement of features). Prior research using fMRI shows that featural and configural information is processed in different face-specific brain regions. Evidence suggests that the FFA responds to both featural and configural information, compared to the OFA and fSTS, which only respond to featural modification. However, precise response time of featural and configural face processing is unknown. Featural processing may occur before configural processing, or configural processing may occur before featural processing; conversely, they may occur simultaneously. Using a 2x2 factorial design we assessed the effects of changes in featural information, configural information, as well the interaction between the two. Participants saw four versions of a face: intact faces, faces with removed features, faces with distorted configuration, and faces with both modifications. Stimuli were presented while the brain activity of subjects was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). This study specifically looked at temporal changes in a face-specific event related potential (ERP) called the N170, which consistently fires when presented with anything that resembles a face. We assessed the magnitude of the N170 to determine whether the face-processing brain regions explicitly processed information regarding features and configuration. In addition, timing of face-processing was assessed to detect any differences in how long it took the brain to process faces with featural or configural modifications. We tied together evidence from fMRI (spatial) and the N170 (temporal) to see how precise timing and location interact in the brain during face perception of facial features and feature configuration.

Diversity structures within organizations (e.g., diversity awards, diversity training) can create illusions of fairness: the perception that a company is treating all employees equally because of the mere presence of diversity promoting intiatives without confirmation they are being enforced. This leads to both minority and majority group members perceiving organizations as more procedurally just and less discriminatory even in the face of contradictory evidence. This research expands upon such findings by examining how diversity awards influence what types of information people use in determining if sex-based discrimination disadvantaging women is occurring at an organization. Preliminary analyses show that individuals exposed to diversity awards (vs. control condition) are less likely to perceive sexism-disadvantaging women occurring within a company. Additionally, diversity structures lead women and men to seek out different types of information: women are more likely to perceive information relating to formal discrimination as more informative whereas men are more likely to perceive information relating to informal discrimination as more informative. These findings provide insight into what types of information regarding discrimination are acknowledged versus ignored, and they reinforce prior findings that diversity initiatives lead to the perception of a less discriminatory workplace without actual evidence affirming these beliefs.

Our lives are made up of the choices we make, whether it be choosing to change your posture, choosing an outfit to wear, or choosing a career path. Intertemporal choice is a decision-making process where one needs to change behavioral strategies as the contextual factors in their situation change over time; variables such as working memory, objective and subjective value of the outcome, and motivation influence a subject’s decision in this process. Delayed discounting is an example of an intertemporal choice task, wherein a subject is given a choice of waiting a constant shorter delay to receive a smaller reward (SS, or smaller-sooner), or waiting a longer delay, which increases after a set number of trials, to receive a larger reward (LL, or larger-longer). In the present study, rats are tasked with choosing between waiting 3 seconds for 1 sucrose pellet (SS reward), or waiting 10, 20, or 40 seconds for 4 sucrose pellets (LL reward). Delayed discounting allows investigation into how the Lateral Habenula (LHb) may play a role in integrating signals of objective value and contextual information of the current situation, with internal state information, such as emotion toward and motivation for completing an intertemporal choice, to ultimately allow the subject to behaviorally adapt and make the most beneficial choice. This study predicts that infusion of a combination of baclofen and muscimol via canula into the LHb will inactivate it and subsequently impair delayed discounting in rats, causing them to enter a guessing mode when choosing between SS or LL reward. A dysfunctional LHb could be implicit in clinical disorders such as depression, addiction, or other memory disorder that are characterized by poor control of behaviors; this implication would be able to explain why those with these disorders are unable to switch behavior’s adaptively despite repeated negative consequences.

