Psychology Research Projects 2021

Della Guo

Advisor: Heejung Park

The Association Between Peer Relationship and Psychological Adjustment Among Multicultural Adolescents in South Korea

Multicultural families, in which at least one parent is an immigrant (most commonly mother), are a minority group in South Korea that experiences high rates of psychological distress (Chung & Yoo, 2013). Some research has shown that these families experience problems such as paternal alcohol abuse (J. Lee, Lee, & Park, 2016) and acculturation stress experienced by immigrant mothers and their children (Cho, 2017; Lee & Park, 2018). Nonetheless, little is known about the nature and role of peers in the lives of multicultural adolescents when in fact, these adolescents may rely more on their peers due to insufficient parental support. Furthermore, peers can be especially influential for adolescents in Asian countries such as South Korea where adolescents commonly utilize their time after school to participate in peer-centered extracurricular activities. Thus, my project will investigate the association between peer relationships and psychological adjustments among adolescents in South Korea by utilizing data from 1,600 monocultural (n = 800) and multicultural (n = 800) adolescents in South Korea. I will examine both ingroup relationships (within multicultural/monocultural adolescents) and outgroup relationships (multicultural adolescents' relationships with monocultural adolescents and vice-versa). I predict that monocultural adolescents will demonstrate better school adjustment compared to multicultural adolescents, and this association will be partly explained by acculturation stress. Furthermore, I hypothesize that there will be a positive association between outgroup peer relationships and psychological adjustments for multicultural adolescents as outgroup peer relationships can serve as an indicator for acculturation for multicultural adolescents. The results can provide meaningful implications for helping multicultural adolescents adjust to their life in contemporary Korea.

Keywords: multicultural family, multicultural adolescent, peer relationship, psychological adjustment

References

Cho, Y. (2017). Externalizing Behaviors in Multicultural Children of Immigrant Mothers: A Mediation Model. Journal of Family Issues, 38(7), 904–920. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X15592028

Chung, G. H., & Yoo, J. P. (2013). Using the Multicultural Family Support Centers and Adjustment Among Interethnic and Interracial Families in South Korea. Family Relations, 62(1), 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00754.x

Lee, J., Lee, R., & Park, M. (2016). Fathers’ alcohol use and spousal abuse and mothers’ child abuse in multicultural families in South Korea: The mediating role of acculturation and parenting stress. Children and Youth Services Review, 63, 28–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.02.003

Lee, Y., & Park, S. (2018). The mental health of married immigrant women in South Korea and its risk and protective factors: A literature review. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 64(1), 80–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764017744581

Annie Hawks

Advisor: Laura Grafe

Stress, Sleep, and the Menstrual Cycle

Stress-related psychiatric disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are twice as prevalent in women than in men. One possible factor that may be associated with this difference is sex hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. Research has shown that the disparity between men and women in the incidence rate of stress-related psychiatric disorders is associated with reproductive transitions. Specifically, these disparities often emerge with the onset of puberty and begin to fade with menopause. Sleep disturbances are a key phenotype in stress-related psychiatric disorders, and thus, sleep is an important variable to examine throughout hormone fluctuation. Another factor in the vulnerability to stress is the coping strategy adopted. In different individuals, or under different conditions, either adaptive or maladaptive coping strategies are used in response to stress. This project aims to understand how sex hormones and coping strategy may influence stress-related psychiatric disorders by studying the associations between the menstrual cycle, stress, coping strategies, and sleep. Our project will use Fitbit devices to track the menstrual cycle, stress levels, and sleep stages in female participants. We will also use a survey to investigate how coping strategies influence stress and sleep levels. In this study, we are prioritizing women’s health by conducting a study specifically in females to better understand disorders more common in women; the ultimate goal is to develop more effective treatments for stress-related disorders in women.

Sarah Luo

Advisor: Ariana Orvell

Outsourcing Reappraisal as an Emotion Regulation Strategy

Emotion regulation, the ability to exert control over one’s emotional state, is a skill critical to one’s interpersonal relationships and mental well-being. People use a variety of strategies to regulate their negative emotions (e.g., exercising, meditation, writing in a journal, etc.). Two widely studied strategies are distraction, which involves thinking about things unrelated to the emotional stressor, and reappraisal, which involves changing the way one thinks about an emotional stressor to reduce its emotional impact (Gross, 2015). These two strategies both have pros and cons: distraction is relatively easy to implement but is less helpful over time (Kross & Ayduk, 2008); on the contrary, reappraisal requires more cognitive resources but can help individuals adapt to the stressors over the long term. Based on this cost-benefit trade-off, Sheppes and his colleagues (2012) established a framework, supported by empirical evidence, that suggests while people prefer to reappraise under low emotional intensity conditions, they are more likely to distract when the emotional intensity is high.

