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NEWS from the Social-Personality Area

* See a list of selected publications from our Graduate students. *

* See the schedule for our 2011 Brownbag Talk series. *

 

 

February 7, 2012

 

Today we’re highlighting some of the recent publications from graduate students in our area. Congratulations to Ingrid Galfi-Pechenkov and Taryn Nepon from the Flett lab who both have publications in press centering on their work on perfectionism. From the Mc Gregor lab, both Kyle Nash and Chelsea Ferriday had pubs come out last year. Chelsea’s paper on ego threat was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, and Kyle is first author on a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The Kawakami lab was very prolific last year with several publications coming out from Curtis Phills and Nikki Mann. Congratulations also to Evelina Lou (Lalonde lab), Andy Ng (Hynie lab), and Katrina Fong (Mar lab) who also had publications come out last year. As always for more information, as well as information on publications from past students and thesis students in our area, you can find a partial list of recent pubs here.

 

Also, welcome back to everyone coming back from San Diego, and congratulations to all those of you who presented at SPSP. As always, the SP area was well represented, with several faculty and student presentations.

 

November 18, 2011

 

We’re part way through the semester already, and our area has been very busy the past few months. There’s a lot of news to catch up on in the coming weeks, but we’ll start by welcome our new students and congratulations to our recent graduates.

First off, welcome to our new class of MA students; David Li (Schuller Lab), Corey Lipman (Steele Lab), Marina Rain (Mar Lab), Tonia Relkov (McCann Lab), and Elizabeth Van Mosjou (Struthers Lab). Information on their research interests has been added to the Grad Students page, and we’re sure that they’ll all contribute to making our area great.

Also, congratulations to Evelina Lou, Sadia Zafar, Melina Condren, and James Roseborough, who convocated with their MA’s in the June ceremonies, and who all will be continuing here at York with their current supervisors. Congratulations again to Zdravko Marjanovic and Su Chang, who successfully defended their dissertations last winter and are currently working on post-docs. Paul Fairlie, supervised by Gord Flett, also convocated in the June ceremonies with his PhD, and is currently working at his own consulting firm.

Coming from the October ceremonies last month, congratulations to Katrina Fong, Ingrid Galfi-Pechenkov and Rebecca Young, who earned their MAs. All three will remain here at York. Congratulations also to Michelle Lustman, supervised by Dave Wiesenthal, and Gwen Jenkins, supervised by Raymond Mar, who convocated with their PhDs.

 

May 26, 2011

 

Year end conference round up

 

It’s been a busy and productive year for the area, with our students presenting at conferences both domestically and internationally. Here’s a round up of some of the student presentations from this year that haven’t yet been featured on the news page.

 

Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference: Congratulations to all the students affiliated with the Wiesenthal lab who presented at the Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference in Halifax this, and especially to Ashley Hall, who won a Student Research award for her honours thesis. Ashley is now a graduate student at the University of Manitoba, but will be continuing her work with the Wiesenthal lab this summer.

Ashley Hall : The Effects of Music Tempo on Driver Risk Taking.  

James Roseborough: The Belief in an Unjust World and Narcissism--the Influence of Personality on Perceptions of Injustice, Driving Anger, and Aggressive Driving.

Christine Wickens, Dave Wiesenthal, Ashley Hall and James Roseborough: Driver Anger on the Information Superhighway: A Final Report.

 

Taking Stock of a Turbulent Decade and Looking Ahead: Immigration in North America 2000-2010: Congratulations to Jorida Cila for her poster presentation on “Cultural Brokering and Bicultural Identity: An Exploratory Study” at an international conference on immigration, held in London Ontario.

 

York University Psychology Graduate Student Association Conference: The SP area was very well represented at this years PGSA conference this year. Congratulations to all the presenters!

Kristine Fitzgerald: Examining Attitudes and Behaviour Toward Feminists: The Impact of the Feminist Label.

Dean Hodge: Perceptions of control over positive and negative events.

Melina Condren: The Effects of Perceived Social Support on Internalized Homophobia.

Constance Mara & Joana Katter: Financial Threat and Anxiety: The Importance of Proactive Coping and Practical Social Support


American Psychology-Law Society Conference: Congratulations also to Kristine for her poster presentation “Race-based pretrial questioning: Can explicitly rendering racial issues salient impact jurors’ decisions in trials of Black defendants?” at this years AP-LS conference, held in sunny Miami, Florida.

