Maria Sanchez Boedo
Faculty Research Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Cheavens
Title: The Associations Between Early Challenges and Psychological Functioning
Abstract: Failure can be defined as not meeting one’s goal or standard in any realm of personal importance. However, many failure studies to date have been conducted in laboratory settings and lack ecological validity from studying failure naturalistically. The present study aimed to examine the consequences of naturalistic, lived failure by assessing levels of self-reported frequency of failure before the age of 18 and their correlations with current mental health outcomes. The study used a cross-sectional, correlational design via an online survey to evaluate participant responses related to several primary and secondary measures. Primary measures included self-reported values of past frequency of failure and current anxiety, depression, and fear of failure levels. Secondary measures included self-reported current levels relating to entity-vs.-incremental mindset, hope, and resiliency. Primary hypotheses were that higher levels of frequency of failure before the age of 18 would be associated with lower levels of current fear of failure, anxiety, and depression levels, and that current fear of failure would be positively correlated with current anxiety and depression levels. The proposed inverse relationship between past frequency of failure levels and current fear of failure levels was based on extensive literature detailing exposure as a mechanism to overcome phobias; we reasoned could apply to overcoming a fear of failure as well. Our secondary hypothesis was that increased fear of failure levels would be negatively correlated with growth mindset, hope, and resiliency levels. Our primary hypothesis was partially supported. In line with our primary hypothesis, fear of failure was positively associated with both anxiety levels (r = .649, p<.01) and depression levels (r= .700, p<.01). Contrary to our first primary hypothesis, we observed a positive correlation between frequency of failure and fear of failure (r= .397, p<.01), frequency of failure and anxiety (r= .351, p<.01), and frequency of failure and depression (r= .467, p<.01). This may be partially explained by an unintentional retrospective memory bias which can be present in depressed individuals and cause them to remember an inflated proportion of negative experiences (Gaddy & Ingram, 2014). Our secondary hypothesis was also partially supported. In line with our secondary hypothesis, there was a negative correlation between fear of failure and hope (r= -.357, p<.01), and between fear of failure and resiliency (r= -.550, p<.01). Contrary to our secondary hypothesis, there was no significant correlation between fear of failure and growth mindset (r=-.090, p=.316). Future directions include examining the perceived average cost of past failure experiences in future iterations of the study to examine if different perceived costs of past failures impact the relationship between fear of failure and mental health outcomes.
Ria Kabra
Faculty Research Advisor: Duane Wegener
Title: Understanding People
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine stigma against alcohol addiction. The primary aims are to (a) examine how different stigma reducing strategies impact bias against those with alcohol addiction, and (b) examine how different stigma reducing strategies impact bias against those who are associated with people with alcohol addiction. Specifically, we will be looking at four strategies: a direct exposure strategy, an indirect exposure strategy, an empathy priming strategy and an uncontrollable factors strategy. We hypothesize that the empathy priming method will be most effective in reducing stigma towards addiction in the long term. The empathetic priming is hypothetically more likely to translate to a larger group and create an attitude that will sustain itself for longer. This study also aims to spread awareness about addiction by educating the participants on the factors, consequences and misconceptions associated with alcohol addiction. The results of this study will help us better inform decisions related to large-scale efforts to break the stigma surrounding different types of addiction. Future research in this area may examine the differences between stigma against alcohol addiction and other types of addictions.
Nathan McPherson
Faculty Research Advisor: Dr. Ruchika S. Prakash
Title: An Age-Invariant Neuromarker of Attentional Control
Abstract: Introduction: Attentional control is involved in most cognitive processes and is beginning to be conceptualized as the result of synchronous whole-brain activity. Recent studies in network neuroscience have found that data-driven machine learning methods like Connectome-based Predictive Models (CPM) can be used to predict attentional control using whole brain data in independent age groups and can be used to predict related constructs like fluid cognitive ability and ADHD symptom severity. However, no study has generated whole-brain predictive models which are applicable across the entire adult lifespan. Methods: The neural and behavioral data of 594 subjects across the adult lifespan (36-105 years old) were entered into the CPM framework. We derived a set of connections across the entire brain that are associated with performance (d’) on a modified Go/NoGo task, controlling for age. We hypothesize that this model will retain within-sample predictive utility across the lifespan and predict fluid cognitive ability as well. Results: The resultant models were significantly (Combined: rho = .183; p < .000) predictive of attentional control indexed by d’. Models associated with better (High: rho = .216; p < .000) and poorer (Low: rho = .1297; p = .002) attentional control also demonstrated significant predictive accuracy. The high attentional control model remained predictive when applied to NIH Toolbox fluid cognition composite scores (rho = .1376; p < .000). The combined (rho = .007; p = .873) and Low (rho = -.3768; p < .000) models did not predict fluid cognition composite scores. Discussion: Our results show that whole-brain functional connectivity is predictive of attentional control across the adult lifespan. It also appears that connectivity associated with better attentional control may also partially serve as a cornerstone of fluid cognitive neural processing. Future work might apply this model to novel subjects of healthy and clinical populations.
