University of Toledo
Emily Jason, a first-year doctoral student working with Dr. Andrew Geers, is the recipient of the University of Toledo’s University Fellowship! This competitive fellowship is for new PhD students who have exceptional academic records and is the highest award the College of Graduate Studies offers. To read more about Emily’s work, please visit our graduate student page.
Congratulations Emily!
Dr. Andrew Geers recently received a 3-year RO1 research grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The aim of the grant is to identify psychological mechanisms that prevent the development of anxiety and fear in dental care contexts. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Laura Seligman (co-PI) at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. Congratulations Dr. Geers!
Recently, three undergraduate InSPHIRe members–Maggie Bennekamper, Jerrin George, and Abigail Ruble–had their research projects chosen for the University of Toledo’s 2021 Spring Annual Year Research Program. These awards, offered by the Office of Undergraduate Research and its Advisory Committee, will help fund their research during the Spring 2021 semester. Maggie’s project is titled Social Feedback Alters Perceptions about Anxiety Treating OLPs, Jerrin’s project is titled The Impact of Social Media-Based Social Comparisons on Well-being and Health-Related Motivations, and Abigail’s project is titled Side Effect Information Preferences in Relation to the Nocebo Effect. Congratulations to all three of you and best of luck carrying out your projects!
This week, the University of Toledo Department of Psychology proudly announced that former InSPHIRe Lab member, Dr. Olivia Aspiras, was selected as the recipient of the 2019-2020 Meritorious Dissertation Award! In her dissertation entitled, “Comparative Thought and Physical Activity: Using Social and Temporal Comparison to Change and Maintain Behaviors” Dr. Aspiras explored social and temporal comparisons using a longitudinal experiment and structural equation modeling. Congratulations and well-earned Dr. Aspiras!
Third-year graduate student Kelly Clemens recently published two first-author publications in the journals Safety Science and the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Congratulations Kelly and keep up the great work!
You can check out the articles here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2020.08.010 (Affect, Values, and Physical Activity) and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104894 (COVID-19 Safety-Focused Product Purchasing).
In a typical semester, the InSPHIRe Lab recruits around 25 undergraduate research assistants at various levels of training. Some seek out our lab specifically because they are interested in social psychology and health, while others are simply in the right place at the right time–something former lab member Charles Vogel calls “serendipity.” Read his story of how grabbing an opportunity he didn’t know existed led to graduate school to become a school psychologist: https://tinyurl.com/Vogelutnews.
If you are interested in what our other former graduate and undergraduate students are doing, please check out the ‘Former Students’ section of our website: https://insphirelab.com/people/former-students/.
The InSPHIRe Lab proudly congratulates both Emily Jason and Buse Kahyaoglu for receiving research awards from the UT Office of Undergraduate Research for the Fall 2020 semester!
Emily Jason’s research titled “Message Framing and Perceptions of Generic Medications” aims to identify perceptions of generic and name-brand medications, and how these perceptions may influence treatment choice.
Buse Kahyaoglu’s research titled “The Impact of Treatment Names on Illusory Correlations in Healthcare Contexts” focuses on how treatment names (e.g., prescribed medications) impact views of treatment and influence the likelihood of treatment engagement (vs. a complementary and alternative medicine [CAM] treatment).
Congratulations to you both and good luck with your research!
We are proud to announce that InSPHIRe member Dr. Andrew Geers and Dr. Ben Colagiuri of the University of Sydney were awarded a large federally-funded grant from the Australian Research Council to examine the psychological processes that inhibit the nocebo effect. Congratulations! We look forward to hearing about the forthcoming research.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on daily life, yet has offered a unique opportunity to research social psychology and health. Members of the InSPHIRe Lab have been busy designing and conducting research to examine various facets of the pandemic, including the impact of the stay-at-home orders. Two recent papers, in collaboration with the Personality and Emotion Research and Treatment (PERT) Lab, have been accepted for publication! These papers (listed below) are in press but should be released soon.
Gratz, K. L., Tull, M. T., Richmond, J. R., Edmonds, K. A., Scamaldo, K., & Rose, J. P. (in press). Thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness explain the associations of COVID-19 social and economic consequences to suicide risk. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.
Tull, M. T., Edmonds, K. A., Scamaldo, K., Richmond, J. R., Rose, J. P., & Gratz, K. L. (in press). Psychological outcomes associated with stay-at-home orders and the perceived impact of COVID-19 on daily life. Psychiatry Research.
Former InSPHIRe student Dr. Erin Vogel has now moved from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to Stanford University. Congratulations Erin! She recently presented an online webinar covering vaping, e-cigarettes, social media, and their effects on teenagers’ health and well-being. Check it out by clicking the link below!
#Vaporized: Navigating Teenage Trends in Vaping, E-Cigs, & Social Media
InSPHIRe Lab 