 

 

May 10, 2011

 

Congratulations to all of the presenters at YUTSPA Conference held last week at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. YUTSPA is an annual conference where the latest research being conducted by graduate students in the social and personality areas at York and at the University of Toronto is showcased. This year four graduate students from York presented, Katrina Fong (What does my WiiMii say about Me-Me? Inferring personality from avatars), Curtis Phills (Attitude behavior link: Changing attitudes by changing behaviours), Chelsea Ferriday (Forlorn and fervent: Religious radicalization of the meek), and Andy Ng (Culture moderates the exhibition and pliability of ambivalent attitudes). Congratulations are also in order for Jennifer Steele who was this year’s key note speaker (When math=male: Examining the hidden barriers that gender stereotypes can impose). Thank you to our hosts at U of T for organizing a wonderful event.

 

Congratulations are in order for Michelle Lustman, supervised by Dave Wiesenthal, who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “Just Can’t Put the Brakes on Aggressive Driving: Narcissism, Impulsivity, and Driver Aggression” on May 5th. Congratulations are also in order for former members of the Wiesenthal lab, Dwight Hennessy, and Christine Wickens, both graduates from the SP area. Dwight recently published his second book (Traffic psychology: An international perspective, 2011), and Christine was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This will enable her to continue her joint research with Prof. Vingilis (UWO), Dr. Bob Mann (CAMH), and David Wiesenthal.

 

 

 January 8, 2011

 

Welcome back everyone! The area has been very busy the past few months, so there’s a lot of news to catch up on. Coming up will be posts outlining student publications, but today we’re congratulating all the students who recently defended their theses and dissertations.

 

Congratulations to Melina Condren, supervised by Esther Greenglass, and James Roseborough, supervised by Dave Wiesenthal, who both successfully defended their master’s theses. Both will be continuing with their PhDs here at York, with their respective supervisors.

 

Congratulations are also in order for both Chang Su, supervised by Michaela Hynie, and Zdravko Marjonovic, supervised by Esther Greenglass who both recently defended their doctoral dissertations. Chang Su will continue with a post doc here at York, under the supervision of Gord Flett, where she will examine cross-cultural factors in the link between perfectionism and mental health. Zdravko is moving on to a 2-year SSHRC funded post-doc at Queen’s University under Ronald Holden, where he will continue his work on random responders.

 

October 21, 2010

Congratulations to Sadia Zafar who recently defended her MA thesis. Sadia has been accepted into our PhD program, and will continue working with Erin Ross.

 

Congratulations are also in order for Oth Vilaythong T. His research on the golden rule and homophobia, conducte was recently featured in both the Washington Post (http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/10/does_teaching_the_golden_rule_reduce_homophobia.html) and in the Miller-McCune (http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/anti-gay-attitudes-undeterred-by-golden-rule-22454).

 

October 14, 2010

 

York is #1!

A recent article in Canadian Psychologist (Carleton, Peluso, & Asmundo, 2010) assessed the state of research being conducted in Canadian psychology departments and graduate programs. The authors examined the number of publications made by each department and the associated h factor (a measure of scientific productivity and impact, involving the number of times a publication is cited in other scientific literature). The authors conclude that Canadian psychology is ‘booming”, with departments across the board seeing increases in both publications and h factors. Looking at our own department, York was #1 in the number of total publications across the full time period of the study, and 4th in overall h factor. Congratulations to everyone! Let’s keep up the good work.

 

 

September 25, 2010

 

The York University Psychology Graduate Student's Association in collaboration with the University of Toronto and Ryersons will be hosting a Non-Academic Careers Information Night this week on Thursday September 30th at 7pm on the Ryerson University Campus. This is an excellent chance to explore the various options open to Psychology graduates outside of academia. PhD grads in psychology who have been successful at finding a relevant career in fields ranging from Government, to Business, to Teaching, will share the ups and downs of their career paths, and give us tips, and ideas about the opportunities out there. For more information, contact Kaley Rosen at the YorkU PGSA, kaley@yorku.ca.

