PEANUTs Lab

Lab updates

TOPS scholarships!

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Congratulations to our research assistants Delaney Fulp and Christina Personette on receiving the University of Oklahoma Department of Psychology’s TOPS (The Outstanding Psychology Student) scholarships!

The scholarship is given each year to outstanding students with excellent coursework records who contribute significantly to research, service, and/or community engagement in the department.

Delaney received the General Psychology scholarship and Christina, who is completing a statistics certificate along with her psychology major, received the Quantitative Statistics scholarship. Both were recommended by Dr. Rioux for their outstanding work in the lab along with other campus involvements.

Graduate and Undergraduate Research Conference Presentations

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Congratulations to the lab’s students who presented their research at the University of Oklahoma Graduate and Undergraduate Research Conference on March 29!

Jacob Stephens (undergraduate research assistant) presented his poster Mental Health and Digital Media Use in the First Trimester of Pregnancy.

Jacob in front of his poster

Annika Testerman (undergraduate research assistant) presented her poster Adverse childhood environments and substance use in pregnancy during COVID-19.

Annika in front of her poster

Madison Bissa (graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in December 2023) presented her Honors thesis Moderators of the association between parental separation and adolescent externalizing behaviors: A systematic review.

Madi in front of her poster.

Oklahoma Psychological Association Convention

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Several of our lab members presented their research at the Oklahoma Psychological Association (OPA) annual convention on November 3, 2023! Click on the students’ pictures to see their poster!

Madison Bissa (undergraduate Honors thesis student) presented her poster Moderators of the association between parental separation and adolescent externalizing behaviors: A systematic review. Her review finds that factors at the individual, family, and broader community levels moderate the association between parental separation and adolescent substance use and externalizing problems. Madison’s poster was the recipient of one of the awards for best poster! Congratulations Madi!

Madison Bissa in front of her poster.

Zoe Childers-Rockey (undergraduate research assistant) presented her poster Parent Preferences for Peer Connection in Virtual Mental Health and Parenting Support Platforms. This research conducted in collaboration with the Hearts and Minds Lab finds that parents have strong preferences for connecting with peers if participating in a virtual (online or app-based) mental health and parenting program.

Zoe Rockey in front of her poster

Madison Donohue (research assistant; graduated with her BA in Spring 2023) presented her poster Mental Health and Digital Media Use in the First Trimester of Pregnancy. Her project found that anxiety and depression are associated with more social comparisons on social media as well as being more comfortable asking for and sharing information online than in person.

Madison Donohue in front of her poster.

Emily Flesher (undergraduate research assistant) presented her poster Cost and effectiveness of participant recruitment via social media ads with Zoom calls for a study on mental health in pregnancy. Her research finds that social media is an efficient recruitment method for pregnancy cohorts, with Facebook being the most cost-effective, followed by Instagram and Reddit (Twitter was not effective).

Emily Flesher in front of her poster.

McKenna Nhem (undergraduate Honors thesis student) presented her poster Studies of person-environment interactions in adult mental health still focus on diathesis-stress: Initial results from a scoping review of studies citing environmental sensitivity theories. Her scoping review finds that studies on person-environment interactions in the prediction of adult mental health still tend to examine only one theoretical model (diathesis-stress) while citing but not testing competing models.

McKenna Nhem in front of her poster.

Annika Testerman (undergraduate research assistant) presented her poster Adverse childhood environments and substance use in pregnancy during COVID-19. This research conducted in collaboration with the Healthy Families Lab, Developmental Neuroimaging Lab, and Developmental Psychobiology Laboratory found that adverse childhood experiences were a stronger predictor of substance use in pregnant individuals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic than pandemic-related stressors/hardship.

Annika Testerman in front of her poster.

Fily Wahidin (graduate research assistant) presented her poster Cannabis Legislation and Use Before and After Pregnancy: Descriptive Results from a National Cohort in the United States. Her project finds that cannabis use prevalence in the year before getting pregnant as well as during the first trimester of pregnancy did not differ based on state-level cannabis legislation.

Fily Wahidin in front of her poster.

Honors College UROP Scholarship

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Congratulations to our research assistants Delaney Full and Megan Waldron, who received the Honors College Undergraduate Research Opportunities (UROP) Scholarship!

UROP funds research projects led by undergraduate students.

This scholarship will fund Delaney and Megan’s research project conducted in the PEANUTs Lab, which will examine the associations between the highly sensitive person scale and the adult sensory profile.

Headshots of Delaney Full and Megan Waldron.

UReCA showcase presentation

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Congratulations to Madi Bissa who presented her results at the University of Oklahoma UReCA showcase on September 29!

Madi is conducting her systematic review on the moderators of the impact of divorce on adolescent externalizing behaviors as part of her Honors research and UReCA summer fellowship.

Madi Bissa in front of an academic poster

Beginning of semester dinner with our Review teams!

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The lab had a celebratory and team appreciation dinner for two review teams as the summer ends and the school year begins!

Honors student Madi Bissa has been conducting a systematic review since January 2023, with 5 research assistants helping screen and extract studies.

Honors student McKenna Nhem jump started her project she is doing during the current school year over the summer. She is conducting a scoping review with the help of 4 research assistants.

We celebrated the progress of both review teams and the work they put in over the summer. Some team members met in person for the first time! It was also an occasion for our incoming Honors student, LaMauri Franklin, to meet other students in the lab.

Celebrating the end of recruitment!

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PEANUTs Lab research assistants were hard at work all summer! They were booked for over 1500 participant calls and screened for eligibility. Part of the team had a dinner to celebrate the successful end to study recruitment! Data collection is ongoing and will continue for about 10 months.

We are very thankful to all the research assistants who devoted their time to the project as well as all the pregnant individuals who agreed to join our study!

A group of 7 women standing and posing for a picture.

Launching the Experiences of Pregnancy study!

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We are launching the Experiences of Pregnancy study! We will be recruiting individuals in the United States who are 10 weeks of less pregnant to understand how personality, social relationships, and the environment work together for mental health and wellness during pregnancy and postpartum.

Our research assistants worked hard on this study since January! Our large team will be recruiting participants throughout the summer.

The study is completely online. To learn more or if you are interested to join, check out the study website at experiences-study.com!

Experiences of Pregnancy Ads

PEANUTs Lab welcomes new students!

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Welcome to our 11 new students, joining the lab to help with our summer projects! They will be helping us most with our Experiences of Pregnancy study recruitment, but also with Madi Bissa’s project on parental separation and adolescent externalizing problems and substance use. Find out more about our assistants on the Current Team page!

Pictures of the new research assistants

Provost’s UReCA Summer Fellowship

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Congratulations to Honors student Madi Bissa, who received the OU Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (UReCA) Summer Fellowship.

The fellowship will support Madi’s work over the summer on her research project on the moderators of parental separation and adolescent substance use. She is conducting this systematic review project under the mentorship of Dr. Rioux and in collaboration with several of the lab’s research assistants.

Headshot of Madi Bissa with the title of her project.