Psychology

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Psychology.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 657

Eye Movements: Measuring Fatigue and Attention in Natural and Urban Scenes
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-17) Srikantharajah, Jatheesh
Exposure to nature can improve affective and cognitive states, reducing stress and arousal. Across four experiments, I measured eye movements when viewing natural and urban environments in the laboratory, recording changes in visual exploration and fatigue. My dissertation formally investigates the relationship between affective preference and visual exploration. For the first time, I gathered data from microsaccades to measure changes in fatigue and arousal while people view natural and urban environments. Natural scenes involved longer and more frequent fixations than urban scenes. I measured blink rates and microsaccade slopes as eye movement indicators associated with arousal and fatigue. These measures indicated that viewing natural scenes involved lower arousal than urban scenes. For static natural and urban scenes, preference was associated with increased fixation count. In experiment 2, I found that fractal complexity influences visual exploration and preference. More complex scenes elicited shorter saccades and were more pleasant, especially for urban scenes. In experiment 3, I contrasted different types of natural and urban environments. I showed that historic architecture was preferred to modern architecture, and that it involved lower fatigue and more exploratory eye movements. In experiment 4, I showed that differences in visual exploration and arousal between natural and urban scenes remained significant when using video stimuli, and when depleting attention beforehand using a sustained attention task. As eye-tracking grows in popularity for measuring experiences in architectural and natural environments, these experiments provide a valuable resource for understanding the relationship between eye movements, affective processing, and fatigue.
"The Pandemic has Aged Me": The Impact of Blocked Goals on Subjective Age
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-22) Munds, Brigitta
Many individuals report feeling aged by the COVID-19 pandemic, a sentiment widely expressed across social media and journalism. This study investigates what it means to feel aged by a life experience, integrating theories of subjective aging and adult development. I developed a novel self-report measure to assess perceptions of being aged by the pandemic and examined its relation to blocked personal goals. Results from the first wave of a longitudinal study (n=234) supported the validity of this measure, showing that participants who experienced greater goal disruption during the pandemic were more likely to report feeling aged. Furthermore, participants who felt aged, particularly those classified as languishing rather than flourishing, reported lower life satisfaction. These findings suggest that feeling aged by hardship may indicate not just stress but a more lasting shift, with significant implications for subjective aging and overall well-being.
Durable attitude change using active processing: A longitudinal study on the effects of AI dialogue
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-10) Sheen, Jordan
This study investigates whether AI-driven conversations can produce durable attitude change toward controversial policies, specifically legal kidney markets and free trade. In Study 1, participants interacted with a GPT-3.5 chatbot using utilitarian, deontological, emotional, and narrative arguments. Attitudes were measured immediately, one week, seven weeks, and eighteen weeks after the intervention. All strategies shifted attitudes in the short term, with most changes remaining durable after one week. However, only narrative arguments remained effective at seven weeks, with aggregate change persisting at eighteen weeks. Neither argument type nor decision-making style interacted to affect persuasiveness. Study 2 found in-group/out-group messaging effective but equivalent. Vivid memory of AI interactions predicted positive attitude change, while accurate memory of the argument had no effect. These findings suggest that conversational AI can produce long-term attitude change through active cognitive processing, demonstrating its potential as a scalable tool for shifting public attitudes on complex issues through interactive engagement.
Rewards of Risky Interdependence in Same- and Cross-Race Interactions: Inducing Trust via High-Stakes Cooperation
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-04) Knox, Connery
Mutual trust is vital for interpersonal relationships but often hard to build. Five experiments (N = 1001) grounded in Interdependence Theory tested a novel method to boost trust—beyond mere liking—between strangers. In Studies 1-3, Canadian undergraduates completed closeness-building tasks in same- and cross-race dyads, followed by an either “risky” (real money, visible choices) or “safe” (no money, secret choices) iterative prisoner’s dilemma game. The risky game consistently elicited more cooperation and increased trust (twice as much as liking). These trust gains (a) emerged for both same- and cross-race dyads, (b) were mediated by increased cooperation, and (c) generalized to a subsequent negotiation task, where the riskier scenario reduced exploitation concerns and behavioural awkwardness. In Studies 4 and 5, participants forecasting this exact procedure underestimated how much risky cooperative tasks build trust. Together, these findings demonstrate benefits of high-stakes interdependence for establishing interpersonal trust, even across racial group boundaries.