 

September 20, 2010

 

Our Brownbag Talk series kicks off today with a talk from our own Raymond Mar with his presentation ‘On Being a Scientist’. The Brownbag series features several speakers from the Toronto area, and we hope that everyone takes advantage of this excellent opportunity to learn more about the research being conducted in our city. More details on what we have coming up can be found by accessing the brownbag schedule using the link at the top of the page, or by clicking here.  Coming up next week will be a presentation from Laurie Wilcox on applying for graduate school funding – deadlines are coming up fast, with OGS due on October 6th, and the SSHRC deadline tentatively set for October 22nd. Please make sure that you request your transcripts and approach your referees as soon as possible, to make sure that everything makes it in on time. Congratulations to all the students in our area who were awarded funding as part of last years competitions, including Dean Hodge, Justin Mullins, and Katrina Fong, who won SSHRC masters awards, Evelina Lou, who received a SSHRC doctoral award, and to Rebecca Young and Curtis Phills who were awarded OGS funding.

 

Finally, welcome to all the newcomers to our area! Starting off their graduate studies at York are Jorida Cila, Chelsea Ferriday, Sara Howard, Oth Vilaythong T. and Wendy Zhao Wenfeng. More information about our students, including their research interests can be found through the ‘Graduate Student’ link above, or by clicking here.  Also, welcome to Yumi Sakamoto, a new post doc in the Steele lab. Yumi will be one of our brownbag speakers this year, on Nov 29th.

 

 

September 13, 2010

 

Congratulations to all the students in our area who presented posters or who gave symposium talks at CPA in Winnipeg this past June, and at APA in San Diego in August (presentation details below). A special mention to Chang Su, who received the 2010 John W. Berry Award for best student paper/oral presentation, presented by the International / Cross-Cultural Section of CPA, for her oral presentation entitled “A cross-cultural study of the experiences of shame and guilt in mainland China and Canada”. This paper was coauthored with her supervisor Michaela Hynie, and forms part of Chang’s dissertation. Also, congratulations to Kerry Kawakami for being one of the 2010 elected fellows of CPA.

 

Congratulations are also in order for Taryn Nepon, who in addition to having presented two posters at APA, has also recently defended her MA thesis. Taryn has been accepted into our PhD program, and will continue working with her current supervisor.

 

And remember everyone, classes start today. Details regarding this years brownbag schedule will be posted as soon as it has been confirmed.

 

CPA

 

Constance Mara

Mediation analysis: Do we have it all backwards? Symposium presentation.

 

Kristine Fitzgerald

Inadmissible evidence and minority defendants: When race-crime congruence causes overcorrection for racial bias. Poster presentation.

 

Andy Ng

Cultural Differences in Attitudinal Ambivalence and Ambivalence-Induced Attitude Pliability. Symposium presentation.

 

APA

 

Taryn Nepon

Dimensions of perfectionism and alexithymia. Poster presentation
Mediating role of challenge on depression. Poster presentation

 

Ingrid Galfi

Trait Perfectionism and Health-Related Beliefs and Behaviors. Poster Presentation

 

 

August 24, 2010

 

The members of the SP area have been very active over the past few months, so there’s a lot of news to catch up on. This is the first of several posts outlining some of our recent activities and achievements. Firstly, several of our students have recently graduated. Congratulations to Joana Katter, Andy Ng and Mike Prentice who have successfully defended their MA theses. Joana and Andy have been accepted to the PhD program here at York, and will be continuing with their current supervisors, and Mike has recently started a PhD program at the University of Missouri. Congratulations also to Noelia Vasquez, Lindsay Ayearst, Benjamin Giguere, and Marc Klippenstine who have successfully defended their doctoral dissertations. Good luck to those students currently preparing for their defenses!

 

SPSP

 

We were well represented at SPSP in Las Vegas this past January. A number of our students presented posters, with details outlined below. Also, congratualations to Kyle Nash for delivering a talk on behalf of Ian McGregor and their collaborators (‘Threat and Reactive Approach Motivation’. I. McGregor, K. Nash, Nikki Mann, Curtis Phills, and M. Inzlicht.), and to Jennifer Steele for her symposium talk (The development of Math=Male: Implicit academic stereotyping in young children. Steele, J., Amanda Williams, and Mills, L. (2010). 

