Projects for 2022

(These are projects that have been offered in the past and are available to provide an overview of the sorts of topics and projects that may be offered).

Sample List of projects available for the Strathfield campus from 2022

Research shows that climate action by the private sector can influence political conservatives to endorse climate action (Gillis et al., 2021). However, this study also shows that climate action by private corporations also lead to decreased concern about climate change, which results in lower support for government-led mitigation. This study aims to investigate whether collaboration and partnerships across the private and public sectors (see World Economic Forum, 2020)) can address the “side-effect” that knowledge of private sector climate action have on conservatives decreased climate concern and support for government climate action.

Contact: Luisa Batalha

Email:Luisa.Batalha@acu.edu.au

Since the 9/11 and the rising of ISIS, political extremism has tended to be associated with Islamic radicalised groups. There are, however, indications that in Western countries, far-right groups pose a greater terror threat than jihadist extremism (Walters & Chang, 2021). This project aims to investigate the levels of extremist beliefs among ethnic majority compared to ethnic minority groups.

Contact: Luisa Batalha

Email: Luisa.Batalha@acu.edu.au

Novice young drivers (<25 years) are still undergoing cognitive maturation as well as developing safe hazard perception skills– both critical for safe driving. Previous studies have examined the inter-relationships between cognitive function and hazard perception, through a button press HPT paradigm, however whether these relationships are the same when the ecological validity of the HPT paradigm is increased remains unknown. The current study aims to examine the nature of these relationships in a realistic setting such as what could be achieved with a virtual reality driving simulator. The study will also explore how cognitive test scores can be combined with driving simulator performance to determine if a novice driver is “safe”. This combination of measures has the potential to improve the validity of hazard perception testing by improving the reliability of identifying “safe drivers”.

Contact: Joanne Bennett

Email: joanne.bennett@acu.edu.au

Every year worldwide approximately 1.35 million people are killed and between 20 and 50 million people are injured as a result of being involved in a motor vehicle crash. The physical consequences of these crashes such as chronic pain are well documented, however the psychological impact is less well known. There is evidence that chronic problems following a crash have significant personal, social and public economic burdens. Whilst research is emerging into mental health outcomes following crashes, to date there is little research on help seeking following a crash. It is important to understand the factors that might affect help seeking for mental health issues following a crash in order to develop better strategies to support crash survivors. The current study will involve working in partnership with a clinical masters student on collecting a community sample of participants. The analysis will involve training in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

Contact: Joanne Bennett

Email: joanne.bennett@acu.edu.au

This a perfect project for students wishing to pursue a career in clinical psychology or neuropsychology. You will become familiar with cognitive testing, memory problems related to ageing (i.e. Dementia), artificial intelligence, and ethical issues regarding working with vulnerable populations. This exciting research is part of a larger project collaboration working with Dr Megan Willis, Dr Kirsten Challinor and experienced Clinical Psychologist: Tony Florio https://au.linkedin.com/in/tony-florio-3a821558www.florio.com.au.

Example projects include:

  • Usually when we are asked to recall a list of 10 words we can easily remember words at the beginning and also at the end of the list (forgetting words in the middle). But when people have age related cognitive decline they lose the primacy effect and remember only the last few words. In real life this could explain why people forget what they are doing when they get distracted (See Harris & Dowson 1982). Sometimes people score low on memory tests because they have other problems such as hearing loss, illness or have medication side effects. These problems reduce performance on both ends of test. This study will compare the performance of older people with and without memory decline on the memory test to see if the test can be helpful in disassociating problems.
  • In addition to above, what is the score distribution of a cognitive test for people in their 50s, 40s, 30s, 20s? Does it need modification for younger ages?
  • How effective/reliable is artificial intelligence at administering cognitive tests on older adults?

Contact: Kirsten Challinor

Email: Kirsten.challinor@acu.edu.au

The overarching focus of this project is to bring joy to seniors. During COVID-19 lockdown Dr Challinor’s research guided the rollout of silent Disco Headphone technology to more than 20,000 aged care residents and 950 staff across Australia. Many of the residents who are living with dementia experienced fantastic benefits from the music based program. As the project expands, the research seeks to understand violent behaviour in aged care. In particular, situations when residents are violent towards staff. Furthermore, on the back of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, how can the reduction of non-essential medications to manage challenging behaviours be achieved? This project would suit a student interested in future clinical Masters degree as you will get exposure to the intricacies of working with vulnerable populations, in particular and people with dementia diagnoses. This project will be a lot of fun and you will be part of a bigger team including aged care facilities and a social enterprise team. You will work with archival data and have the support of other student researchers. There is also opportunity to work with collaborators in New Zealand.

