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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Somewhere I belong: Perspectives on mental health, academic efficacy, and self-esteem
A sense of belonging has long been associated with a wide range of positive outcomes for both our physical and mental health. Indeed, a sense of belonging is considered to be a need rather than a want. From a life course ... -
Vitamin C and mental health in healthy young adults
Nutritional psychology is a young but rapidly expanding field that has provided evidence that diet influences mental health. For example, fruit and vegetable intake has shown a positive dose-dependent relationship with ... -
Conceptual Understanding of Simultaneous Matching in Pigeons
An important aspect of human cognitive behaviour is our ability to develop abstract rules and concepts that allow us to navigate our environment. One of the essential concepts we learn early in life is the notion of sameness, ... -
Picture Perfect? How Appearance-Focused Images on Instagram Affect Mood, Self-esteem, and Body Satisfaction
Poor body image is often attributed to the promotion of unachievable appearance-ideals in the media. Typically, the media promotes a thin-ideal for women and a muscular-ideal for men. With the advent of social media, the ... -
Statistical inferences on cognition in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Parkinson’s Disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease
The scientific literature shows that cognitive dysfunction is a common feature in neurodevelopmental and aging-related disorders. Furthermore, several decades of research have pointed to a pressing need for identifying ... -
Dots and doors: Configuration bias in a visible displacement task in pigeons (Columba livia)
The current experiment trained pigeons on a computerised object permanence task, using consecutive visible displacements and thus assessing Stage 5 object permanence. The experiment consisted of four phases where white dot ... -
Astrocyte-mediated trans-regional regulation of synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus
The synaptic plasticity processes of LTP and LTD is vital for memory formation and overall neural health, as unconstrained plasticity compromises learning and, in the extreme, maybe injurious. Thus, mechanisms must be in ... -
Why So Prejudiced? The Impact of Film Media on Attitudes and an Intervention to Reduce Stigma Through an Educational Intervention
The media perpetuates many harmful stereotypes about people with mental illness (e.g., that they are dangerous). This is a serious issue as, for most people, the media is a primary source of information about people with ... -
Child Social Understanding: How Theory of Mind Development is Influenced by Socio-Cultural Factors
It is widely recognised that possessing a theory of mind is a cornerstone of human social interaction. While theory of mind has been extensively researched over the past three decades, it was not until much more recently ... -
The impacts of COVID-19 in Aotearoa New Zealand: Mental Health, loneliness, alcohol consumption, and fear of COVID-19
In the current global pandemic of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), there is an increasing amount of research on the effects of the pandemic. However, few studies have explored the impact of COVID-19 in Aotearoa New ... -
Chronic exercise and neuropsychological function in healthy, young adults: A randomised controlled trial investigating a running intervention
Regular exercise is a well-known preventative measure against a multitude of mental and physical health issues. Despite this many of the world’s population do not currently engage in the recommended amount of physical ... -
How does belonging to a sports team effect mental wellbeing? Utilizing the Social Identity Approach in the context of a male adolescent rugby team.
In Aotearoa New Zealand mental health is a complex issue in many groups within society, perhaps none more so than adolescent males. Given a large number of adolescent males in Aotearoa New Zealand play rugby, in the current ... -
Brain ageing, neuropsychological functioning and a potential intervention
In recent decades, the burden associated with cognitive decline and other neuropsychological changes in healthy ageing has increased significantly due to the rapid increase in population ageing. This has heightened the ... -
Temporal Effects of Thwarted Belonging and Perceived Burden on Suicidal Ideation
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The incidence rate of suicide, particularly among young people, is still high in New Zealand. A great amount of research on suicidality has identified some risk ... -
A School-Based Intervention to Promote Positive Youth Development: A pilot experimental study
Introduction: The primary aim of Study 1 was to implement and assess a school-based positive youth development intervention in Aotearoa New Zealand. I developed the Men Fit Programme, based on other positive psychology and ... -
When my parents tell their stories: The investigation of vicarious memories in the family context
Stories that have not been personally experienced by children and are only told by their parents are called vicarious family stories (e.g., Pillemer et al., 2015). A burgeoning body of literature has shown that vicarious ... -
Neural correlates of categorisation in the forebrain of pigeons (Columba Livia)
The objective of this thesis is to examine neural activity in the pigeon brain during a wide range of categorisation tasks. Single-unit electrophysiology will be used to record from neurons in a prefrontal area (NCL) and ... -
Telling the whole story: Adult-child reminiscing and young children's socio-emotional development
Children’s socio-emotional development during the preschool years is an important predictor of positive academic, social, and mental health outcomes across the life span. Socio-emotional development can be fostered through ... -
Disorganized phase coding in the hippocampus and lateral septum in a maternal immune activation model of schizophrenia risk
Episodic memory requires information to be stored and recalled in sequential order, and current evidence suggest that these processes are disrupted in schizophrenia. Hippocampal phase precession and theta sequences are ... -
Associations between retinal measurements, cognition, and psychosocial risk factors: A lifecourse study
The retina has been proposed as a potential biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, despite a thin but nonetheless growing body of evidence to support its utility during preclinical stages of the disease. This thesis evaluated ...