 

Posters:

Oshrat Hodara

ePersonality: Differential perceptions of personality during online and real-world social interactions.

 

Andy Ng

Cultural differences in attitudinal ambivalence.

 

Joana Katter

The influence of mood on the relation between proactive coping and rehabilitation outcomes.

 

Melina Condren

Exploring the relation between optimism, emotional support, and proactive coping.

 

Evelina Lou

A multidimensional framework for examining racial identity across different biracial groups.

 

Allison Baird

Do these norms make me look fat? Conformity and body type preference.

 

Mike Prentice

Priming an alternative to a threatened goal prevents defensiveness.

 

Noelia Vasquez

Considering obstacles matters: Mental contrasting mediates the effect of visual perspective on achievement motivation.

 

Kyle Nash

Neural evidence for palliative, reactive approach motivation after threat

 

Amanda Williams

A cross-cultural investigation of minority children’s attitudes towards racial outgroups: Examining the impact of group status and proximity

 

 

ICAP

 

Congratulations to Joana Katter, Melina Condren and Dean Hodge, who presented posters and delivered talks at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Melbourne, Australia, this past July.  A special mention to their supervisor, Dr. Esther Greenglass, for her invited talk as president of Division 8 (Health Psychology), and for being made a fellow of the IAAP.

 

Joana Katter

Chaired a session entitled Coping, Life Satisfaction and Well Being, which included her own talk ‘Proactive Coping, Positive Mood and Rehabilitation Outcomes Following Orthopaedic Joint Replacement’, and also delivered a talk on her masters thesis project entitled ‘The Influence of Resilience on the Appraisal of Academic Stressors as Threatening and Challenging’

 

Melina Condren

Delivered a talk on data from her masters thesis entitled ‘The effects of perceived emotional support on minority stress in lesbians and gay men’  and presented a poster on ‘Positive psychological resources and student well-being: Optimism, emotional support, and promoting positive outcomes.’

 

Dean Hodge

Presented a poster entitled ‘Synergy and utility of proactive coping and positive reframing’

 

There’s much more news to catch up on, so keep watching this page! And be sure to let us know of anything we might have missed.

February 23, 2010
S/P Graduate and now Associate Professor (SUNY Buffalo State), Dwight Hennessy, has been nominated for the President's Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creativity. He is also the editor of the forthcoming volume, Traffic psychology: An international perspective (Nova Science Publishers).

February 18, 2010
Great news! Leah Reisz (Ph.D. Candidate; Steele) and her husband recently welcomed a new baby boy into the world! Logan Douglas Smith was born on Friday February 12th, weighing in at 8lbs. and 4oz. The whole family is happy, healthy, and well.


January 18, 2010
Some wonderful news from our recent graduate, Dr. Banu Cingöz Ulu. Her and her husband recently welcomed a new baby to the world, their son Oguz who was born on December 18th! All are doing great and Oguz is growing up quickly (pictures below). Banu also recently won a "Young Social Scientists" award based on her Ph.D. dissertation, awarded by the Turkish Social Science Association. Congratulations to Banu and Sinan!


November 8, 2009
Kyle Nash recently published a couple of papers with his supervisor, Dr. Ian McGregor. Both employ EEG to examine how the brain responds to threat. The citations and abstracts appear below. Congratulations Kyle!

Inzlicht, M., McGregor, I., Hirsh, J. B., Nash, K. A. (2009). Neural markers of religious conviction. Psychological Science, 20, 385-392.

Many people derive peace of mind and purpose in life from their belief in God. For others, however, religion provides unsatisfying answers. Are there brain differences between believers and nonbelievers? Here we show that religious conviction is marked by reduced reactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical system that is involved in the experience of anxiety and is important for self-regulation. In two studies, we recorded electroencephalographic neural reactivity in the ACC as participants completed a Stroop task. Results showed that stronger religious zeal and greater belief in God were associated with less firing of the ACC in response to error and with commission of fewer errors. These correlations remained strong even after we controlled for personality and cognitive ability. These results suggest that religious conviction provides a framework for understanding and acting within one's environment, thereby acting as a buffer against anxiety and minimizing the experience of error.

McGregor, I., Nash, K. A., & Inzlicht, M. (2009). Threat, high self-esteem, and reactive approach motivation: Electroencephalographic evidence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1003-1007.

