2006-07 Guilford Award Abstracts
Stereotype Threat Affects False Memory Susceptibility in Younger and Older Adults
Stacey J. Dubois
Colby College (ME)
First Place: Guilford Research Award
Faculty Sponsor: Ayanna Thomas, PhD
This study examined the effects of stereotype threat on false memory susceptibility in older and younger adults. Objective performance and subjective assessment of performance were examined. To determine whether older adults’ false memory susceptibility is mediated by the effects of stereotype threat, older and younger adults were given DRM lists in either a high or low threat condition. When the relationship between confidence and accuracy was assessed through gamma correlations, high threat condition participants were more likely to provide higher confidence for false alarms to critical lures as compared to participants in the low threat condition. Interestingly, no age differences emerged in this study, suggesting that the stereotype threat manipulation may have affected overall anxiety levels in younger adults.
Gender Differences in Jurors’ Perceptions of Infanticide Involving Disabled and Non-Disabled Infants
Alaine Kalder
University of Illinois at Chicago
Second Place: Guilford Research Award
Faculty Sponsor: Bette L. Bottoms, PhD
In general, women have more empathy for children and more negative attitudes toward child sexual abuse. Do these gender differences translate to other forms of child abuse? In this study, we found that gender effects were pervasive across a number of measures of mock jurors’ perceptions and judgments in a hypothetical case of infanticide. Specifically, mock juror gender affected case judgments such as verdict choice and defendant intent to kill, as well as feelings of empathy and sympathy for and similarity to the defendant. Whether the infant victim was disabled or not, which was experimentally manipulated, made little difference in mock jurors’ judgments.
A Prospective Study Of Panic Disorder During Pregnancy
Annie Yang
University of Pennsylvania
Third Place: Guilford Research Award
Faculty Sponsor: Melissa Hunt, PhD
Previous research has found that the course of panic disorder during pregnancy is highly variable across subjects. Due to the retrospective and cross-sectional design of these previous studies, longitudinal trends within subjects could not be analyzed. This study utilized a prospective and longitudinal design to allow for both cross-sectional as well as individual analyses across and within subjects during various stages of pregnancy. The sample included 47 pregnant women with pre-existing panic disorder. Contrary to previous retrospective findings, this sample showed a high rate of variability in panic severity within individual subjects over time. At baseline, participants catastrophized more about pregnancy- specific sensations than about either panic-related or nonpanic sensations. Moreover, catastrophizing about pregnancy-specific sensations was strongly positively correlated with panic severity. Longitudinally, both anxiety sensitivity and pregnancyspecific catastrophizing predicted decreases in panic severity.