A group of UMass Amherst psychology researchers including PhD Candidate Adrian Rivera-Rodriguez, Senior Research Fellow Ahren Fitzroy, and Professors Nilanjana Dasgupta and Lisa Sanders examined how anger effects attention, inhibition, and error processing during a weapon identification task. Two groups of participants in the study, one displaying neutral emotion and another made to feel angry, were quickly shown an image of a Black or White, male or female face followed immediately by an image of either a weapon or harmless object. Participants were then prompted to identify the object.
Individuals’ experiences as group members can dramatically impact their interpretations and expectations of experiences with members of other groups. To explore the science behind this, Association for Psychological Science President Jennifer L. Eberhardt interviewed
The Implicit Social Cognition Lab directed by Nilanjana Dasgupta has published a new article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology co-authored by graduate students Marielena Barbieri and Alice Coyne, former postdoc Kelsey Thiem, and PBS faculty member Holly Laws. The paper reports a longitudinal study demonstrating that communal learning contexts that connect math with social good and peer collaboration increase adolescents' identification with math, performance, engagement in class, and future aspirations. These classes enhance students' belonging, self-efficacy, and motivation in math, benefiting all students, with a special boost for Black and Latinx students. Read full paper
Members of Nu Rho Psi and the UMass Neuroscience Club attended NEURON: the Northeast Undergraduate Research on Neuroscience Conference at Quinnipiac University. Pictured below are club members Shiv Shankar (grad student in CompSci) and Psychology majors Keshav Goel, Jenna Mazzola, Emma Martin, and Arlo Heimer-Bumstead, plus an action shot of Arlo presenting his poster.
Averi Gaines, a 3rd-year student in the Clinical Psychology program, published her master's thesis in Psychotherapy entitled "Patient-therapist expectancy convergence and outcome in naturalistic psychotherapy".
Jerry Meyer recently recorded an interview for the website Evolutionary Parenting in which he discussed the relevance of his research for understanding the effects of prenatal stress (i.e., stress experienced by pregnant women) on the offspring and the mechanisms by which such stress is transmitted to the fetus. The interview can be heard via a podcast on the Evolutionary Parenting website here.
The 4th edition of the textbook Psychopharmacology: Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior, published by Oxford University Press, will be available this month. Jerry Meyer is lead author, and Andrew Farrar is one of the co-authors.