Correlates of Confidence in Metamemory Beliefs
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-04) Simionescu, Isabelle
How we think about our thinking (metacognition) plays a critical role in how we perform day-to-day activities. An important part of our metacognitive lives are the beliefs we have about how our minds work. Among these are metamemory beliefs, which refer to people’s beliefs about how memory works. In the present investigation, I examine a novel potential correlate of individuals’ confidence in such beliefs: the presence of causal reasoning. Across two experiments, participants read descriptions of a cognitive task that featured a manipulation and were asked to provide a prediction about its outcome. I used this prediction as an index of their belief about how the manipulation influences our thinking. Participants were then asked to provide a confidence judgement about that belief, followed by a justification for their prediction, and finally another confidence judgement. Justifications were then coded for the presence of causal reasoning, defined as attributing the predicted memory outcome to an underlying cause beyond the manipulation itself. In Experiment 2, which had sufficient power to detect the small association between causal reasoning on confidence, I found that the presence of causal explanations in participants’ justifications was significantly associated with higher confidence in their prediction. Nonetheless, only about one-quarter of participants provided such causal explanations for their prediction. Additionally, I observed that participants’ confidence increased after they generated a justification for their prediction, indicating that explaining one's beliefs may reinforce, rather than undermine, confidence in them.
Looking Back or Looking Ahead: Metamotivational Beliefs About Progress Framing in Goal Pursuit
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-29) Ross, Jessica
We are often told that if we keep our eyes on the prize, we will achieve our goals. However, research on the dynamics of self-regulation has established that whether it helps to focus on the starting line or the finish line depends on how committed people are to their goals: if commitment is strong, focusing on remaining progress (“to-go” information) is more motivating, whereas if commitment is weak, focusing on accumulated progress (“to-date” information) is more motivating. Yet research has not systematically examined whether people recognize and leverage these progress framing strategies based on their commitment strength. Across seven studies (N = 2,792), I applied a metamotivational approach to examine the nature and normative accuracy of people’s beliefs about progress framing and whether these beliefs manifest in or are related to behavioural and self-regulatory outcomes. Studies 1 and 2 found that people’s beliefs about progress framing aligned with normative effects observed in the literature on average, though with substantial variability. Studies 3-5 explored whether beliefs manifest in consequential choices. Study 3 found that people made differential progress framing choices as a function of their own commitment levels for personal goals. However, Studies 4 and 5 failed to replicate this pattern when commitment was experimentally manipulated in lab contexts or when making recommendations for others. Studies 6 and 7 investigated links between beliefs and outcomes, finding no relationship with goal progress (Studies 6 and 7) or life satisfaction (Study 6), though more normatively accurate beliefs were associated with experiencing less distress and difficulty during goal pursuit (Study 7). These findings demonstrate that while people possess a nuanced understanding of progress framing strategies, translating this knowledge into improved self-regulatory outcomes remains complex. By examining the nature and implications of people’s progress framing beliefs, this research offers novel contributions to the field of motivation science with valuable insights for goal pursuit and motivation regulation.