Adenola Atekoja
Faculty Research Advisor: Duane Wegener
Title: Reducing prejudice and bias towards immigrants using imagined contact
Abstract: The purpose of this project is to examine issues of attitude generalization in relation to immigration. Immigration is crucially important in the United States. It can often be over-simplified and misconstrued as there is an incredible amount of depth that goes into the immigration process. Yet, some aspects lend themselves to experimental study. We predicted that there will generally be more favorable attitudes towards immigrants using imagined contact. From the results, they represent that there was a slight increase in favorability towards immigrants in general, however, it showed that having an empathy, objective, and control condition makes no difference in an increase in favorable attitudes.
Nicki Wiedlund
Faculty Research Advisor: Dr. Barbara Andersen
Title: Predicting Psychological and Physical Symptoms Based on Treatment Type in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer
Abstract: Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) report higher levels of depression and anxiety as compared to patients diagnosed with other cancer types. Patients with lung cancer also report high levels of physical symptoms, including dyspnea, cough, and pain. Patients with advanced NSCLC receive different types of cancer treatment depending on several physical characteristics. While chemotherapy has historically been the primary treatment option, advanced treatments with less physical side effects, such as immunotherapy and targeted therapy, have since been discovered. It was hypothesized that patients receiving advanced treatments would report lower psychological symptoms, including depression and anxiety, along with physical symptoms compared to those receiving chemotherapy after eight months into treatment. The sample included 211 patients with NSCLC, the majority Caucasian (93%), male (58%), and middle-aged (63 years). The groups consisted of chemotherapy (n=63), chemotherapy plus immunotherapy (n=36), immunotherapy (n=42), targeted therapy (n=33), and no treatment (n=38). Participants were enrolled at a university-affiliated cancer center. From baseline to 8 months, participants were administered the PHQ-9, GAD-7, and a symptom questionnaire monthly. Linear mixed models were estimated to determine if treatment group was predictive of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and physical symptoms from baseline to 8 months. Further, interactions between treatment group and time were examined. Age, gender, education, employment, marital status, and income were included as covariates in the analyses. Gender, time (i.e., month 1 and month 8), and the interaction between treatment category and time for chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy were significant predictors of depression symptoms in the model. Age, gender, time (i.e., month 1 and month 2), and the interaction between treatment category and time for chemotherapy were significant predictors of anxiety symptoms in the model. Employment and the interaction between treatment category and time (i.e., month 1) for immunotherapy were significant predictors of physical symptoms in the model. The trajectories of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and physical symptoms were different for the treatment groups over time. Age, gender, and employment were also significant predictors of the outcomes. In the clinical setting, all patients with advanced lung cancer should be provided with resources for psychological and physical support. Future studies should examine the impact of treatment type on further psychological and behavioral outcomes such as cancer-specific stress, self-care, and adherence behaviors.
Gabriel Tucker
Faculty Research Advisor: Stephen J. Read
Title: A Neural Network Model for the Structure and Dynamics of Human Personality Across Simulated Environments
Abstract: Existing models of personality structure are unable to explain the dynamics of within-subject behavior across different situations. This is concerning, as the variability of a typical individual’s behavior across situations is significantly greater than between-subject personality differences in behavior (Fleeson, 2001). We present a single-agent model, based on the biologically plausible neural network framework Emergent (O’Reilly et al., 2020), that operationalizes a theory of how situational characteristics interact with individual differences in the neural systems underlying motivation to give rise to within-subject personality dynamics. We first manipulate key parameters of the neural systems in the networks to create a population of “individuals” who vary in their underlying motivational structure and dynamics. We then simulate the interaction of these different “individuals” using virtual environments with varying layouts and stimulus configurations in the video game engine Unity to demonstrate how different contexts produce high within-subject variability in decision-making and behavior.