Contact: Kirsten Challinor

Email: Kirsten.challinor@acu.edu.au

Pregnancy-related anxiety is increasingly recognised as a distinct form of anxiety experienced in the antenatal period. Pregnancy-specific fears and worries that focus on areas such as the baby’s well-being, childbirth, and appearance-related concerns, are key features of this anxiety. Pregnancy-related anxiety is a strong predictor of adverse maternal and child outcomes (e.g., postnatal depression, low infant birth weight, and shorter gestation). While there has been a rapid expansion of knowledge around pregnancy-related anxiety, there is still limited understanding on the possible contributing factors and the possible role of demographic factors (e.g., education, and socioeconomic background of the mother), mother’s level of acculturation, mother’s perceived level of social support and type of care received during pregnancy (e.g., midwife care, GP, obstetrician). The aim of this study is to examine whether these factors are associated with the severity of pregnancy-related anxiety, after controlling for possible confounding variables (e.g., gestational weeks, previous pregnancy experience).

This quantitative, cross-sectional study will involve recruitment of pregnant women (aged 18 years and over) residing in Australia through boosted social media postings. These women will be asked to complete an online questionnaire asking questions in relation to demographic information, gestational weeks, number of previous pregnancies, acculturation, perceived social support and type of care received. The type of data analyses will be determined by the nature of the research questions/goals.

Contact: Rachel Dryer

Email: Rachel.dryer@acu.edu.au

 

A key aspect of the Recovery After Psychosis (RAP) approach is the development of self-compassionate soothing responses to internal and external sources of threat. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT; Gilbert, 2009) was developed with and for people who have chronic and complex mental health problems linked to shame, self-criticism, and who often come from difficult backgrounds. The roots of CFT are derived for an evolutionary, neuroscience, and social psychology approach, linked to the psychology and neurophysiology of caring—both giving and receiving (Gilbert), 2009). Feeling cared for, accepted, having a sense of belonging and affiliation with others is linked to a particular type of positive affect regulation system that is associated with feelings of contentment and well-being. This project will investigate adapting CFT for people experiencing psychosis.

Contact: Madeleine Ferrari

Email: madeleine.ferrari@acu.edu.au

Emerging research suggests that self-compassion may serve as a protective buffer against mental illness specifically for university student populations. Self-compassion refers to a healthy desire to help rather than hurt one’s self, particularly in times of distress or pain (Gilbert, 2009b; Gilbert & Procter, 2006; Marshall et al., 2020; Neff, 2003b). This way of self-responding replaces harsh self-criticism, which is a key risk factor for many mental health diagnoses including depression (Gilbert et al., 2010) and non-suicidal self-injury (Baetens et al., 2015). In adults, several meta-analyses have found self-compassion interventions result in significant reductions to a diverse range of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and stress (Ferrari et al., 2019; Kirby et al., 2017). Self-compassion appears to be beneficial for university students, but little is known about how changes in relating to one’s self manifest as behaviour.

Contact: Madeleine Ferrari

Email: madeleine.ferrari@acu.edu.au

Our eating behaviours are guided by physiological needs (e.g., hunger), they are influenced by cognitive/affective factors (e.g., motivation, implicit/explicit evaluations) and contextual factors (e.g., food cues that attract our attention) and they are related to individual characteristics (e.g., personality trait and characteristics etc.). There is a growing health crisis with unhealthy eating, obesity, and eating disorders consistently increasing. In order to better understand and improve our eating behaviors, the projects will implement computer-based tasks and/or internet-based questionnaires/tasks.

Project 1 tests the effect of an eating-modification intervention on real-life food intake. Data collection is completed on students and community sample monitoring pre- and post-intervention food intake in daily life. The intervention was successful in increasing healthy choices; numerous individual differences questionnaires have been collected and can be used to determine what characteristics may promote/prevent the effectiveness of the intervention.

Project 2 investigates how the food-rich environment we live in affects us. Our perception and choice of food is influenced by the context in which we choose food even without us realizing it. Are we influenced by the presence of other food? Are we all similarly influenced? Which food attracts our attention? These are few questions Project 2 is addressing. In this project 3 experiments (N>200 each) have been run already and data will be used to understand these phenomena. New data collection are also envisioned in this project.