High self-esteem predicts personal resilience but also predicts zealous and antisocial reactions to various threats, such as, failure, uncertainty, and mortality salience. The present research supports a basic motivational interpretation of high self-esteem that can account for its resilient but also its zealous and antisocial tendencies. An experimentally manipulated uncertainty threat caused participants with high self-esteem to react with heightened Relative Left Frontal (F7/F8) EEG Activity, a common neural marker of resilient approach-motivation. As predicted by past theorizing on offensive defensiveness (McGregor, 2006), the obtained pattern of neural results mirrors the interaction effect of self-esteem and threat on various antisocial defenses. It is accordingly suggested that reactive approach-motivation processes may help provide an integrative account for some of the angry, zealous, proud, risky, ideological, meaning-seeking, and worldview defense reactions to various threats that have been reported in the social psychological literature.

October 9, 2009
A whole lot of conference presentations on the part of our graduate students to catch up on. Great work everyone. Here's the list:

Society for Personality and Social Psychology*

Noelia Vasquez
Considering obstacles matters: Mental contrasting mediates the effect of visual perspective on achievement motivation

* Other SPSP Presentations appear below, on February 8, 2009. This was mistakenly left off. Sorry Noelia!

Association for Research in Personality

Emily-Ana Filardo
Precursors to Gender Attitudes in the Air Cadet Gliding Population

Health and Wellbeing: Research, Practice and Politics

Joana Katter
Gender Differences in Student Stress and Social Support [Talk]

Melina Condren
Optimism, Emotional support, and Depression in the Transition to University [Talk]

Stress and Anxiety Research Society Conference

Joana Katter
Student Stress, Social Support and Gender [Talk]

Melina Condren
Depression in First-year College Students: Examining the role of optimism and emotional support [Talk]

Canadian Psychological Association

Joana Katter
Factor Analysis of the Brief College Student Hassles Scale

Melina Condren
Emotional Support as a Mediator of Optimism's Effects on Vigor

American Psychological Association

Joana Katter
Student Stress and Social Support: The Importance of Stressor Source

Melina Condren
Psychological Well-being in Students: Optimism, vigor and emotional support

Oshrat Hodara
Is Time on Your Side? The Mediating Role of Regulatory Focus on the Relationship Between Temporal Focus and Psychological Well-Being

8th International Conference on Health Illness and Disease

Aubrey Litvack
Do Sad Cases Make the Next Patient Suffer?: An examination of the emotion-cognition-behavior process in a medical diagnostic setting. [Invited Talk]

October 2, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Yvonne Lai who recently defended her Ph.D.! Dr. Lai has already begun working as the Outreach Coordinator for the Peterborough Local Immigration Partnership/New Canadians Centre. Great work Yvonne and Congratulations again!

September 28, 2009
The S/P Area would like to congratulate Dr. Jennifer Steele, who recently welcomed her new son Matthew into the world. Everyone in the family is healthy, happy, and excited about the new addition!

September 23, 2009
Some more graduations to announce. First off, Jane Wong and Kyle Nash recently convocated with the M.A. degrees. Kyle has continued on to his Ph.D. with Dr. McGregor and Jane was taken on a research position at MultiHealth Systems. Dr. Janelle Jones, Dr. Alex Santelli, Dr. Emily-Ana Filardo, and Dr. Christine Wickens all recently defended or convocated with their Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Jones is now an Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, Dr. Santelli is doing a post-doc with Tory Higgins at Columbia, Dr. Filardo is currently doing a post-doc at the DRDC, and Dr. Wickens will be pursuing a post-doc at the CAMH. Congratulations to all!

September 23, 2009
Our graduate students have published a number of new papers, too many to list here. Please click here to visit the list of student publications, or use the link at the top of this page. Great work everyone!

September 22, 2009
A warm welcome to our new students: Katrina Fong (Mar), Ingrid Galfi (Flett), Dean Hodge (Greenglass), Justin Mullin (Mar), and Rebecca Young (Struthers). Dr. Greenglass and her students organized a lavish welcome, with a delicious buffet dinner and drinks. Pictures to come soon. Welcome to the Area!