In the brain, the lateral habenula is involved in multiple functions such as stress responses and pain processing as neurons in this area have been found be activated when experiencing unpleasant events. More recently, literature suggests that not only does the lateral habenula respond in a reward-negative fashion, it may also play a key role in positive feedback decision making. To investigate the role of the lateral habenula in the decision-making process, we establish a delay discounting task requiring Long Evans rats to make decisions based on wait time and amount of reward received. Given its function in learning and decision making, the lateral habenula is hypothesized to play an indispensable role in positive feedback decision making. Mature Long Evans rats train and run on an elevated T-maze which is set up with two opposing arms and a base arm in between. Rats are trained on which arm provides a greater reward and are then run through a delay discounting task in which the wait time to access the higher reward is incremented from 10 seconds to 20 seconds to 40 seconds between blocks of trails and the wait time for the low reward is maintained at 3 seconds. Their decision is made after reaching the midpoint between the reward arms and once they have decided, they are blocked for the corresponding duration and then allowed to eat the reward. The rats’ recorded brain activity in the lateral habenula while running the delay discounting task will indicate the significance of the lateral habenula’s role in subjective evaluation. These findings will further our understanding of how different regions of the brain work together to make decisions.

Individuals experiencing homelessness show higher rates of substance abuse than housed individuals, and religious organizations provide many of the recovery services available to these populations. Religious affiliation has reduced substance use, helped individuals manage stressors, and allowed individuals to build relationships around common values. This study investigated the role of religion in recovery in homeless populations. Fourteen individuals (9 men, 5 women, ages 23-69) in recovery programs completed 40-60 minute interviews. Participants answered questions about their substance history, recovery process, religious beliefs, ideas of self, and community. Interviews were transcribed and coded, and emerging thematic frameworks were created. Three raters re-coded interview transcripts according to the frameworks. Participant responses suggest that religion played an individual and social role in supporting recovery. Participants’ descriptions of their substance use history revealed issues behind their addiction and how their faith may have resolved those issues in recovery. Most individuals began using at a young age, and were motivated to use to cope with life stressors. In discussing positive aspects of faith, participants mentioned improved ideas of self, including newfound gratitude and sense of purpose in helping others. Participants credited their religion with providing a new set of coping skills, sense of structure, and set of morals for making decisions; some mentioned being able to “rely on God’s timing” and others mentioned being able to focus on “obedience to God.” Community appeared to play a significant role, within and outside the religious context. Participants stated that their faith community provided an ingroup of people sharing common values, enhancing their ability to trust. They noted that community offered opportunities for mentorship and mutual support. Other positive factors outside of faith included the opportunity for self-reflection. Themes in participants’ responses align with existing literature on individual and social benefits of religion, suggesting that protective aspects of religion extend to homeless populations.

Immigrants experience many challenges prior to arriving in the United States and face ongoing challenges associated with migration and the assimilation process. Despite the multiple challenges and difficulties, immigrant people show enormous strength, courage, and self-determination. Resilience is defined as the process of moving forward from adversity, developing new skills and creative ways of coping and becoming stronger. I conducted a systematic literature review, using key terms such as immigrant, asylum seekers, coping mechanisms, and resilience. I incorporated multidisciplinary lenses including psychology and sociology to identify and understand the major contributors to immigrants’ resilience as well as major factors that hinder resilience. Research suggests factors such as family strength, cultural and community support; religiosity and spirituality help to build resilience. In contrast, factors such as language barriers, discrimination, punitive policies and the labeling of trauma by experts are known to hinder resilience. The research implies that the experts lack awareness of their labeling and understanding of trauma stories. Additionally, studies suggest that contrary to popular beliefs, immigrant people are resilient and motivated, and value education and hard work. Further research in methods of developing policy systems that support and facilitate resilience is desperately needed.

We are developing a program that allows us to thank research participants who are involved in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies in a unique and inexpensive way. Our program takes a participant’s structural brain scan and turns it into a personalized birthday card. This project involves testing the program to ensure that it is portable to different scanner sites and subject populations (children through adults), and modifying it as necessary. Upon completion we want to document and share this program using GitHub, a code repository. This program is a Bash shell script that has been developed to be run from the command line in Linux, using only additional programs from a popular neuroimaging package called FSL. The program is designed to use input brain images in Neuroimaging Informatics Technology Initiative (NiFTI) format. Our program takes the brain images, identifies an attractive sagittal slice, overlays a party hat image, text that states “Happy Birthday” and “We Lobe You” on this slice, and creates an output image that can be used to create a birthday card. We will test NiFTI files from our own scanner and from other sites to ensure portability across multiple sites, and modify the hat positioning algorithm as necessary to make it work across different head sizes and image dimensions. We will document not just program use, but a system for creating cards in advance using photo frame holders. We will evaluate ease of use by asking target potential users to install the program and generate cards. In the end we will have a completely portable program ready for distribution and published on GitHub. This project is a good example of how neuroimaging data can be used in a non-scientific way to thank participants for their contribution, conveying to them that their time is important and appreciated.