Contact: Francesco Foroni

Email: francesco.foroni@acu.edu.au

This is a mix methods study and suitable for a student that is interested in learning qualitative methods.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, universities have been forced to quickly shutdown and rapidly switch to online learning (OL) platforms with the aim to reduce spreading the highly transmittable disease. Universities rapid and ‘emergency’ like transition to OL is anticipated to have impacted the wellbeing of students and consequently lower wellbeing is associated with lower academic performance. This project will be looking at a follow up of a previous study looking at the experiences of ACU students to their adaptation to rapid OL.

Contact: Oscar Modesto

Email: oscar.modesto@acu.edu.au

Self-compassion is defined as a positive self-attitude that protects against the negative consequences of self-judgement, isolation and rumination; and consists of three components: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness (Neff, 2003). Self-compassion has been shown to predict a range of variables related to wellbeing, among a range of demographics and contexts (e.g. for nurses, teachers, students, early career psychologists).

I am interested in supervising a student who would like to examine the literature related to self-compassion, students, teachers, and COVID-19. I am keen to assist them in developing their own research question, and a project to investigate this. This project will be suitable for a motivated student who is excited about exploring the literature on self-compassion, and contributing to research in the field.

Contact: Benjamin Weir

Email: Benjamin.weir@acu.edu.au

In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the prevalence of online dating. Back in the year 2000, only 5% of couples met online. Now online dating is the most common way to meet romantic partners, with more than a third of new relationships formed online. Currently, the most popular online dating applications are swipe-based dating applications. These applications allow users to view a catalogue of dating profiles, which feature an individual’s profile photo(s), demographic information, and written text. The initial connection between two individuals relies heavily on their first impressions of potential dates. These first impressions are based on online dating profiles that include limited information that is curated by the profile owner. This presents an opportunity for people to manipulate the information in their profile to their advantage.

This project will investigate the relationship between dark personality traits, known as the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) and misrepresentation in online dating. It will also identify features of online dating profiles that are associated with dark personality traits. It is expected that the findings will translate into safety features within online dating applications that will help individuals to identify and avoid initiating relationships with individuals that are likely to inflict harm.

Contact: Megan Willis

Email: megan.willis@acu.edu.au

Health Anxiety is a common mental health issue that is comparatively under researched. The current DSM 5 divides Health Anxiety into 2 separate disorders; Illness Anxiety Disorder and Somatic Symptom Disorder. Recent research indicates patients from specialist medical settings (e.g. cardiology, gastroenterology, and endocrinology) are more likely to experience health anxiety. While a variety of symptoms of health anxiety have been acknowledged (e.g., excessive negative thoughts, feelings and maladaptive behaviours relating to illness and health), research is yet to specifically explore the experience and impact of other specific symptoms such as health related intrusive thoughts and imagery within such populations.

The aim of this project therefore is to explore how many people within a clinical population of people diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis experience health related intrusive thoughts and imagery, for those with health anxiety, compared to those without health anxiety. It also aims to explore the nature of intrusive thoughts and images (e.g., frequency and content) for those with and those without health anxiety withing this group.

Contact: Natalie Windsor

Email: Natalie.windsor@acu.edu.au

It was proposed that all individuals have three perceived ‘selves’: the ideal self, the ought self and the actual self. The ideal self is what individuals hope to become, the ought self is how individuals believe they should act, and the actual self is how individuals perceive themselves in present (Higgins, 1987). Discrepancy occurs when there is conflict between either two of these selves. Previous research on self discrepancy has found that discrepancies between actual and ideal or ought self can impact our affective states and even be related to psychopathology (Mason et al., 2016; Cornette et al., 2009). Although observed, the explanation for the relationship between self-discrepancy and psychopathology remains unclear.

This project aims to 1) understand how ideal-actual self discrepancy and ought-actual self discrepancy affect out mental health and wellbeing; 2) investigate what factors (e.g., self compassion, emotion regulation) can buffer the negative effect of self-discrepancy on wellbeing during pandemic.

Contact: Ying Yang

Email: Ying.yang@acu.edu.au

Collective emotion refers to the composition of shared emotional experiences within a group. Unlike perceiving individual emotions, where attention rests on a single focal target, perceiving collective emotions requires focusing on a broader view of targets. Prior research has shown that Easterners are more accurate in recognizing collective emotion compared with Westerners, which can be explained by greater global processing in Easterners (Yang et al., 2019). However, more research is required to understand how to help people quickly and accurately recognizing collective emotions in a group.

This project aims to understand 1) the effect of multicultural experience on perception of collective emotion: global processing as a mediator; 2) the role of regulatory focus in perceiving collective emotion.