September 18, 2009
Francine Karmali, Careen Khoury, and Kristine Fitzgerald, were all recently awarded their M.A. degrees! All three have been accepted into our Ph.D. programme and will be continuing on with their M.A. supervisors. Congratulations!

September 17, 2009
Congratulations to Francine Karmali, who welcomed her new daughter Arianna into the world on August 24th! We look forward to seeing you back here for your doctorate, following your maternity leave!

September 8, 2009
The schedule for the 2009/2010 Brownbag talk series has now been finalized. You can view it here.

September 7, 2009
Some additional good news from the scholarship front (see May 14th), Melina Condren and Careen Khoury were awarded SSHRC graduate fellowships, and Joana Katter was awarded a SSHRC graduate fellowship specifically geared toward business-related research.

September 1, 2009
We're back from our Summer hiatus, and there is a lot of great news to re-cap from the Summer, which we'll be covering over the next few weeks. Let's start with the fact that a recent graduate of our program, Dr. Reeshma Haji, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Laurentian University. She was also offered a position at Kingston University in the UK, but chose to come back to this side of the pond. Great to have you back in the area. Congratulations Reeshma!

May 31, 2009
This will likely be our final news posting before taking a bit of a hiatus for the Summer. Francine Karmali and Dr. Kawakami had a second publication in Science recently, responding to a comment on their previous article (see below). Christine Wickens recently won the Student Paper Competition sponsored by the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals. The award will be presented at next month's Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference in Saskatoon. Great work everyone, and looking forward to returning in the Fall with a report on the Summer's news.

Kawakami, K., Dunn, E., Karmali, F., & Dovidio, J. F. (2009). Confronting racism—Response. Science, 324, 591-592.

May 14, 2009
A ton of good news to report, from the fellowship front. Alison Bair, Francine Karmali, Constance Mara, Taryn Nepon, and Noelia Vasquez were all awarded OGS fellowships. In addition, Kristine Fitzgerald won a prestigious Vanier Canadian Graduate Scholarship, and she would like to thank her letter writers: Dr. Schuller and Dr. Mar. Our more senior students have also been very successful. Alex Santelli won a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship and will be working with Dr. Tory Higgins (Columbia) come the Fall. Christine Wickens also won a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, and will be working with Dr. Robert Mann (CAMH). Congratulations to all!

May 1, 2009
Amanda Williams recently attended the 6th International Graduate College Summer School, where she stayed in a castle (!) in Schloss Hasenwinkel, Germany. She attended a workshop entitled "Explaining prejudice and intergroup hostility: A dual process motivational approach" conducted by Dr. John Duckitt and Dr. Roger Giner-Sorolla.

April 20, 2009
Dr. Heather Schmidt, a recent graduate of the S/P Area, has recently accepted a tenure-track position at Cape Breton University. Dr. Schmidt was initially supervised by Dr. Cynthia Chataway and later by Dr. Regina Schuller. A big Congratulations to Heather and we wish her all the best at her new position!

April 13, 2009
Dr. David Wiesenthal was recently awarded a SSHRC research grant in collaboration with Dr. Evelyn Vingilis (Western) and Dr. Bob Mann (CAMH). He was also re-appointed to two committees for the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals. Congratulations Dr. Wiesenthal!

April 5, 2009
Amanda Williams recently presented a poster at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, in Denver. The poster was entitled Examining Developmental Changes in Children's Implicit Racial Bias, and her co-authors included her supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Steele, as well as Stefania Durante. Great work everyone!

March 27, 2009
Lindsay Ayearst presented both a talk and a poster at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality Assessment, held in Chicago. Her poster, The development and construct validation of MMPI-2-RF (restructured form) personality disorder scales, won an honourable mention. Congratulations!

March 22, 2009
Kristine Fitzgerald presented a poster at the American Psychology-Law Society conference in San Antonio, entitled The Impact of defendant race and inadmissable evidence directionality on juror decision-making. Great work Kristine!

March 17, 2009
Kyle Nash and his supervisor Dr. Ian McGregor have just published a paper in Psychological Science, along with their collaborators at the University of Toronto. Congratulations to all!

Inzlicht, M., McGregor, I., Hirsh, J. B., Nash, K. A. (2009). Neural markers of religious conviction. Psychological Science, 20, 385-392.

