Achievements

Amber Gaffney

Psychology

Amber Gaffney, Associate Professor of Psychology co-chaired a symposium titled Identity motives and the rationalization of polarization: Research, practice and a call for inclusive leadership and gave a talk titled To the victor belongs the spoils (the ability to fundamentally change political parties) at the Society for Experimental Psychology (SESP). Dr. Gaffney’s co-author for the talk was Lily Syfers, a Psychology Academic Research MA graduate who is currently completing a Ph.D. program at the University of Alberta. SESP is among the most prestigious and exclusive organizations in social psychology. Membership is by invitation only.

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson, Professor and of the Chair Department of Psychology, recently published a paper titled Building Interactive Tutorials for Teaching Psychological Statistics Online with learnr in Technology Innovations in Statistics Education. The paper provides a detailed guide for statistics instructors in developing interactive tutorials that include videos, quizzes, and space for running analyses using R. Dr. Aberson first presented as a workshop in 2019 for the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson of the Department of Psychology recently received the Western Psychological Association’s Outstanding Teaching Award for 2021. The Western Psychological Association is the oldest and largest division of the American Psychological Association. The society hosts an annual conference that draws 4,000 attendees a year.

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson, Professor of Psychology was recently named Associate Editor of Collabra Psychology. Collabra is an official publication of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science. Collabra, published by the University of California Press, is open access and committed to open and transparent science. Dr. Aberson has been HSU faculty since 2000. He primarily teaches statistics and research methodology. His research focuses on intergroup contact, implicit bias, statistical power (including power for complex designs such as multiple regression and mediation), how the Smiths are better than the Cure, and interactive tutorials for teaching core statistical concepts.

Brent Duncan

Psychology

Dr. Brent Duncan, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, has been appointed to a California Commission on Teacher Credentialing task force charged with revising training standards for Pupil Personnel professions (School Psychology, School Counseling and School Social Work) in California.

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson was recently appointed Editor-in-Chief of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP) for 2018-2021. ASAP is published by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). At the core of SPSSI's mission is a desire to bring empirically sound research findings to bear on public policy. Dr. Aberson joins ASAP after completing terms as an Associate Editor of the journals Group Processes and Intergroup Relations and Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Natasha La Vogue and Ally Jaurique

Psychology

Psychology students Natasha La Vogue and Ally Jaurique will deliver an oral presentation at an international conference (the International Society for Political Psychology) in Edinburgh in June.

The presentations were:
Gaffney, A. M., Hackett, J. D., Jaurique*, A. & La Vogue*, N. (2017, July). The state of political identity post-Trump. Oral paper presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Gaffney, A. M., Hackett, J. D., La Vogue*, N., & Jaurique*, A. (2017, July). From group-based anger to populism: Implications for collective action and protest. Poster presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Edinburgh, Scotland.

La Vogue*, N., Jaurique*, A., Gaffney, A. M., & Hackett, J. D. (2017, July). Is 2016 a diversity backlash? Political identity norms and the future of democratic elections. Oral paper presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Abstract:
Far-right leaders such as Trump, Le Pen, Farage, and Wilders might threaten liberal and democratic ideals of diversity acceptance, which their nations have purported to embrace. Indeed, the United States Presidential election ended in the loss of the nation’s first major woman nominee to a man who campaigned on what was (arguably) an anti-diversity platform, targeting Americans’ uncertainties. In response to uncertainty, people are change-resistant and embrace conservative ideology (Jost et al., 2003). Uncertainty can also lead to endorsement of group norms through social identification (Hogg, 2012) and may cause people to advocate the very issues on which they feel uncertain (Cheatham & Tormala, 2017). This research examines how uncertainty over the election of Trump affects liberals and conservatives’ desires to vote for future diverse presidential candidates. We sampled 328 American Democrats and Republicans before and after the 2016 election. Republicans reported a decrease in uncertainty compared to Democrats after the election. Whereas Republicans’ uncertainty was unrelated to willingness to vote for diverse presidential candidates, among Democrats, uncertainty was related to increasing desire to vote for women, ethnic minorities, LGBT candidates, and candidates who are not Christian. These results suggest that in the direct aftermath of the election of Trump, liberals appear to use their uncertainty as a base for holding to liberal diversity norms, whereas for conservatives, whose candidate won the election, uncertainty and future voting preference were unnrelated. Results highlight the strength of political norms, even in the face of uncertainty, in guiding voting and political behavior.

Tasha R. Howe

Psychology

Tasha Howe was invited for a week to the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, to deliver a two day violence prevention training program, as well as train masters in counseling students on developmental psychopathology. She also delivered a large lecture to undergraduate students on the neuroscience of love and attachment.

Tasha R. Howe

Psychology

Tasha Howe delivered an invited address at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in London, focusing on building children's resilience in low and middle income countries - a joint effort with University College London. She introduced people from 60 global NGOs who work with traumatized children to the ACT Raising Safe Kids Program, for which she is a master trainer.

Tasha Howe, Christopher Aberson, Howard Friedman, Sarah Murphy, Esperanza Alcazar, Edwin Vazquez & Rebekah Becker

Psychology

An article by Tasha Howe, Christopher Aberson, Howard Friedman, Sarah Murphy, Esperanza Alcazar, Edwin Vazquez & Rebekah Becker "Three Decades Later: The Life Experiences and Mid-Life Functioning of 1980s Heavy Metal Groupies, Musicians, and Fans," has won the 2015 International Society for Self and Identity (ISSI) Best Paper.