Contact: Ying Yang

Email: Ying.yang@acu.edu.au

Hoarding disorder is a debilitating psychological condition characterised by a compulsive need to acquire and save objects or animals, strong emotional attachments to possessions, and difficulties in discarding. Hoarding results in excessive clutter in living areas, very poor quality of life, and it is associated with an increased risk of both physical and mental health problems.

I welcome students who are interested in this area of research and I am open to supervising qualitative or quantitative studies. The following are examples of honours level research projects:

  1. What works in hoarding disorder treatment? A qualitative study of treatment responders
  2. Developing a self-report measure of animal hoarding
  3. What is the relationship between nonattachment and the use of possessions as an extension of self and others?
  4. Does loneliness mediate the relationship between bereavement and hoarding?

Contact: Keong Yap

Email: keong.yap@acu.edu.au

Sample List of projects available for the Melbourne campus from 2022

The ‘best little boy in the world’ phenomenon describes the often-reported (and typically successful) efforts of gay men to over-compensate for the potential disappointment to their parents (based on their sexual orientation) by excelling on traditional measures of academic achievement. While the effect is well established, the mechanism explaining the effect are not – this project has several potential arms, including determining if anticipated or actual difficulty in ‘coming out’ exacerbates the effect, or exploring the conditions under which this effect extends to gay/lesbian women, bisexuals, or transgender individuals.

Contact: Joel Anderson

Email: joel.anderson@acu.edu.au

Social Identity Theory posits that we strive to hold positive identities in order to maintain our self-esteem. Some combinations of identities are perceived as not compatible, and yet some individuals (either by choice or necessity) will hold them both simultaneously. This study will explore the process of how to integrate these identities, and measure the consequences of not being able to do so. I would like to focus on gay-religious identity integration, or transgender-religious identity integration,

Contact: Joel Anderson

Email: joel.anderson@acu.edu.au

Being low in resources, such as not having enough money or food, has been found to affect many behaviours and thoughts compared to when these resources are plentiful. For instance, resource scarcity has been found to effect mate choice decisions, risk taking behaviour, self-control, behaviours and attitudes relating to charity and treatment of people in other cultural groups. Recently I found that participants score higher on racism scales after four hours of fasting (ie., induced resource scarcity) when compared to participants who had recently consumed a sugary drink (resource satiation). Taking an evolutionary psychology perspective, it is argued that these effects are a due to an evolved survival technique.

This year students will have the chance to explore this emerging area of research. Students will have a choice in which variables they wish to investigate and will actively participate in the design of the study.

Contact: Helen Aucote

Email: helen.aucote@acu.edu.au

In response to the impact on mental health of the coronavirus pandemic, the Australian federal government increased the number of Medicare-funded psychologist sessions a client can access under a mental health care plan (MHCP) from 10 to 20 and allowed sessions to be conducted via telehealth. Whilst this increase has been applauded by psychologists there are suggestions that this system is not helping people where it is needed most and that the experience of seeking mental health support through a MHCP can lead to delays in accessing help and early drop out. There is limited research examining the client experience of seeking a psychologist through this system and in response I would like to offer the following research projects: An evaluation of the system by clients who have accessed a psychologist under a MHCP. This will include examination of the client’s perspectives on aspects of the system that are helpful or unhelpful in accessing on-going psychological support. This will be a qualitative analysis involving individual or group interviews.

Contact: Chris Cheers

Email: chris.cheers@acu.edu.au

I am also a researcher with the Centre for Alcohol and Policy Research at La Trobe University. My research there centres around examining attitudes toward non-drinkers in Australia. I would be interested in the following study ideas, or in discussing other ideas with you the relate to alcohol use.

  1. Behavioural intervention in Alcohol Consumption: An intervention group will be instructed to take cash out on a ‘night out’ and not use their card. Examine the impact on alcohol consumption.
  2. Qualitative analysis of interviews with individuals completing Dry July, or an experiential analysis of your experience completing Dry July.

