On Saturday January 18, seven undergraduate and graduate students along with Dr. Rioux spent the day writing a paper on mental health service use in pregnancy and postpartum, ending the day with a full edited draft. They celebrated the end of a long day with dinner. We look forward to finalizing the paper for publication! We hope this will be the first of regularly occurring Paper-in-a-Day events for the lab!
Two of the lab’s students presented at the convention of the Oklahoma Psychological Association on November 8!
Undergraduate Honors student McKenna Nhem was invited to present a talk on her research examining environmental sensitivity to discrimination on the prediction of adult mental health. This summer fellowship project followed up McKenna’s scoping review and honors thesis finding limited research examining how temperament/personality can capture environmental sensitivity in adult mental health research. McKenna’s project also examined psychological distress and well-being after finding that previous research focused exclusively on psychopathology.
Recent undergrad alumni Zoe Childers-Rockey presented the protocol of her new independent project, a systematic review of the moderators of the association between peer influences and adolescent delinquency. Her poster got a first place award!
Madison Bissa, who is now a PhD student in clinical psychology at the University of Tulsa, recently published her Honors thesis completed in the lab in the peer-reviewed journal Adolescent Research Review.
Madi conducted a systematic literature review examining the moderators of the association between parent divorce and adolescent externalizing behaviors and substance use. In other words, her review helped understand for which adolescents and when parental divorce/separation has a larger or smaller association with externalizing behaviors and substance use. This work was conducted with the contribution of five undergraduate research assistants who are co-authors on the paper: Parker Haley, Ashley Wells, Jenna LaBelle, McKenna Nhem, and Delaney Fulp.
Find the paper here! http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40894-024-00249-9
Read-only free version: https://rdcu.be/dWNLN
On October 17-20, undergraduate students Christina Personette and McKenna Nhem attended and presented their research at the Society for Research in Psychopathology international conference in Montreal, Canada!
Christina presented her research findings on environmental sensitivity to recent stressful experiences predicting prenatal mental health. Results showed that recent stressful experiences predict depressive symptoms only for individuals high on the temperament trait of sensory processing sensitivity.
McKenna presented her findings on environmental sensitivity to discrimination predicting adult mental health. Results showed that individuals high on aesthetic sensitivity, a facet of sensory processing sensitivity, benefited most from low discriminatory environments. High levels of discrimination had negative impacts of psychological distress and well-being regardless of temperament.
Congratulations to McKenna Nhem and Christina Personette who presented their results at the University of Oklahoma UReCA showcase on October 4!
They conducted research on environmental sensitivity to discrimination (McKenna) and recent stressful experiences (Christina) through the UReCA summer fellowship.
Madison Bissa, who completed her Honors thesis in the lab and is now a PhD student in clinical psychology at the University of Tulsa, recently published as first author in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM. This work was conducted in addition to her Honors thesis as part of independent research under the supervision of Dr. Rioux for her minor in Women’s and Gender studies.
Madi found that in a recent pregnancy cohort (Experiences of Pregnancy), asking several questions about gender identity, modality, and binary did not lead to participant dropout. This answers researcher concerns that cisgender participants offended by gender-related questions may drop out of their study, in turn supporting that the academic and social benefits of measuring gender identity outweigh worries about participant dropout.
Find the paper here! https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajogmf.2024.101484
Madison Bissa, who graduated from her undergraduate degree in December, presented her Honors thesis work at the conference of the Society for Research on Adolescence last week in Chicago! Madi’s poster speed talk was on a systematic review of the moderators of the association between parental separation and adolescent externalizing behaviors. Dr. Rioux also presented her work on alcohol use age of onset and substance use disorder symptoms conducted with colleagues at the University of Montreal.
Congratulations to Honors thesis student McKenna Nhem and undergraduate research assistant Christina Personette, who both received the OU Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (UReCA) Summer Fellowship! The fellowship will support their independent research over the summer.
McKenna will work on a research project examining how individuals differ in their sensitivity to experiences of discrimination in the prediction of mental health in a national sample of adults in the United States.
Christina will work on a project examining how pregnant individuals differ in their sensitivity to recent stressful experiences in the prediction of mental health in the first trimester of pregnancy using data from the Experiences of Pregnancy cohort study.
Several of our lab members presented their research at the Oklahoma Psychological Society (OPS) annual conference on April 5, 2024! Click on the students’ pictures to see their poster!
Fily Wahidin (graduate research assistant) presented her poster Prevalence and Frequency of Cannabis Use in Adults and State Cannabis Legislation: A National Study in the United States. Her project finds that cannabis use prevalence and frequency in adults (18+ years old) did not differ based on state-level cannabis legislation.
LaMauri Franklin (Honors thesis student) presented her poster Adverse childhood experiences and perinatal depression, anxiety, and depression. Her project finds that both household and community level adverse childhood experiences predicted symptoms of depression, anxiety, and anger during pregnancy.
Madison Bissa (Honors thesis student who graduated in December 2023) presented her poster Is measuring gender associated with participant dropout in a pregnancy cohort? Her project finds that including three questions on gender identity, modality, and binary in study questionnaires did not lead to study dropout among pregnant participants.
McKenna Nhem (Honors thesis student) presented her poster Environmental Sensitivity to Social Environments in Adult Mental Health: Scoping Review. Her project finds that (1) most studies examined genotype as an individual sensitivity factor, (2) most studies examined internalizing problems as a mental health outcome, and (3) most studies did not properly test their data within current theoretical models.
Zoe Childers-Rockey and Emily Flesher (undergraduate research assistants) presented their poster Pregnancy Longitudinal Cohort Recruitment via Social Media Ads with Zoom Calls: Cost, Effectiveness, and Representativeness. Their project finds that social media advertisements were an efficient way of recruiting pregnant participants and that while the resulting sample was less diverse than the US population, it was more diverse than pregnant participant cohorts recruited in person.
Zoe was also the recipient of the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award! Congratulations Zoe!
Christina Personette (undergraduate research assistant) presented her poster The interaction between sensory processing sensitivity and recent stressful experiences in prenatal mental health: Diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility? Her project finds that recent stressful events were associated with depressive symptoms in pregnancy only for individuals with a highly sensitive personality.
Christina’s poster was the recipient of one of the awards for best poster! Congratulations Christina!
Megan Waldron and Delaney Fulp (undergraduate research assistants) presented their talk The Highly Sensitive Personality and the Sensory Profile. Their project finds that the highly sensitive personality is related to a sensory profile characterized by a combination of low stimulus registration, high sensory sensitivity, and high sensation avoidance
The lab’s students also received several awards!
(1) Zoe Rockey received the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award following her nomination from Dr. Rioux. (2) Christina Personette received one of the Best Poster Awards. (3) Finally, McKenna Nhem, Madison Bissa, Christina Personette, and Fily Wahidin got second place representing the University of Oklahoma in the Psychology Bowl Trivia Competition!
The students’ presentations and accomplishments were celebrated with a post-conference dinner in Oklahoma City!
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.
