Heather Bliss & Elise Elligett

Can’t decide what kind of program you should apply to for graduate school? Master’s or PhD? Clinical or Experimental? This talk will give you a brief overview of different options you can take for graduate school.

Anandi C. Ehman

Before you even start your graduate school applications, there’s a mound of paperwork that needs to be done. This talk will expose you to the checklist of that paperwork. It will cover topics such as creating a CV (how is it different than a resume?), writing a personal statement, and getting letters of recommendation.

Emmie R. Hebert

Nope, that wasn’t a typo. This unique presentation will give you a taste of the labs in our department that offer opportunities for undergraduate research experience IN JUST 5 MINUTES. If you’ve thought about joining a lab but aren’t sure what they are, definitely find 5 minutes in your schedule to check this out.

Nathaniel Green, Melissa Miller, Katelyn Sharp, & Lindsay Stewart

After you know what the labs are, you will be able to ask your questions to your peers that have experienced these labs, gone through the graduate school application process, and got accepted into a program!

Clinical Students: Yash Bhambhani, Gina Buillion, Yolanda Rodriguez, Molly Wickenhauser, & Sara Witcraft

Experimental Student: Tonya Vandenbrink

So, what’s graduate school like after you get in? Here is a good opportunity to find out! Some graduate students from our department will be here to answer any questions you have about their graduate school experience. *NO FACULTY ALLOWED*

Nathaniel R. Greene, Devin E. Jewell, Julian D. Fuentes, Carrie V. Smith, & Carey B. Dowling

Helicopter parenting negatively relates to college student well-being. Here, we show that the helicopter parenting manifests in similar ways between first-generation students and their peers before beginning college. Our study shows that helicopter parenting positively relates to feelings of achievement guilt and worry about the transition to college and negatively correlates with psychological need fulfillment. Thus, helicopter parenting takes a toll even before students begin college.

MaKensey L. Sanders, Stephanie Miller, Steven Skultety, & Karen Kate Kellum

Philosophical ability is thought to involve higher level cognition (Kitchener, 1990). The purpose of this study was to determine if there are links between cognition and the consideration of philosophical ideas in both children and adults and whether philosophical questioning influenced the ability to challenge conformity. The data reflects a marginal correlation between working memory and philosophical reasoning and also between classification in college and philosophical reasoning.

Gary C. Glick & Amanda J. Rose

The present study examined communication withdrawal and desired change in adolescent and young adult romantic relationships. Females' desired change centered on who planned activities, attention given to appearance, and openness of communication. Males' desired change centered on going further sexually and spending time with friends. Communication withdrawal was more pronounced when change was desired in especially sensitive topics (e.g., birth control, opposite-gender friends, sexual behavior).

Hunter Sudduth, Emmie Hebert, Karen Kate Kellum, Ryan Kimball, Chad Drake, & Kelly G. Wilson

The current study sought to utilize a behavioral (i.e., IRAP) in the assessment of SES perceptions and their possible influence over voting intentions. The results are suggestive of marginal differences between political affiliations for implicit perceptions of wealth and poverty, with larger differences observed among self-report measures.

Ann Louise Seabrook & Carey Bernini Dowling

The study's goal was to examine the relationships between fixed and growth mindset and resilient behaviors and academic achievement, all in an undergraduate population. Meditational analyses were not run due to a lack of variability in the data; however, the predicted relationship between emotion growth mindset and lower levels of depression symptoms was found, along with the predicted relationship between several resilient behaviors and official semester GPA.

Alexandria Leidt, Karen Kate Kellum, & Kelly G. Wilson

This study examined the effects of different sizes of learning groups in a college classroom that includes peer-learning. No differences in quiz scores; however, students rated small group discussions more favorability than the large group discussions.

A. Solomon Kurz, Samantha L. Knowles, Karen Kate Kellum, & Kelly G. Wilson

Few have investigated ways to detect and intervene on poor survey behaviors in real time. In this study we explored the efficacy of five experimental interventions to improve survey responding. Participants in the experimental conditions generally responded more carefully than those in the control; however the effect size was small.

Adam F. Sattler & John Young

This study demonstrates that a new screening instrument accurately assesses 10 common behavioral health conditions in a format that requires little time (less than 9 minutes), expertise, and resources to implement. Given these results, the instrument may facilitate mental health assessment in a variety of applied clinical contexts, such as community mental health settings and primary care clinics.