March 10, 2009
Ben Gigučre and his supervisor Dr. Richard Lalonde have just published a paper in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. Great work Ben and Richard!

Gigučre, B., & Lalonde, R.N. (2009). The effects of identity threat, resource depletion and social identification on the exertion of effort. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12, 195-207.

March 5 , 2009
Kristine Fitzgerald has joined the Student Editorial Board of Law and Human Behavior (div 41, APA) where she will be reviewing paper submissions to the journal. Great work Kristine!

March 1 , 2009
Some late news from the SPSP conference: Curtis Phills was awarded an Honourable Mention in the Student Poster Award competition, including $50 in prize money!

February 16, 2009
Congratulations to Allison Bair, who was awarded a Research Fellowship from the Organization of American States. This funding will support a 4 month research project in Jamaica for the Fall of 2009, on racial identity and self-control depletion following interracial interactions, all within White-majority versus Black-majority University environments. Allison would like to thank Dr. Steele, Dr. Hynie, and Dr. Lalonde for providing reference letters. Great work Allison!

February 8, 2009
Once again, we had a wonderful turnout at the annual SPSP Conference, this year hosted in Tampa. With over 20 York faculty and students in attendance, it was a very fun time. Thanks to Kerry and Ian for organizing our York dinner, and congratulations to everyone below for their awards and presentations.

AWARDS
Allison Bair: SPSP Diversity Fund award.

TALKS
Dr. Ian McGregor (Chair): Neural and Motivational Mechanisms of Extremism.
Dr. Kerry Kawakami (Chair): Perceiving Prejudice.
Kyle Nash (Talk): Uncertainty Threat as Goal Disruption and Extremism as Goal Regulation.

POSTERS
Allison Bair: The Effect of Speaker Race and Interaction Topic on Anxiety Attributions in Interracial and Same-Race Interactions.
Amanda Williams: The Reliability of a Child-Friendly Race-IAT.
Leah Reisz: She said what?!: Effects of peer racism on White students' racial bias
Ben Gigučre: Social norms, social emotions & alcohol outcome expectancies.
Kristine Fitzgerald: Reducing Juror Bias in the Courtroom: The Impact of Race-Relevant Pre-Trial Questioning.
Careen Khoury: The Moderating Role of Authoritarianism and Group Membership on the Repentance-Forgiveness Process.
Oshrat Hodara: To dream of tomorrow, reminisce of yesterday, or savor today: Construction of the Temporal Focus Inventory (TFI) and its relationship to various personality and motivation factors.
Alex Santelli: Transfer of Forgiveness from Fit: How Regulatory Fit and Transgression Severity Interact to Influence Forgiveness.
Ward Struthers: The role of victim embarrassment in explaining why apologies affect explicit forgiveness.
Dr. Banu Cingöz-Ulu (Alumnus): Who is a Turk? Markers of Turkish national identity and attitudes towards ethno-cultural groups.
Dr. Reeshma Haji (Alumnus): Lying online and crossing the line: Intrusive thoughts and deceiver's distrust.

February 1, 2009
Congratulations to Alex Santelli, who recently published an article in JPSP along with his supervisor Dr. Ward Struthers, and an alumnus of the Struthers Lab, Dr. Judy Eaton!

Santelli, A. G., Struthers, C. W., & Eaton, J. (2009). Fit to forgive: Exploring the interaction between regulatory focus, repentance, and forgiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 381-394.

January 9, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Kerry Kawakami and her M.A. student Francine Karmali, who both authored a paper recently published in Science!

Kawakami, K., Dunn, E., Karmali, F., & Dovidio, J. F. (2009). Mispredicting Affective and Behavioral Responses to Racism. Science, 323, 276-278.

January 1, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Raymond Mar for a recently published paper in Journal of Personality Assessment!

Spreng, R. N., McKinnon, M. C., Mar, R. A., & Levine B. (2009). The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire: A factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 62-71.

 

Highlights of 2008
Dr. Emily-Ana Filardo graduated and accepted a postdoctoral position at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).

Dr. Banu Cingöz-Ulu graduated and accepted a faculty position in her home country of Turkey, at the Middle East Technical University.

Dr. Reeshma Haji graduated and accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Kent, supported by the SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship she was awarded.