Winners of the 2008 APS Student Research Award competition:

Matthew Gallagher

The Hierarchical Structure of Well-Being

Matthew W. Gallagher, University of Kansas

"Theories of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well-being provide three extensively studied models for explaining flourishing mental health. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis techniques to test a series of models in order to examine whether these models could be successfully integrated into a hierarchical structure of well-being. In three different samples, results supported the proposed latent structures of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well-being and indicated that the various components of well-being could be integrated into a hierarchical structure of well-being containing three oblique 2nd order constructs of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well-being."


Julie Hall

Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is: An fMRI Investigation of Affective Influences on Investment Decision

Julie L. Hall, University of Michigan

"Traditional economic models assume that individuals are rational when they make decisions. However, the current study suggests that emotions may play an important role in financial choices. Using fMRI, we found that both subliminal and supraliminal presentations of facial expressions of emotion influence financial investment choices and the neural circuits involved in financial risk taking. As predicted, participants showed greater nucleus accumbens activation and were more likely to make risky investment decisions after happy versus neutral faces in both the subliminal and supraliminal presentation conditions. Our results demonstrate that facial expressions of emotion, even when they are not consciously perceived, can influence investment behavior and suggest that the inclusion of affect may lead to more accurate models of economic decision making."
Emmanuel Espejo

Maternal Anxiety and Depression during Childhood Interacts with 5-HTTLPR to Predict Neuroticism

Emmanuel P. Espejo, University of California, Los Angeles

"Studies linking the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) with the personality construct of neuroticism as a main effect have yielded inconsistent results. The current study demonstrates that the association between 5-HTTLPR and neuroticism in early adulthood is moderated by maternal experience of anxiety and depressive symptoms during the first five years of life."
Marci DeCaro

Diagnosing and Alleviating the Effects of Performance Pressure on Mathematical Problem Solving

Marci S. DeCaro, Miami University

"High-pressure testing situations are thought to trigger distracting thoughts, compromising verbal working memory resources needed for the task at hand. Math accuracy under pressure was poorer for problems tapping verbal more than visuospatial working memory resources, and this poor performance was associated with an increase in worries. Articulating the problem steps aloud, in order to focus verbal working memory resources towards the task steps rather than distractions, remedied this pressure decrement."