Sarah M. Scott

Fear has been conceptualized as the underlying emotion of the fight, flight, freeze (FFF) system; however, little is known regarding responses to other emotions, such as disgust. Much research has demonstrated fight and flight to be adaptive in threatening situations with freeze only more recently being studied. The current study explored the self-reported FFF system tendencies in relation to anxiety and disgust sensitivities. Participants included 283 undergraduate students (55.1% female; 68.2% White) from a large southern university. Results indicated that disgust sensitivity was significantly related to both flight (p < .05) and fight (p < .05) responses. However, when assessed separately by different disgust domains (i.e. core, contamination, animal reminder and moral), the moral subscale was not related to any of the FFF domains. Overall, results demonstrated that both flight and fight to be highly associated with the emotion of disgust. Discussion of the findings and future directions in understanding this relation will be presented.

Molly Wickenhauser

Research has exemplified that avoidance of the emotion of disgust contributes to anxiety disorders. Additional factors that influence avoidance and contribute to anxiety disorders include anxiety sensitivity and emotion dysregulation. Few studies have directly assessed these cognitive vulnerabilities together with disgust in the prediction of avoidance behaviors. The present study aimed to examine the role of disgust sensitivity, anxiety sensitivity, and emotion regulation in behavioral avoidance. Participants were undergraduate students (n = 242) from a large Southeastern university. The sample was predominantly female (73.7%), and Caucasian (68.4%) with mean age = 19.07 years. Following consent, participants completed the several self-report measures as part of a larger overall lab study related to disgust and anxiety. Further, participants were asked to complete 8 disgust-related Behavioral Avoidance Tasks (BATs) separated into three steps each. For example, a live earthworm was presented and the participants were asked to approach, touch, and pick up the earthworm. A hierarchical regression revealed that disgust sensitivity predicted behavioral avoidance on the BATs when controlling for anxiety sensitivity and emotion regulation, F (1, 154) = 70.276, p < .001. Discussion of the findings and future directions will be presented.

Mimi Zhao

Safety behaviors are a core feature of contamination fear. Studies demonstrate that repeated engagement in safety behaviors (e.g., carrying hand sanitizer) can result in fear maintenance. Given links between disgust and contamination fear, distinct disgust vulnerabilities may also relate to the implementation of safety behaviors. To better understand factors related to safety behavior use, the present study examined the relationship between domains of disgust, contamination fear, and safety behaviors. Undergraduate students (n=135) from a large southern university completed self-report measures of contamination fear, disgust sensitivity, and safety behavior use. A stepwise regression was conducted with the first step including three domains of disgust sensitivity and the second step including contamination fear and the disgust domains. Results from the first step demonstrated both contamination disgust ( = .30, t (135) = 2.93, p = .004) and core disgust ( = .29, t (135) = 2.51, p = .013) predicted safety behavior use. In the second step, contamination fear predicted safety behavior use above and beyond all domains of disgust ( = .58, t (135) = 7.57, p < .001). These results demonstrate that safety behavior use is associated with both fear of disease and contamination disgust, however contamination fear seems to be the only factor maintaining safety behavior use.

Brooklee Tynes

Research has demonstrated the development of PTSD may be attributed to numerous vulnerabilities, predisposing individuals to the development of the disorder. Disgust, particularly moral disgust, may be one such vulnerability. Moral disgust is a response that occurs when an individual experiences a negative reaction to moral violations or views actions lacking normal human motives. Additionally, scrupulosity, defined as obsessive tendencies in relation to fear of sin and compulsive action to eliminate sin by continuous participation in religious acts, may be a construct associated with moral disgust and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). The purpose of this study was to test the association of moral disgust with scrupulosity and PTSS. Participants were 283 students (42.9% male; 70.3% White) age 18 to 44 years (M=20.0, SD = 2.87) who completed self-report measures of posttraumatic stress, scrupulosity, obsessionality, and moral disgust. Results revealed that scrupulosity was positively correlated with posttraumatic stress symptoms (r= .41), but not moral disgust. Additionally, moral disgust ratings were unrelated to PTSS. Post-hoc analyses suggested that the overall disgust (not separated by domain) did significantly contribute to the regression model. Implications and discussion of these findings will be presented.