However, in real life, the resources for emotion regulation are not limited to the individuals themselves: people can also turn to others, in other words, ‘outsource’, to help them reappraise. Unlike intrapersonal reappraisal, outsourcing reappraisal shares the workload of reinterpretation with another person. As a result, it’s potentially easy to implement, helping people regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a relatively effortless way (Orvell, 2019). This raises the question of whether people will prefer outsourcing reappraisal over intrapersonal reappraisal and distraction because it’s not cognitively challenging.

Under the supervision of Dr. Orvell, the study I will be working on this summer will test the hypothesis that individuals prefer to outsource even when their emotional intensity is high because it’s both effortless and beneficial to their long-term adjustment. Specifically, we’ll use an experimental design to examine which strategy participants prefer among distraction, reappraisal, and outsourcing reappraisal when the emotional intensity of the stressor is high vs. low. The results of this study will help add to a growing body of work on how and when people choose different emotion regulation strategies, providing insights into which regulatory strategy is most appropriate in different situations.

Sophia Ou

Advisor: Anjali Thapar

Examining effects of aging on memory performance using Event-Related Potentials

Research on age-related changes in episodic memory has indicated that older adults, relative to younger adults, are less capable of encoding and retrieving information. Electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) are well established methods used to associate neural activity in the brain with -behavioral differences in memory performance. In Professor Thapar’s lab, EEG data is collected from younger and older adult participants during the associative recognition memory task. My summer research project aims to examine the age-related differences in memory performance by analyzing the EEG data collected from the participants. The EEG data shows the neural activities associated with specific memory performance, such as encoding and retrieval. By manually filtering the EEG data and running the Independent Component Analysis, we could filter out irrelevant noises and artifacts such as eye and muscle movement and plot out the ERPs. ERPs are usually analyzed in the time domain, but we will use the time-frequency analysis which allows us to investigate both the frequency of an event-related oscillation and its evolution over time. The use time-frequency analysis of ERPs allows us to tie what we identify as behavioral differences to the actual brain activities. The results will provide a better understanding of episodic memory and how it changes with adult aging.

Karen Prangan

Advisor: Heejung Park

A Reckoning with Asian American Identity: Ethnicity and Panethnicity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The racialization of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about alarming rates of anti-Asian hate crimes and xenophobic rhetoric, a 147% increase in the last year (Jeung et al., 2021). Given that such hostile racial climates threaten the identity development and well-being of Asian Americans (Cheng, 2020; Iwamoto & Liu, 2010), my project examines racial and ethnic identity in times of COVID-19. I predict the rise of collective, panethnic Asian American identity due to increased solidarity and coalition-building between different Asian ethnic groups. Additionally, I posit that ethnic identity among Asian American emerging adults has also deepened, as a result of growing awareness of the heterogeneity of Asian American experiences. Furthermore, I aim to explore within-group differences (e.g., generation, ethnicity) in the racial and ethnic identity development. Using the qualitative approach of conducting semi-structured, narrative-based interviews, and thematic analysis (Jovchelovitch & Bauer, 2000; Braun & Clarke, 2006), I will examine the nuances and complexity of identity development in Asian American emerging adults. My study will expand the current knowledge on the identities of Asian American ethnic minorities, heighten awareness of community issues during the pandemic, and offer implications for practical tools that help promote healthy development and healing of a minoritized population.

Keywords: COVID-19, Asian American, Racial Discrimination, Identity, Emerging Adults

References

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://psycnet-apaorg.proxy.brynmawr.edu/doi/10.1191/    1478088706qp063oa

Cheng, H. L. (2020). Xenophobia and Racism Against Asian Americans During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mental Health Implications. Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship, 3(1), 3. https://repository.usfca.edu/jips/vol3/iss1/3

Iwamoto, D. K., & Liu, W. M. (2010). The impact of racial identity, ethnic identity, Asian values, and race-related stress on Asian Americans and Asian international college students’ psychological well-being. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 7991. https://doi-org.proxy.brynmawr.edu/10.1037/a0017393

Isabella Ravaglia

Advisor: Laura Grafe

Differences in the Spectral Power Density of Sleep EEG Between Male and Female Rats After Stress  

Stress-related disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are more prevalent women, and disruptions in sleep quality are a common feature associated with these disorders. Specifically, insomnia and sleep fragmentation are common in both MDD and PTSD. Previous rodent research in our lab found persistent decreases in Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) and REM sleep in female rats after repeated stress. This project will expand on this research by more closely examining the electroencephalogram (EEG) from these rodents, which allows for characterization of different stages of sleep. Particularly, we will conduct spectral analysis of the frequency bands that make up the EEG signal (delta, theta, alpha, eta, and beta), which will provide insight into how changes in the power of different frequency bands impact the overall EEG signal and sleep architecture. We will compare Power Spectral Density (PSD) between males and females measured during different vigilance states before, during, and after repeated stress. While previous studies have found changes in frequency band power during REM after prolonged stress in rodents, these studies were conducted in males only. Thus, this analysis will provide novel insight to how PSD during sleep differs between the sexes during prolonged stress. This research will also advance our understanding of how neuronal oscillations contribute to sleep disruptions observed in stress related psychiatric disorders.

