Psychology collection
The Department of Psychology offers some of the most popular and highly-rated undergraduate courses at Otago. It provides excellent preparation of students for careers in research and the profession of Psychology. Students from the postgraduate programme have achieved national and international recognition and awards and a number have gone on to positions in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, UK and the USA.
For further information go to the Department of Psychology.
Recent Deposits
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Stepping stones to others' minds : the relation between maternal mental and non-mental state input and social understanding in 15-, 24, and 33 month-old children
Recent research has shown that children under two years demonstrate some early social understanding. Previous research has also demonstrated that mother talk about mental states is a factor in older preschoolers' later ... -
Deception Detection: Where do I look, Upper Face or Lower Face?
Human’s ability to detect deception has an unsettling result of around chance detection (Depaulo et al., 2003; Bond & DePaulo, 2008). Both Experiment 1 and 2 tracked participant’s eye fixations during the process of detecting ... -
Exploring University Students’ Alcohol Consumption, Consequences, Motives, and Protective Behavioural Strategies during Re-Orientation Week and the Semester
Problematic alcohol consumption is an issue for university students around the world and there is growing interest in interventions targeting student drinking. To date, however, these interventions show limited effectiveness ... -
Investigation into the impact of time specific immunological insult on brain and behaviour using a neurodevelopmental rodent model of psychiatric disease
Epidemiological research has identified that exposure to maternal immune activation (MIA) confers substantial risk for later diagnosis of schizophrenia in offspring. As a result, extensive translational research has been ... -
Postsynaptic cell firing bidirectionally regulates future long-term potentiation in the rat hippocampus
Synaptic plasticity phenomena such as long-term potentiation (LTP) have been proposed as neurobiological mechanisms of learning and memory. LTP depends on coordinated presynaptic and postsynaptic activity, driven by action ... -
The development and characterization of a new mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive memory loss, seizures, anxiety, personality changes and ultimately, death. Current animal models of AD have not yielded any ... -
Keeping your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: Group Membership and Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind (ToM) is the understanding that other individuals have thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that differ from our own. Most research on ToM has focussed on the development this concept and the associated skills ... -
The Presence of a Monitor in Forensic Interviews with Child Witnesses
In New Zealand, forensic interviews with children are carried out by an interviewer with specialist training and must be monitored by a police officer or a child, youth and family professional. As well as managing the ... -
Neural basis of categorisation in a 30-million-year-old feathered reptilian dinosaur
Categorisation is a cognitive ability to group individual stimuli into different categorical groups based on their common features. The categorisation ability is not limited to human and non-human primates. Evidence ... -
Physiological Arousal, Information Processing, Performance and Expertise in Expected and Unexpected Abnormal Flight Events: An Empirical Investigation.
Aviation accident reports indicate that preventable incidents are developing into tragedies with pilots responding incorrectly to well-trained events e.g. engine failures. Recent research suggests that startle (an autonomic ... -
Comprehension of hazard warning labels for consumer products
A significant public health concern is posed by people’s inadequate comprehension of warning labels on hazardous products, such as potting mix. Inhaling or touching potting mix can lead to the development of Legionnaire’s ... -
Patterns of aggression in New Zealand children
Social aggression is a covert form of aggression, used to damage the self-esteem and/ or status of another. Previous research has shown that girls tend to utilize this form of aggression more often than physical aggression. ... -
Reversal theory and flow : toward an integrated framework of optimal experiences in adventure activities
Although adventurous pursuits are gaining popularity, many leading theoretical paradigms within the adventure literature (e.g., the Adventure Experience Paradigm) lack predictive power and depth. Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, ... -
The effect of poverty on cognitive function: Does a reminder of financial hardship affect subsequent decision-making?
The conditions of poverty are thought to change the way people process information and make decisions. Past research has shown when low-income participants are reminded of their financial situation they perform worse on ... -
Parental impact on child prejudice in New Zealand
Research to date has shown mixed results that prejudice against out-group individuals may be explained through parent and child relationships and the attitudes held within. Some theorists suggest that children develop ... -
‘Healthy’ individuals’ perceptions of type 1 and type 2 diabetes cause and management: A ‘think-aloud,’ mixed-methods study.
It is important to understand what people believe about diabetes because increasing lifespans have led to an increase in the prevalence of chronic health conditions (CHCs) such as this disease. The growing importance of ... -
Intergroup Behaviour: The Relationship Between Increased Belonging and Positive Ingroup Evaluations
This thesis assesses the relationship between belonging and intergroup evaluations. To this end three studies were conducted. In each study New Zealanders evaluated ingroup (i.e., New Zealanders) and outgroup members (i.e., ... -
Precursors for schizophrenia : are schizotaxia and schizotypy related?
Meehl's (1962, 1989, 1990b) schizotypy and Tsuang et al.'s (1999b, 2000a, 2000b) schizotaxia are fundamentally different notions of the schizophrenia precursor. Both represent a categorical precursor but differ in the ... -
Sailing and self-esteem: the effect of a ten day developmental voyage at sea on the multidimensional self-concept
This study sought to empirically assess the widely held assumption that developmental voyages at sea serve to enhance self-esteem. One hundred and fifty eight, 15 to 18 year olds completed measures of global and domain ... -
The Role of Death Salience in the Relationships Among Trauma, Religiosity, and Wellbeing.
The present study tested whether the relationship between trauma and religious change, and the subsequent effect of this change on wellbeing, depends on whether the trauma involves death. Using a large and population-rep ...