Contact: Chris Cheers

Email: chris.cheers@acu.edu.au

A significant portion of cannabis users smoke daily-to-weekly and endorse a Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), which is associated with significant adverse psychosocial (e.g., social disengagement), cognitive (e.g., poor concentration), and mental health outcomes (e.g., schizophrenia). Developing the understanding of neurobiological associations with these daily life outcomes (such as cognitive deficits and mental health problems) has provided interesting insights into brain regions implicated in CUD. Interestingly, the research has been predominantly conducted using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which provides a proxy measure of the brains functioning (for review, see Nadar & Sanchez, 2018). There is minimal research using diffusion MRI (dMRI) which can provide an in vivo high-resolution measure of the brains white matter pathways which connect brain regions. These pathways are important as they provide the backbone of the brains function and may be implicated in poor daily life outcomes. Interestingly, the minimal research using dMRI in those with CUD provide inconsistent and unclear findings (see Cousijn et al., 2022), however, this may be due to the use dMRI measures that lack biological specificity. Recently, the Fixel-Based Analysis (FBA; for framework review - see Dhollander et al., 2021) has been developed to overcome the issues of previous dMRI research. This proposed honours project will therefore utilise the biologically specific FBA framework to investigate white matter correlates of daily life outcomes in those with CUD. By completing this project, you will be form part of our team interested in addiction, neuropsychology, and neuroscience!

Contact: Adam Clemente

Email: adam.clemente@acu.edu.au

There is evidence that self-perceived overweight is correlated with higher motivation or intentions to lose weight. However, in the long term, it has been found that identifying as overweight (vs not) is predictive of weight gain, regardless of whether the self-perception matches actual weight. Further, self-perceived overweight is related to negative mental health symptoms and suicidality, even when this perception does not match reality. In this project we will conduct a scoping review of the relationship between perceived weight (vs actual weight) and weight stigma experiences and internalisation. The empirical report will use existing data to examine the relationship between perceived and actual weight, and experienced, internalised and anticipated weight stigma. Other outcomes are also available.

Contact: Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia

Email: xochitl.delapiedadgarcia@acu.edu.au

A significant focus of my work over the last 15 years, alongside my colleagues from Orygen Youth Health, has been the development of a novel system called Moderated Online Social Therapy (MOST) for young people affected by serious mental health problems. With the support of the State Government of Victoria and The Telstra Foundation, MOST is now being rolled out across Victorian youth mental health services. MOST is also being evaluated via several ongoing randomised controlled trials. This has created a significant opportunity to address questions related to the effectiveness of digital interventions for youth.

I am proposing to supervise three projects that will aim to investigate some processes in the MOST system. Specifically, these projects will draw upon self-determination theory to investigate: i) the feasibility of detecting end users’ basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, connectedness, competence); ii) the fidelity of online moderators’ attempts to use behaviour change techniques to support basic psychological needs; and iii) the relationship between moderator interventions and mental health outcomes.

Students will have the opportunity to work together to utilize an existing data set from MOST. Findings will have important implications for matching end users’ psychological state with therapeutic messages to effect meaningful change and such findings could contribute to improving digital mental health interventions.

Contact: John Gleeson

Email: john.gleeson@acu.edu.au

Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for long term sustained weight loss for obesity and management of obesity-related comorbidities. However, not all patients experience success with bariatric surgery with some experiencing minimal weight loss and an increase in disordered eating behaviours. Patients often report experiencing little pre-surgery education regarding the psychosocial impacts of bariatric surgery such as the process of adapting to new eating behaviours, perceived and internalised stigma related to bariatric surgery, managing digestive side-effects, and lacking a clear understanding of realistic weight loss expectations. Similarly, patients report difficulty accessing post-surgery psychological support or are unaware that psychological support is available or may be helpful. There is research showing psychosocial interventions to be helpful for improving post-surgery binge eating, emotional eating, quality of life, depression and anxiety. There is little research on patients’ perceptions of pre- and post-surgery psychosocial care in the Australian medical system. This is a qualitative project. It will involve recruiting participants who have had bariatric surgery and conducting interviews to understand their perception of the pre- and post-surgery information, support, and any psychological treatment they experienced, and to obtain their recommendations for pre-and post-surgery information and treatment programs that they feel would be helpful in improving psychosocial outcomes.

Contact: Annemarie Hindle

Email: Annemarie.hindle@acu.edu.au

An Eating Disorder Plan (EDP) referral allows Medicare supported access to up to 40 sessions of eating disorder treatment in Australia. One of the essential eligibility criteria for an Eating Disorder Plan Referral is a global score on the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) of 3 or greater. The global score on the EDE-Q is the average of four sub-scales; restraint, weight concern, shape concern and eating concern. Pre-bariatric surgery candidates who report binge eating behaviour often describe having “given up” on attempting eating restraint. This experience can be reflected in a restraint subscale score of zero, significantly lowering their global EDE-Q score despite the seriousness of their binge eating behaviours. To determine if the restraint sub-scale may contribute to inaccurate screening for bariatric patients, this study will examine sub-scale and global scores on the full and brief EDE-Q for the general population, and pre- and post-bariatric surgery patients, and compare these scores to the severity of binge eating episodes reported by these participants. You will use data from a larger study that is set up and is currently collecting data. You will help recruit participants to obtain the data for your research.