Paulo Freire (1970) conceptualized critical consciousness (CC) as including two components: critical reflection (CR), an individual’s awareness of societal inequities, and critical action (CA), the actions taken by the individual to change those inequities. However, scholarship has infrequently identified the mechanisms through which people who are critically reflective become engaged in actions to change their social conditions (Diemer & Rapa, 2016). In this poster, we will present two potential mediation models that will help to shed light on the mechanisms through which critical reflection predicts critical action. In the first set of analyses, we are examining if empathy (alpha=.874) may, in part, explain the relationship between CR (alpha=.769) and CA (alpha=.679) in our sample (n=141). Previous research has pointed to empathy as a potential mediator, suggesting that critical awareness alone may not be enough to motivate people to engage in actions aimed at challenging the status quo (Montero. 2009; Wallin-Rauchman, 2017) In preliminary analysis of our data, CR and CA were positively associated with one another (r = .306, p <.001), and empathy was positively associated with both CR (r=.268, p =.001), and CA (r = .238, p = .004). These results suggest that proceeding with mediation analysis may yield significant results. We will also be assessing Social Justice Identity as another potential mediating variable in the relationship between CR and CA in our sample. Initial analyses suggest that SJI is also related to both CR (r =.238, p =.004) and CA (r = .572, p <.001), and may account for some of the variance in this relationship. Results from these analyses will contribute to the knowledge base about how students go from being aware of social justice issues, to engaging in civic action to address those issues in order to create a more equitable society.

Crows are social creatures meaning that they communicate within groups valuable and pertinent information. This information can relay to others where food might be and where there might be a predator. Not only do they have this attribute, but more importantly, they can also retain this knowledge over a period of time. For our experiment, we wanted to test whether American Crows, Corvus Brachyrhynchos, had the same ability as chickadees to encode and differentiate different types of conspecific calls. We compared the difference in time of each crow vocalization between a food call and a mobbing call. After running a t-test, we found that our experiment yielded significant results. This implies that crows, similar to chickadees can distinguish and respond to calls differently depending on the type of call. This gives us insight on possible crow behaviors and explanations and a basis for future crow research.

Researchers have defined shyness as a detrimental emotion that may cause dysfunction in one’s life. With the increasing use of technology in daily life, interpersonal communication is becoming limited and linked with the atrophy of social skills and negative academic outcomes. The nature and implementation of our survey includes the Henderson/Zimbardo Shyness Questionaire and other self-made scales. To build on the findings of this topic, we explored whether shyness is related to various types of technology use (i.e., internet use, video games, social media use, dating application use, and pornography use). The correlations between shyness and different types of technology use is currently being investigated in two-year college students. Results are still being collected, yet the preliminary findings indicate that there is a significant relationship found between shyness and addictive behavior to the internet and social media. Correlation analyses demonstrated a significant positive correlation between shyness and technology use, where those with higher levels of shyness also scored high on internet addiction. Shyness was also positively correlated with more self-reported hours spent on social media and overall high social media use. No significant correlations were found between shyness and dating application use, video games, or pornography use. These preliminary findings highlight the impact of shyness on how college students spend their lives online, which may in turn increase feelings of isolation and inhibition. Future research should examine how these relationships may impact their social lives, academics, and other areas of college students’ lives.

Temperament has become an important factor in understanding an individual’s behavior. Gauging an animal’s individual temperament has come to be a strong predictor of how they react in various settings. These include success of experimental performance, biochemical stress markers, and response to threatening situations. Analyzing temperament and individual differences in macaques can prove to be beneficial in a primate laboratory setting. Understanding temperament measures could not only lead to overall healthier and stress reduced facilities both for animals and the staff, but it could also lead to developing new experiments to more specifically understand the variances of temperament and what factors the variance might play both in the human and non-human animal realm. This study examined the relationship between temperament and cognitive successes in developing infant primate macaques (N=116). Principal component analysis was used to determine underlying temperament traits for each animal, and linear regression was used to determine whether there was a relationshp between cognition and temperament. The temperament traits were used as predictor variables for how well each animal performed on the cognitive tasks. While this study was exploratory in nature, we predicted that animals with bolder/exploratory temperaments would have greater success in the cognitive tasks performed. As far as we understand, no study to date has examined the role temperament plays in cognition. Understanding this relationship can have numerous benefits for both non-human and human populations.