Abby Bush
Faculty Research Advisor: Vanessa Ivy and Steven Spencer
Title: The Future of Women's Rights: Mobilizing Women Through Collective Action
Abstract: With current events greatly impacting women and their rights in the United States, we are seeking to better understand which factors contribute to the likelihood of participation in collective action amongst women. We believe factors such as relative deprivation, moral conviction, strength of group identification, self-efficacy, and opportunities presented for collective action may impact the likelihood of women to engage in collective action. We hope to learn whether these factors correlate with the likelihood to engage in collective action for the women’s rights movement to better understand how to mobilize and involve women in this movement. For this study, we recruited approximately 110 women to participate. Self-efficacy, perceived relative deprivation in relation to men, moral conviction, and strength of gender identification were measured. The main outcome measure is willingness to engage in collective action for women’s rights. Participants were also asked to indicate how likely they are to engage in various methods of collective action. They were then asked how many times they’ve been presented with opportunities to engage in collective action measures, and subsequently asked how many times they had actively participated in these opportunities. The data was collected through Ohio State’s REP website. We analyzed data from approximately 110 participants in order to obtain a robust collection of data for our analysis. Correlations between the outcome measure and individual difference measures were tested. We predict that if participants have higher measures of self-efficacy and relative deprivation, as well as a strong level of group identification, they will be more likely to participate in collective action measures than their counterparts. If participants have strong moral convictions, lower SES, and lower education levels, they will be less likely to engage in dangerous and possibly harmful collective action measures than their counterparts.
Jennifer Ackerman
Faculty Research Advisor: Dr. Laurence Coutellier
Title: Effects of Ovariectomy on Female Vulnerability to Anxiety
Abstract: Female vulnerability to stress-induced neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, does not emerge until pubertal onset. This suggests that an increase in circulating ovarian hormones at puberty may have an organizational role during adolescence on developing brain circuitry associated with stress response. The ventral hippocampus (vHPC) is associated with emotional processing, and hyperactivity of the vHPC correlates with anxiety disorders. Activity within the vHPC has been shown to increase after chronic stress exposure, with this increase in activity being associated with decreased activity of inhibitory interneurons. Parvalbumin interneurons (PVIs) are a class of inhibitory interneurons regulating circuits activity throughout the brain and have been implicated in several psychiatric conditions including anxiety. They undergo maturation during the adolescent period and have been shown to be highly sensitive to stress in adulthood, suggesting that sensitivity to stress is acquired during these maturational processes. Furthermore, PVIs maturation was found to be a process driven by estradiol in some regions; however, it is less clear if this is the case in the vHPC, and if this maturation renders vHPC PVI sensitive to stress in adulthood. Here, we propose to investigate the role of pubertal hormones on maturation of PVI in the vHPC, and the role of this maturation on stress-induced anxiety. We hypothesize that ovarian hormones during the pubertal period promote maturation of PVIs within the vHPC resulting in female vulnerability to anxiety disorders. We performed ovariectomy or sham surgery in female mice prior to pubertal onset. These mice underwent 4 weeks of unpredictable chronic mild stress (UCMS) in adulthood. We assessed anxiety-like behavior and PVI maturation in the vHPC. Additionally, we assessed anxiety-like behavior in female mice following ovariectomy in adulthood to determine if puberty is a sensitive period for the actions of estrogen on PVI maturation following UCMS. We found that prepubertal ovariectomy protects against the development of anxiety-like behavior following 4 weeks of UCMS in adulthood, an effect not found in ovariectomized adults. We predict that on-going experiments will show that prepubertal OVX protection against anxiety-like behavior will be associated with decreased PVI maturation.