Contact: Annemarie Hindle

Email: Annemarie.hindle@acu.edu.au

Research on workplace gender inequality tells us that women earn, on average, approximately $250 a week less than men in Australia, but that this differs as a function of sector (WGEA, 2020). For example, professional, scientific and technical services have the highest gender wage gap, although little is known about the music industry. Observations of music industry suggest that gender inequality is pervasive. For example, 74% of tickets to music events sold in the UK in 2017 were for all-male acts (Larsson 2017) and women musicians face significant harassment and sexism (Davies, 2019) as well as fewer opportunities. Currently there is little research on the cause of such inequality. This program of research will explore the role of cognitions about women musicians among audiences, musicians, and music students to identify the impediments in opportunities for women in the music industry.

Contact: Leah Kaufmann

Email: leah.kaufmann@acu.edu.au

This project will bring together the key literatures of identity and prejudice, essentially answering the question “does a minority identity contribute to the prejudice towards others?” A theory of modern prejudice posits that intergroup prejudice in the absence of realistic conflict or resource scarcity occurs as a tool of social mobilsation and compensation. That is minority groups use prejudice to struggle for a “better” place in the social hierarchy (Durrheim et al., 2016) which accounts for the observation of higher levels of intergroup prejudice among minority groups, than towards minority groups from a majority group (e.g., Esses et al., 2001). One element missing from such accounts, however, is the role of identification with the minority group (i.e., minority identity). There is good evidence from minority sexuality and gender literature suggesting that minority identification can lead to increased experiences of prejudice (e.g., Hinton et al., 2021) which may lend support to the mobilisation explanation of prejudice, but the connection between experiencing prejudice towards a minority identity and prejudice towards others has yet to be explored.

Contact: Leah Kaufmann

Email: leah.kaufmann@acu.edu.au

a high-resolution structural neuroimaging study’. Is cannabis dependence associated with neurobiological alterations, and do these deficits exacerbate with heavier use and worse mental health problems? This question is yet to be answered as the literature to date provides inconsistent results. This project relies on advanced neuroimaging tools to examine the integrity of structural brain pathways in people with cannabis dependence. This project will also explore if neurobiological alterations in people with cannabis dependence are exacerbated by heavier cannabis use and worse psychological problems (e.g. stress, anxiety, depression and psychotic symptoms).

Contact: Valentina Lorenzetti

Email: valentina.lorenzetti@acu.edu.au

Is cannabis dependence associated with cognitive alterations, and what is the role of heavier use and worse psychological problems? While cannabis dependence is commonly associated with cognitive deficits, the evidence has led to mixed results. To this end, concurrent assessment of working memory, disinhibition and attention (computerised N-back task, stop-signal, attentional bias) and mental health, will allow to examine cognitive deficits in people with severe cannabis dependence, and the role of cannabis use levels and psychological problems (e.g. stress, anxiety, depression and psychotic symptoms).

Contact: Valentina Lorenzetti

Email: valentina.lorenzetti@acu.edu.au

 

There are two potential thesis topics within this project on child feeding. The first will be looking at how parents restrict their child’s access to ‘junk foods’ and what impact this has on children’s desire for these foods, their dietary intake, and weight status. We will also be interested in whether parents’ use restricted foods as ‘treats’ or rewards for their child and what combined impact this may have.

The second topic within this project there is characteristics of mothers who use non-responsive feeding practices, such as restriction, with their child. Previous research has linked eating disorder pathology in mothers to highly controlling (non-responsive) feeding practices. Investigation of eating disorder symptomology including orthorexia nervosa symptomology in mothers and how this relates to feeding practices can be the focus of your thesis.

Contact: Kimberley Mallen

Email: Kimberley.mallen@acu.edu.au

Sport related concussion is a form of mild traumatic brain injury that can result in short- and long-term disruptions to brain function. Sub-concussive head impacts are those that do not meet clinical criteria for concussion diagnosis, but still may result in ongoing cognitive, motor and behavioural changes. However, the ability to measure the functional deficits of sub-concussive head impacts, in real time, are currently lacking. Visual scanning is behaviour that is used to visually perceive the environment in 360 degrees, and it can be quantified by measuring head movement during play. Given that deficits are common for both the visual and motor systems following concussion, it is possible that deficits in visual scanning may occur following sub-concussive head impacts. This project will pilot the use of visual scanning as an in-game measure of sub-concussive head impacts in football players.

