Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 9. Source pages: 15, 17, 18.
The Association for Psychological Science will host its Annual Convention in Chicago, May 24-27, 2012. A number of Louisiana students, professors, and scientists are presenting their research. Below are some of the local research talent. More information is available at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.p hp/convention.
In a Symposium, “Dirty, Clean, Balanced, and Bitter: Embodiment Perspectives on Morality,” Kendall J. Eskine, from Loyola University in New Orleans will be presenting, “Exploring Moral Tastes: The Bitter Truth About Morality.” The APS program notes, “Across three studies, we demonstrated that moral and sensory/emotional disgust give bidirectional effects that can be moderated by mindfulness, showing specifically that disgusting tastes elicited harsher moral judgments than did non-disgusting tastes and that processing moral transgressions makes a neutral-tasting beverage seem disgusting, with moral virtue eliciting opposite gustatory perceptions.”
Jennifer L. Thibodeaux from Louisiana Tech University, and Walter Buboltz from Louisiana Tech University, will present a poster, “Auditory Distractors and Sleep Deprivation: Significant Combined Factors in Auditory Inattention?” The program notes, “The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between individuals’ sleep quality and performance on a divided attention task with differing levels of auditory distractors present. No significant differences between sleep quality and divided attention performance were evident, but an interaction between sleep quality and distractors was found.”
“The Impact of Emotion Arousal on Item and Associative Memory,” will be presented by Leslie A. Butler from Louisiana State University, and Sean M. Lane, from Louisiana State University.” We examined the impact of emotional arousal on the memory for pairs of pictures using a task that allowed us to separate the effects of item familiarity and associative strength. Our results revealed that while arousal can enhance item memory, it does not enhance and sometimes impairs associative memory.”
Wade Smith from Louisiana State University Laboratory School, Jason Droddy from Louisiana State University, Rebecca R. Robichaux from Mississippi State University, and Anthony J. Guarino from Massachusetts General Hospital, will present a poster presentation, “Relationship Between High School Experiences and First Year College Persistence.” According to the program, “This study investigated the relationship between, (a) school accountability, (b) Pell Grant (c) GPA, (d) TOPS, and (e) Free/Reduced Lunch on first year college retention. Results indicated that students attending STAR4 schools were more likely to persist compared to STARS1 or 2 with odds ratios of 1.38 and 1.62 respectively.”
“Program Characteristics and Internship Placement,” will be presented by Rose M. Niles from Louisiana Tech University, Deborah P. Simpson from Louisiana Tech University, Donna B. Thomas from Louisiana Tech University, and Walter Buboltz from Louisiana Tech University. “The number of psychology graduate students who fail to match for internship continues to increase. We surveyed graduate training programs to determine whether there are particular characteristics of programs with high match rates. No unique program characteristics were related to internship match rates. Additional research is required.”
“Embarrassment and Empathy and Their Relations to Models of the Self and Others,” will be presented by Hung-Chu Lin from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lena Marie Bethell from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Robert McFatter from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. From the APS program: “Internal working models and dispositions for personal distress and perspective taking were examined as underlying processes of embarrassment and empathy. The findings indicated that embarrassment was primarily associated with the model of self and personal distress, whereas empathic concern was primarily associated with models of others and perspective taking.”
“A Psychological Climate for Emotional Labor? A Study Investigating Burnout and Stress,” will be presented by Kevin T. Mahoney Louisiana Tech University, Christopher T. Huynh Louisiana Tech University, John E. Buckner Louisiana Tech University, and Walter C. Buboltz Louisiana Tech University. “Psychological climate, employee perceptions of their work environment, and employee work behavior, such as emotional labor, may impact work stress. In a survey of 324 employees, psychological climate and emotional labor predicted stress and burnout. Emotional labor also explained some of the influence psychological climate had on these outcomes.”
Kendall J. Eskine from Loyola University New Orleans, Samantha Montano from Loyola University New Orleans, and David Garcia from Loyola University New Orleans, will present “Standing Up for What’s Right: Proprioceptive Effects on Social Justice.” From the APS review, the authors address, “While traditional approaches to social justice focus on higher-order cognitive processes like perspective taking and reflection, the present research shows that physical engagement (literally standing up as opposed to sitting down) can help instantiate interest in various social justice issues.”
(Editor’s note: More APS research next issue.)
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