Rita Sabri

Advisor: Anjali Thapar

The diffusion model is a stochastic model of the cognitive processes involved in simple two-choice decisions (Ratcliff, 1978). A handful of psychologists have applied the diffusion model to study task performance associating with aging, depression and ADHD.  Although the diffusion model has been successfully applied to study both human and animal behavior, a challenge for broader adoption of the model in Psychology is that it requires advanced applied mathematical knowledge beyond that of the typical statistical training obtained in graduate programs. Over the past decade, four different “user-friendly” variants of the diffusion model have been developed for researchers hoping to use the diffusion model to fit experimental data.  My first goal for this summer is to familiarize myself with the diffusion model and with each of the four variants of the diffusion model.  Working with the four versions of the diffusion model, I will understand the similarities and differences across the four models with the goal of being able to identify the circumstances and how they differ from each other.  During my journey of understanding how those 4 models work, I will systematically test each version with simulated datasets. Finally, I will choose the best-fitting versions of the diffusion model and systematically test these models by fitting them fit to data from memory experiments collected in the Cognition and Aging lab.  

Mahek Nirav Shah

Advisor: Marc Schulz

The role of childhood family environment in shaping relationship orientation in adulthood

Individuals inhabit many relationships across their lifetime beginning with their connections to parents and siblings and extending to friends and partners. Individuals’ understanding and involvement in relationships differ in important ways. This summer research project looks to examine the role of childhood family environment in shaping the ways in which people approach their relationships later in life. Building on existing theory on attachment and relationship structures (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) and on relationship quality (Lawrence et al., 2011), the goal is to build a model of relationship orientations that will identify and differentiate key ways in which people approach their relationships. Relationship orientation captures relationship behaviors, that range from spending time with people to allowing emotional dependence on others, through the lens of willingness, worthiness, ease, and pleasure. Data will be drawn from an 85-year-old study, the Harvard Study of Adult Development which has captured the entire lives of 268 men who went to Harvard University in the early 1940s. After developing the conceptual model of relationship orientation, a latent profile analytic approach will be used to identify groups of people who have different relationship orientations. The warmth and consistency of childhood family environment will be examined as predictors of these relationship orientation profiles. This work will enhance our understanding of the relational consequences of children’s family environment across the lifespan. 

References

Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships (p. 46–76). The Guilford Press.

Lawrence, E., Barry, R. A., Brock, R. L., Bunde, M., Langer, A., Ro, E., Fazio, E., Mulryan, L., Hunt, S., Madsen, L., & Dzankovic, S. (2011). The Relationship Quality Interview: evidence of reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and incremental utility. Psychological assessment, 23(1), 44–63. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021096

Victoria Wei

Advisor: Ariana Orvell

“That moment when:” How context shapes people’s engagement with positive experiences

Research shows that subtle shifts in language can not only reveal how people are thinking but can also affect how people interpret a message. An often-overlooked linguistic tool that Professor Orvell’s lab has been studying is the use of generic-you (i.e., “you” that refers to people in general, rather than to a specific person, e.g., “What kills you make you stronger”). In previous work, Professor Orvell and her colleagues found that people use generic-you to make meaning out of negative experiences because it minimizes the focus on the self, allowing people to distance themselves (i.e., self-distance) from their own negative experiences and see it as part of a shared and broader phenomenon. It makes sense to self-distance from negative experiences, but might there be times when people would want to self-distance from positive experiences, which people are typically motivated to self-immerse in? Professor Orvell and colleagues reasoned that if people are sharing about a positive experience publicly (e.g. on social media), they may be motivated to de-emphasize the focus on the self – by using generic-you – to make sharing more comfortable or to project humbler image. For example, a person writing on Facebook about earning a top grade may say “That moment when you feel so accomplished,” whereas they might be more likely to say “I felt so accomplished” if writing privately, in a diary. In the present study, we are interested in how people react to social media posts with generic-you (vs. “I”) in them. We have two competing hypotheses: On one hand, we hypothesize that the writer of posts written with generic-you will be liked more, because they may seem humbler and the events sound more relatable. Alternatively, the writer of the post may be liked less because the use of generic-you may be perceived as inauthentic. In this research, we hope to shed light on how this subtle linguistic device can meaningfully influence interpersonal processes related to interpersonal connection and person perception.