Contact: Thomas McGuckian

Email: Thomas.mcguckian@acu.edu.au

 

Is cannabis dependence associated with alterations in the cerebral cortex, and do these abnormalities worsen with heavier use and the occurrence of mental health problems? This question is yet to be answered as the literature to date provides inconsistent results. This project relies on advanced MRI tools to capture measures of cortical integrity (eg thickness, gyrification) in people with cannabis dependence. This project will also explore the relationship of cortical measures with chronicity of cannabis use (i.e., how much and how often) as well as symptoms of mental health problems (e.g. stress, anxiety, depression and psychosis).

Contact: Eugene McTavish

Email: eugene.mctavish@acu.edu.au

This project uses pre-existing data from almost 600 adults, collected in late 2021. The data were collected in collaboration with Associate Professor Gery Karantzas at Deakin University. The project will examine whether the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and partner relationship quality can be explained by the extent to which one’s needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met.

Contact: Pam Pilkington

Email: pam.pilkington@acu.edu.au

This project requires data collection. The project will examine early childhood experiences as a predictor of parents’ current relationships with their children. For example, the analyses could examine whether parents who recall that they were parented warmly, report higher quality relationships with their own

Contact: Pam Pilkington

Email: pam.pilkington@acu.edu.au

Accidental falls are a growing problem in older adults. There are a large range of factors that can affect falls risk, including our physical and mental health as well as our social interactions. This study of older adults will measure many of these factors via questionnaires, as well as tracking any falls over 12 months. The study aims to improve our understanding of the long-term impacts of social relationships, physical activity, physical and mental health on accidental falls to help inform ways to prevent falling in older adults. This project is currently in the recruitment phase and requires data-collection.

Contact: Gert-jan Pepping

Email: gert-jan.penning@acu.edu.au

Chronic pain is pain that continues beyond the period of time that would be expected for healing to occur. Chronic pain can follow surgery, trauma, injury or another condition. It can also occur without a clear preceding cause or triggering event. Twenty per cent of Australians will suffer chronic pain in their lifetime, and a large percentage will not receive effective treatment that improves their health and/or quality of life. The biopsychosocial model of pain highlights the importance of multiple factors, including psychological factors and the social environment, when trying to understand, define and treat pain. Importantly, psychological factors can serve to maintain and exacerbate chronic pain. However, research into the role of psychological factors in the maintenance and treatment of chronic pain is scarce. Students participating in this project will investigate whether patients presenting for treatment of chronic pain pre-COVID-19 and during/post COVID-19, differ in terms of key psychological characteristics, pain severity, and treatment outcomes. This project is in collaboration with Dr Seaton Charlesworth, senior clinical psychologist at The Barbara Walker Centre for Pain Management, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne.

This project has pre-existing ethics approval and students will have access to an existing dataset. Please note that in exchange for access to already collected data and existing ethics approval for the project, students will be expected to contribute to aspects of a new and related project. The new project you would be contributing to focuses on emotion regulation in chronic pain and would likely include learning how to use psychophysiological measurement (e.g., facial electromyography and galvanic skin response).

Contact: Elizabeth Pizarro

Email: Elizabeth.pizzaro@acu.edu.au

 

The period spanning adolescence and young adulthood is a key period for the onset of psychopathology. It is also a sensitive period for the development and consolidation of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is increasingly recognised as playing an important role in mental health. However, its socialisation, its correlates and its development over this period are poorly understood. A large body of research exists exploring emotion socialization by parents, and there is a growing body of literature exploring peer emotion socialisation. Teachers in classrooms have also been identified as important agents of emotion socialization but little research exists exploring their role, especially within secondary school settings. Similar to parents, teachers can socialize students’ emotions by responding to their emotions in ways that model adaptive emotion regulation, allows emotion-related discourse, and teaches healthy ways of expressing and managing emotions. Indeed, the way teachers respond to students’ emotions plays an important role in teachers’ ability to manage both class-level and student-level emotions supportively.

This project has pre-existing ethics approval and students will have access to an existing dataset. Students can develop their own research questions, which may include exploring the reliability of the teacher measure of emotion socialisation or exploring teacher characteristics that contribute to their ability to respond supportively to students, for example. This project is in collaboration with Dr Christiane Kehoe, research manager at Mindful, Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne.

Contact: Elizabeth Pizarro

Email: Elizabeth.pizzaro@acu.edu.au

The first study will focus on the relationship between perfectionism and depressive symptoms. The second study will examine the association between loneliness and depressive symptoms. In both investigations, the role of psychological flexibility will also be investigated. These studies will involve online self-report measures.