Abigail Arntz
Faculty Research Advisor: Xin Feng
Title: How Children’s Emotion Expression Affects Depressed Mothers’ Emotion Regulation
Abstract: Much of the research investigating children’s emotion regulation has focused on how parents regulate children’s emotions, and far less on children’s impact on parents’ emotion regulation. The present study aims to fill the gaps in the literature by investigating how children’s negative emotion affects their mothers’ emotion regulation. To measure mothers’ emotion regulation, we focused on mothers’ respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as an index of physiological regulation of emotion. Specifically, this study aimed to determine whether, during challenging dyadic interactions, children’s expression of negative emotion resulted in depressed mothers exhibiting a lower RSA reactivity (i.e., reduced emotion regulation capabilities) compared to non-depressed mothers. Participants were n = 125 mother-child dyads, where half of the mothers had a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) during their child’s lifetime. The interaction effect between mother’s current depressive symptoms and child’s expression of negative emotion did not predict maternal RSA reactivity. Additionally, maternal RSA reactivity was not significantly different for depressed versus non-depressed mothers, making it challenging to determine its association with maternal depression and child negative emotion expression. Although the present study does not directly support the hypothesis that children’s negative emotions and maternal depression predict mothers’ RSA reactivity, exploratory analyses reveal that several limitations may be reducing the accuracy and viability of the original analyses. Therefore, further research will need to be conducted to determine whether for mothers with depression, children’s negative emotional expression more significantly decreases their emotion regulation capabilities.
Yumeng (Marcela) Wang
Faculty Research Advisor: Dr. Duane Wegener
Title: The Effect of Warning on the Continued Influence of Misinformation
Abstract: Research examining the continued influence effect (CIE)finds that belief in misinformation tends to persist even after the misinformation has been corrected. Subsequent work also suggests this is especially the case when the misinformation is consistent with recipients’ attitudes. The present study investigated whether warning people about the CIE might make corrections more effective and whether such warnings might reduce the influence of attitudes on belief in corrected misinformation. To do this, participants’ gun control attitudes were assessed, and they were either warned about the CIE or not. They then saw a piece of pro-gun control misinformation and a correction. Though the effect of attitudes on misinformation belief was significant in the no-warning condition but not in the warning condition, this difference was not significant. Likewise, the warning did not produce a significant overall effect on misinformation belief. These findings replicated past work showing that attitude congruency might have important influences on the CIE. Though the pattern of results was consistent with the notion that warnings of the CIE might reduce attitudinal influences, we cannot conclude that is the case based on the present study.
Anikait Gadi
Faculty Research Advisor: Duane Wegener
Title: Negative Unusual Effects of Depression on Attitudes Toward Seeking Treatment
Abstract: Introduction/Background: For decades, individuals have held many different attitudes towards seeking treatment for mental illnesses. Approximately 10-20% of college students report experiencing some form of mental illness; however, many still do not seek treatment. The primary reasons that these individuals give for not seeking treatment are that 1) they do not need treatment and/or 2) that they prefer to deal with these issues on their own. Due to these barriers, young adults may engage in maladaptive coping mechanisms to combat their depression without a formal intervention led by a therapist. Methods: This study seeks to address whether young adults with depression recognize whether they engage in maladaptive coping strategies caused by their depression and whether the presence of more unusual maladaptive coping strategies will make them more willing to seek treatment for depression. To do so, we assessed college-aged participants' attitudes toward treatment via the Research Experience Program (REP) at Ohio State University. In this study, we conducted a 3x3 mixed design, repeated measures regression analysis. Participants were randomized to receive either ten scenarios that asked them to imagine themselves within that situation or ten scenarios that involved an unnamed person in the situation. Each scenario involved the presence of three depressive symptoms that lead to a different trajectory of symptom severity after a period of time within the scenario. It also involved the addition of an unusual coping strategy/symptom at the end of the scenario. The participants then answered questions regarding their attitudes towards potential treatment seeking behaviors based on the scenario. Results: Consistent with our hypothesis, attitudes when experiencing the maladaptive coping mechanism scenarios lead to participants to see treatment as more beneficial compared to when experiencing a positive coping mechanism. As participants realize the negative effects that can occur without treatment, people's affect-attitude, and cognitive-attitude change to produce a more positive and beneficial view towards treatment. Conclusion: The results of this study show a potential strategy to increase the possibility of people seeking treatment. Educating people on the possible ramifications of untreated/mistreated depression can lead to a change in their evaluation of treatment.