When discussing the experiences of the Asian American community, certain ethnic subgroups tend to receive more attention, while others are sidelined: people may acknowledge Japanese internment camps or the Chinese Exclusion Act, but not the increasing occurrence of post-9/11 racial profiling targeting South Asians, or the high poverty rate among Southeast Asians. We investigate the consequences of this invisibility threat, the situation in which less prototypical subgroups are ignored and rendered invisible within their superordinate group. Prototypicality is defined as the degree to which a subgroup fits the characteristics that are strongly associated with a superordinate group. A pilot study established that Southeast Asian (e.g., Vietnamese) and South Asian (e.g., Indian) ethnic subgroups are indeed perceived to be less prototypical of the Asian American category than East Asian subgroups (e.g., Chinese). The current study uses a 2 (ethnic identity: prototypical, non-prototypical) x 2 (condition: invisibility threat, control) between-subjects design to investigate the effects of invisibility threat on Asian Americans' racial group identity (i.e., sense of belonging, racial identification) and their relationship with fellow group members (i.e., group solidarity, willingness to form coalitions with other Asian Americans). Prototypical and non-prototypical Asian American students are presented with a Wikipedia article about the demographics of the Asian American community, socioeconomic issues faced by the community, and a few notable Asian Americans. This article is either inclusive of all Asian American ethnic subgroups (control condition), or does not mention students' own ethnic subgroup (invisibility threat condition). We predict that experiencing invisibility threat will decrease non-prototypical Asian American's racial group identity and have a negative effect on their relationship with fellow group members. We hypothesize that prototypical Asian Americans will not be affected. This research has implications for the need to disaggregate Asian American data to reduce invisibility threat among Asian Americans.

Because emotional intelligence (EI) – an individual’s awareness and control over their emotions – is associated with healthy social relationships and positive mental health (Austin, 2005; Martins, 2010), we hypothesized that EI would be positively correlated with relationship quality and negatively correlated with self-silencing. To test our hypothesis, we examined the associations between EI, self-expression, and satisfaction in romantic and non-romantic relationships in 35 college students (N(males)=7, N(females)=28, M(age)=23 [SD=7.45]). We ran bivariate correlations between EI (EI Scale, Schutte et al. 1998) and self-silencing, relationship satisfaction (Buhrmester, 2002), friendship quality (Parker & Asher, 1993), co-rumination with friends (Rose, 2002), and self-silencing in romantic relationships (Jack & Dill, 1992). Significant positive correlations were found between EI and approval received from friends (r=.66, p<.001,) validation from friends (r=.39, p=.04), co-rumination (r=.54, p=.003), and intimacy between friends (r=.41, p=.03). A significant negative correlation was found between EI and self-silencing in a relationship (r=-.40, p=.03). Data collection is currently ongoing, however, these preliminary findings suggest that individuals with high levels of EI are able to form more satisfactory and more intimate relationships. It also underscores the importance of EI in healthy socialization among adults. In the future, we plan to examine how EI can impact the academic success of college students and its influence on the development of healthy lifestyle habits during emerging adulthood.