Contact: Tom Whelan

Email: tom.whelan@acu.edu.au

Augmented-reality (AR) and related technologies are emerging as an immensely powerful tool for treatment and assessment in health management. This is particularly evident in rehabilitation of brain injury and related conditions.

Elements DNA (or EDNA) is an AR-based rehab system developed by Prof Wilson and his team, which has shown efficacy in treating Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in adults (Mumford et al., 2010, 2012), adult stroke (Rogers et al., in press), cerebral palsy in children (Green & Wilson, 2012; Wilson et al., 2016), and other conditions. Our current work is evaluating a tablet-version of EDNA for in-home use. An important aspect of this application is the capacity to also measure aspects of motor skill and cognition in the home, without the presence of a trained clinician or assessor.

This project will be a preliminary examination of the psychometrics of tablet-based motor assessment (called EDNA

Contact: Peter Wilson

Email: peterh.wilson@acu.edu.au

The ability to dual-task (or juggle two tasks simultaneously) is critical to our everyday behaviour, especially in complex environments. In the case of locomotor-cognitive dual-tasks (like walking while texting), this ability depends on how well the individual skills are automated, and how well neural resources can be shared between tasks. Dual-task ability is measured by the difference in performance of a given task alone compared with that under dual-task conditions—Dual-Task Cost (DTC). Our ability to measure DTC may help us to better predict how an individual will function in the real world. This is particularly important for those with a brain-related injury or neurodevelopmental disorder (like DCD) whose difficulties with movement and cognition are compounded in complex environments.

Contact: Peter Wilson

Email: peterh.wilson@acu.edu.au

Publication List

Falls, T., & Anderson, J. (2022). Attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia: a systematic review, Australian Journal of Psychology, 74, 1, http://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2022.2039043

Anderson, J., Kiernan, E., & Koc, Y. (2021). The protective role of identity integration against internalized sexual prejudice for religious gay men. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000452

Cowling, M., & Anderson, J. R. (2021). Teacher Perceptions of the Barriers and Facilitators of Education Amongst Chin Refugees in Malaysia: A Qualitative Analysis. Asian American Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/aap0000224

Cutroni, L., & Anderson, J.R. (2021). Lady Injustice: The Moderating Effect of Ambivalent Sexism in a Mock Case of Intimate Partner Homicide. Criminal Justice and Behavior48(3), 373-390. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820967704

Donati Beech, O., Kaufmann, L., & Anderson, J. R. (2020). A Systematic Literature Review Exploring Objectification and Motherhood. Psychology of Women Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684320949810

Martz, J., Romero, V., & Anderson, J. R. (2020). Facilitators and barriers of empowerment in family and domestic housing models: A systematic literature review. Australian Psychologist,https://doi.org/10.1111/ap.12454

Cooper, D., Yap, K., & Batalha, L. (2018). Mindfulness-based interventions and their effects on emotional clarity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 235, 265-276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.04.018 

Foroni, F., Esmaeilikia, M., & Rumiati, R.I. (2022). What makes a food healthy? Sex differences in what is associated with healthiness evaluations. Food Quality and Preference, 96, 104438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104438

Rogers, J., Jensen, J., Valderrama, J., Johnstone, S., & Wilson, P.H. (2021). Single-channel EEG measurement of engagement in virtual rehabilitation—A validation study. Virtual Reality, 25(2), 357-366. 

Perin, S. et al. (2020). Unsupervised assessment of cognition in the Healthy Brain Project: Implications for web-based registries of individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions,6(1),e12043. https://doi.org/10/1002/trc2.12043 

Rogers, J., Foord, R., Stolwyk, R., Wong, D. & Wilson, P.H. (2018). General and domain-specific effectiveness of cognitive remediation after stroke: Systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychology Review, 28, 285-305. doi: 10.1007/s11065-018-9378-4

Moran, C., Bennett, J.M., & Prabhakharan, P. (2019). Road User Hazard Perception Tests: A Systematic Review of Current Methodologies. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 129, 309-333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2019.05.021

Moran, C., Bennett, J.M., & Prabhakharan, P. (2020). Cognitive correlates of hazard perception in young drivers. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 74, 104-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2020.08.008

More information

If you have any other questions or queries in relation to completing an honours degrees, please contact , National Course Coordinator Dr Xochitl dela Piedad Garcia via email: Dr Xochitl dela Piedad Garcia

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