Author Archives: pagegould

Mentor: Dr. Morgan Barense Project Description A hallmark of human behavior is the recounting of experiences and the retelling of our past. When we first recall a recent event, we tend to include lots of details about the event, but as the event fades in our memory, the access to details decreases, potentially changing theContinue reading “Memory organization over time”

Mentor: Dr. Felix Cheung Project Description Disparity in key life outcomes is unfortunately ubiquitous. Happiness inequality refers to the extent to which individuals within a community differ in their levels of satisfaction and fulfillment. In this SROP, you will have the opportunity to choose from several topics related to happiness inequality and contemporary events: 1)Continue reading “Happiness Inequality”

Mentor: Dr. Joanne Chung Project Description Daily diary and experience sampling studies have provided exciting insights into how people experience positive and negative affect in everyday life. Yet, people appear to experience and speak of a more varied range of emotions in relation to the different situations they encounter from moment to moment. Existing researchContinue reading “Exploring the structure of emotions in everyday life in Syrian-origin youth who have recently resettled in the Netherlands”

Mentor: Dr. Laura Cirelli Project Description Some music just makes us want to move, whether dancing with a crowd at a rock concert or unconsciously tapping your toe to the beat of the song on the radio. Previous research has shown that adults are more inclined to move to certain kinds of music Ð forContinue reading “Musical movement in childhood”

Mentor: Dr. StŽéphane C™ôtéŽ Project Description Do people from the same social class background cooperate more with each other than people from different social class backgrounds? If so, what is the explanation for this difference in cooperation? And, critically, what strategies can be implemented to reduce this difference? These questions have important societal and organizationalContinue reading “Social Class and Cooperation”

Mentor: Dr. William Cunningham Project Description Our lab broadly focuses on a variety of questions pertaining to (1) why people stereotype and have prejudices; (2) how people build self concepts from their social roles and identities; (3) how our goals shape our experience and behaviour; and (4) how we use memories to form preferences. OurContinue reading “Attitudes and Preferences in Social Contexts”

Mentor: Dr. Laura Doering Project Description Large-scale surveys and audit studies demonstrate that lower-status groups (women, racial minorities, etc.) experience bias in the workplace. Yet individuals often struggle to determine whether any potentially-biased event was, in fact, discriminatory. For example, when a woman is passed up for a promotion at work, she may wonder: WasContinue reading “Ambiguous Bias”

Mentor: Dr. Katherine Duncan Project Description Memory deficits are a commonly reported non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s Disease. The exact pattern of memory impairments, however, is unclear, and drastically vary across studies. One of the greatest overarching controversies in the literature regarding both the pattern of memory impairments in PD as well as its neural underpinnings,Continue reading “A systematic review of memory in Parkinson’s Disease”

Mentor: Dr. Norman Farb Project Description In recent years, academic stress seem to be taking an increasing toll on undergraduate mental health seems to be rising in recent years. Encouragingly, our research shows that brief online ‘check-ins’ help students to pro-active in balancing . However these check-ins can feel like just another burden, making itContinue reading “Light touch interventions for supporting academic well-being”

Mentor: Dr. Matthew Feinberg Project Description Although we typically think of our moral convictions in positive terms, it is important to note that moral convictions can also be problematic, as they often compel us to take unwavering stances and to stigmatize, even dehumanize, those who do not share our convictions. Indeed, some of the mostContinue reading “How to Trigger Unmoralization”

Mentor: Dr. Amy Finn Project Description How do children and adults differ in the strategies they use to learn about the world around them? Broadly, our lab aims to understand how cognitive and brain development can support or constrain learning outcomes. A long-term goal is to understand the nature of memory and learning mechanisms, andContinue reading “Learning Across Development”

Mentor: Dr. Brett Ford Project Description People often feel strong negative emotions in response to political events Ð outrage, frustration, fear. Although these emotions are unpleasant, they also often motivate people to take action Ð protesting, contacting representatives, donating to a cause. This action can generate large-scale societal change, but change hinges on the collectiveContinue reading “Coping with the stress of politics”

Mentor: Dr. Marc A. Fournier Project Description This study will examine the relationships between personality traits, financial literacy, and financial decision-making among university students. Previous research has found that whereas the personality trait of Conscientiousness (industriousness, orderliness) is associated with increased savings and the avoidance of debt, Agreeableness (compassion, politeness) is associated with financial hardship.Continue reading “Personality Traits, Financial Literacy, and Financial Decision-Making Among University Students”

Mentor: Dr. Melissa Holmes Project Description Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber, NMRs) are an exceptional species for studying the neural mechanisms of social behaviour. They are eusocial rodents, living in large colonies with strict social roles and the greatest reproductive skew reported in mammals. NMR colonies consist of a ‘queen,’ which is the only reproductive femaleContinue reading “Changing social roles: how manipulating gene expression alters social behaviour in eusocial naked mole-rats”

Mentor: Dr. Elizabeth Johnson Project Description Long before children learn to tie their shoes or ride a bike, they learn to comprehend and produce spoken language. Indeed, children easily outperform adults when it comes to acquiring language. And children readily acquire multiple languages at once with ease. This is amazing when you consider just howContinue reading “Language and Cognitive Development”

Mentor: Dr. Sonia Kang Project Description Buzzwords like diversity and inclusion are everywhere these days, as are associated terms like equity, belonging, and allyship. But what do these terms really mean, and how are they understood by individuals and organizations? Past research has demonstrated that while these words are commonly used by organizations to signalContinue reading “Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, Belonging – What Does it all Mean?”

Mentor: Dr. Anna Kosovicheva Project Description We often have to make difficult perceptual judgments about where objects are located in the world. When driving in a snowstorm, where is the car in the lane next to you? When catching a baseball flying through the air, where is it relative to your hand? When making theseContinue reading “Do you see what I see? Understanding individual differences in visual space perception”

Mentor: Dr. Spike W. S. Lee Project Description Broadly speaking, our lab investigates-(1) mental contents that matter for social life (e.g., moral intuitions, political orientation, subjective social class),-(2) higher-order mental processes (e.g., judgment and decision-making, lay beliefs, metacognition),often as they influence and are influenced by-(3) bodily states (e.g., motor action, sensory experience) and-(4) physical toolsContinue reading “Morality, politics, social class, motivation and cognition”

Mentor: Dr. Geoffrey Leonardelli Project Description Although Canada’s leaders may envision humans and robots collaborating for the sake of society, such a future is far from guaranteed. Robots, these machines that complete a complex series of tasks autonomously and increasingly under the guidance of artificial intelligence, stoke human fears of unpredictability and human replacement (Frick,Continue reading “Self-Categorization in the Workplace”

Mentor: Dr. Geoff MacDonald Project Description My lab is studying various dimensions of singlehood that may contribute to well-being. Our published research has shown that feeling connected to family and friends as well as feeling sexually satisfied are important contributors. We have several simultaneous projects underway investigating what healthy singles do (e.g., how much timeContinue reading “Singlehood and well-being”