Substantial research has examined the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (cynicism, neuroticism, openness, extraversion, and agreeableness) and burnout at the workplace, and has found that certain scores on each of these traits affect vulnerability to burnout. However, this research has not been duplicated in the population of community mental health therapists, a role that is particularly reliant upon skills that burnout can impair (e.g., reduction of empathy). Through this research, we seek to determine who is at increased risk of developing burnout by studying the relationship between Big Five personality traits and components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal achievement). In addition, we captured the common personality profiles of this population, which indicate the proportion of community mental health therapists who may be at increased risk for burnout due to personality traits. We conducted a quantitative study using a between-subjects design. Participants were community mental health therapists across Washington state, recruited as part of a larger study. Participants completed online self-report measures related to burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory) and personality traits (Big Five Inventory-10). We hypothesized that individuals who report high neuroticism would also report higher levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and lower levels of personal accomplishment. We also hypothesized that individuals who report high conscientiousness or high extraversion would report lower levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and higher levels of personal accomplishment. Our results could lead to improved methods of individualizing interventions for community mental health therapists and reduce the effects of burnout. Additionally, by capturing the common personality profiles, we can determine the types of interventions that will be applicable to the largest percentage of this population, allowing agencies to allocate their resources accordingly.

Fear generalization is the process by which conditioned fear spreads to new, objectively non-threatening stimuli, which, when inappropriately avoided, can lead to psychopathology after trauma. Although fear overgeneralization and maladaptive avoidance are implicated in the development of anxiety and stressor-related disorders, there is little evidence that fear overgeneralization and avoidance are associated with each other. Individuals with “high stress load,” characterized by high neuroticism and prior trauma exposure, may be at higher risk for both fear overgeneralization and experiential and behavioral avoidance. Eighty women, 41 with high stress load and 30 with low stress load, completed questionnaires measuring experiential and behavioral avoidance in their lives and completed a novel, ecologically-valid fear generalization paradigm. In this paradigm, two neutral female faces served as conditioned danger and safety cues, and ambiguous faces, morphed on a continuum between the danger and safety cues, served as generalization stimuli. We predict that participants with high stress load will report higher levels of both experiential and behavioral avoidance. We also predict that high self-reported avoidance will be strongly associated with higher fear overgeneralization in the task. This study will examine the extent to which self-reported avoidance maps onto active avoidance, assessing whether experiential and behavioral avoidance are related to avoidance of non-threatening generalization stimuli. Given that gold standard interventions for anxiety and stressor-related disorders target threat cues, this research highlights the potential importance of helping patients learn how to resist avoiding ambiguous and non-threatening cues.

Negative self-concept, or a collection of negative perceptions of and beliefs about the self, may be a key symptom to address when treating traumatized individuals. Previous research has explored explicit reports of symptom differences between those who have suffered prolonged trauma and those who suffered a discrete instance (or instances) of trauma, suggesting that the former may be associated with more severe alterations in self-perception. However, there is not currently any literature addressing the differences in implicit self-concept between these populations. This gap in the literature may be meaningful because implicit attitudes can predict explicit cognitions and behavior, including clinically relevant symptomology. This study examined the relationship between trauma chronicity and implicit self-concept using a version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) designed to measure implicit associations of the self with the concept of “trauma.” Participants were undergraduate students in introductory psychology courses at the University of Washington. They completed an inventory of potential stressful life events, a PTSD symptom questionnaire (PTSD Checklist for DSM-5), and the IAT, along with several demographic questions. Participants who endorsed traumatic life events were also asked to specify if the events lasted for days, weeks, months, or years, in order to classify their trauma exposure as “discrete” or “chronic.” We hypothesized that those with histories of prolonged trauma would show stronger associations of the self with trauma, and that these associations would be positively correlated with explicit reports of PTSD symptoms.This would suggest that the treatment of clients with histories of prolonged trauma benefit from direct targeting of clients’ self-conceptualizations as inherently traumatized.

Our previous study demonstrated that individuals in the experimentally induced social exclusion condition showed a weaker self-association to life-related words. While ample studies investigating the effect of long-term mindfulness intervention suggest the potential benefit of mindfulness interventions for suicidal behaviors, the underlying mechanism is unclear. The current study is conducted in two phases. The pilot study validated the mindfulness activity for the main study, using State Mindfulness Scale. The main study assesses the potential mediating role of brief mindfulness intervention by comparing the group differences between Mindfulness group and control groups (filler activity and no activity) in their implicit attitudes toward death and level of emotion dysregulation after experiencing social exclusion. Data are currently being collected. We investigated the groups differences in Mindfulness group (n=50), filler activity group (n=50), and no activity group (n=50) in their implicit attitudes toward death (death/suicide Implicit Association Test) and their level of emotional dysregulation (State Emotion Dysregulation Scale) after experiencing the experimental social exclusion. The predicted result of the study is that participants in Mindfulness intervention group will have higher emotion regulation after the social exclusion task. Their self-association to life is also predicted to be stronger than the no Mindfulness activity groups. Such findings will support the role of brief mindfulness intervention in buffering the negative effects of stressful experiences such as social exclusion by increasing emotion regulation and state mindfulness. It will be able to address the research gap of the importance of mindfulness interventions on social exclusion and suicide-relevant constructs.

 In the United States, Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder are among the most prevalent of mental health disorders. There are, however, disparities in the prevalence of depression and anxiety between racial and ethnic groups. Generally, whites have higher rates of depression and anxiety than blacks, but blacks have a higher rate of persistent depression than whites. One potential factor relevant to this disparity in depression and anxiety rates is ethnic identity. This study therefore sought to investigate how ethnic identity predicts depression and anxiety differentially between blacks and whites. Based on past literature, we hypothesized that higher ethnic identity would predict lower depression and anxiety in blacks, in that having a strong black identity would inoculate individuals from the harmful and depressogenic effects of discrimination, a known risk for depression in blacks. We hypothesized that ethnic identity would have no effect in whites. The study recruited black (n=54) and white (n=64) participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete a battery of self-report questionnaires including measures of ethnic identity, depression, and anxiety. A linear regression analysis was computed predicting depression and anxiety from measures of ethnic identity, with race as a moderator variable. Results indicated that higher ethnic identity had no significant effect on depression and anxiety in whites, but predicted higher depression and anxiety in blacks. Therefore our hypothesis was not supported. These data contradict previous findings that strong ethnic identity can be a protective factor against depression and anxiety. It is possible that, in today’s political climate of increased white nationalism and violence against blacks, ethnic identity may in fact be becoming a risk factor. Future studies would explore how ethnic identity corresponds to heightened sensitivity to discrimination, thereby predicting higher depression and anxiety in blacks.

First-generation college students (FGs; students whose parents have not completed college) often experience more difficulties transitioning into college compared to continuing-generation college students (CGs; students with at least one parent who has completed college). We hypothesize that some of these difficulties stem from the different cultural roles and expectations among interdependent FG families compared to independent CG families. In two studies, we examined cultural models of family (i.e., patterns of ideas and practices implicit in the family context) among FGs and CGs. In Study 1, we documented the prevailing ideas and concepts that FGs and CGs (N=518) associated with family by coding open-ended free-association responses. Both FGs and CGs associated the idea of family with affection, support, immediate family members and personal development. Although not statistically significantly different, FGs tended to associate family more with biological lineage, negative emotions, extended family members, and interdependence. In Study 2, we used a close-ended design to further investigate the patterns that emerged in Study 1. For instance, we anticipated that while both FGs and CGs would associate the family with support, FGs would be more likely to think more of emotional support while CGs would be more likely to think of instrumental support (e.g., financial assistance, career advice). Socioeconomic status is largely invisible and often overlooked in the college setting. By understanding more about FGs’ conceptions of families and their relationships to college, we hope to find ways to help FGs balance their roles as family members and college students and thus ease their transition to college. 

The study examines the implicit stereotypes of children ages 6 to 12 in regard to male-leader stereotype (i.e. the association of boys with leadership roles and girls with follower roles). The study utilized an Implicit Gender-Leader Bias Test (IGLBS), which measures implicit associations through subject response times on pictorial sorting tasks. Subjects were given the task of correctly identifying figures in recognizable “leader” or “follower” roles as belonging to either the category of “male” or “female.” For one condition, the stimuli would be compromised of “male leader” and “female follower” images. The stimuli in the second condition presented “female leader” and “male follower” images. An explicit measure of male-leader stereotype was also taken. It was hypothesized that children would demonstrate significantly faster response times on the “male leader/female follower” image condition than the “female leader/male follower” condition. We anticipated explicit endorsement of male-leader stereotype would decrease with subject age, whereas the implicit endorsement would remain fairly stable across subject age. The findings largely supported these hypotheses, suggesting children do internalize societal male-leader stereotypes even if they don’t explicitly endorse such beliefs.