Adolescents' Communicative Tone in Online Games: The Role of Context and Socio-Cognitive Abilities
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-27) Gallant, Kristen
While the influx of online communication during adolescence has led to a plethora of research investigating adolescent communication through social media, other online platforms have not been afforded the same attention. Despite high rates of online gaming in adolescence and longstanding reports of communicative toxicity, little is known about many of the factors that could influence communication in this social context. In the present study, we examine how experimental manipulations of context (communicative mode, communicative partner, and prompts of perspective-taking) as well as individual differences in socio-cognitive skills influence the tone of adolescents’ communication within online games. Older adolescents, aged 15 to 19 (N = 238) participated in an immersive, simulated video game task wherein they received mildly provocative messages from teammates or opponents and responded verbally or via text. Game communication varied widely from aggressive (e.g., “You’re trash”) to prosocial (e.g., “Thanks Man”). Overall, participants were more aggressive when communicating verbally and when communicating with opponents. Perspective-taking prompts to consider the goals of the message-sender resulted in the reduction of these contextual differences by reducing prosociality towards teammates and in text-based communication. Marginal interactions between individual differences in self-reported perspective-taking and empathy and contextual manipulations indicate an interplay between socio-cognitive skills and contextual features for adolescents’ communicative tone. This work illuminates how some of the variability youth experience when gaming (Märtens et al., 2015) can be explained by game context and individual characteristics. Findings have practical relevance for adolescents and caregivers as they navigate decisions about game use. Moreover, this work adds to the growing literature as to how adolescents navigate communication in an increasingly online world and how socio-cognitive skills that are useful in offline social contexts translate to online environments.
Understanding Uncertainty in Daily Life: Appraisals and Metacognitive Strategies
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-21) Kachhiya Patel , Niyati
Uncertainty is an inevitable part of our lives, yet little is known about how people navigate the uncertainty they encounter in their lives. In my thesis, I examine how uncertainty is perceived, which situations are perceived as uncertain, and how people react to uncertainty in daily life, specifically whether they engage in perspectival metacognition. To address these questions, I used data from a year-long longitudinal study asking participants (N = 499) to report on the most significant event of their day. Using natural language processing, I then classified these open-ended text responses as uncertain and not uncertain, and examined how participants’ construal, emotional profile, and reasoning differ for uncertain compared to not uncertain events. Uncertain events were perceived as relatively more negative, challenging, in others’ control, and less predictable. Uncertain events were also associated with greater negative emotion and less positive emotion. Negative event types (i.e., conflict, rejection, annoying, and sad or bad news type of events) were more likely to be classified as uncertain compared to positive or neutral event types. Participants were also relatively more likely to report intellectual humility and a search for compromise in reflections on uncertain events. These results were similar for the trait and state levels. I discuss the implications of this scholarship for research on affect and emotion regulation and on mental health, specifically for those with anxiety disorders.
Exploring the Impact of Childhood Adversity on Adolescent Executive Function: The Role of Pubertal Timing
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-20) Nordine, Alexa
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been consistently associated with negative impacts on individual’s health and development including, but not limited to, changes in pubertal timing and the development of executive function; however, whether pubertal timing mediates the association between ACEs and executive functioning remains unknown. To address this gap, data was leveraged from a large-scale, nationally representative sample of American adolescents (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study; N = 11,878, 52% male, 52.4% White, 13.4% Black, 24.0% Hispanic). Concurrent models assessed the integrity of adolescents’ core executive function abilities via their performance on tasks of response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (baseline assessment; 9-10 years), whereas prospective models examined adolescents’ day-to-day executive functioning in life via parent ratings of their behavior (Time 5 follow-up assessment; 12-13 years). For females, but not males, earlier pubertal timing mediated pathways between greater ACE exposure and executive functions at both time points: at baseline, this was reflected in lower levels of performance on executive function tasks and at follow-up parent endorsement of executive function challenges in everyday living. These findings suggest there may be sex-specific pathways through which early adversity experiences impact subsequent development, with puberty emerging as a particularly important consideration for females vis-à-vis adolescent refinements in their capacity for cognitive self-regulation.
Exploring the Voice of OCD
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-20) Bowman, Erin
Critical inner dialogues are prevalent and clinically significant features of depression and eating disorders. According to the Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC), qualities of a communication can be rated on orthogonal dimensions of tone (hostile to warm) and authority (dominant to submissive), wherein qualities of a communication elicit complementary responses, with warmth eliciting warmth and dominance eliciting submission. Preliminary research by Chiang and Purdon (2020) found that obsessions are often experienced as a neutral dominant voice, however, this is the only study that has investigated the tonal qualities of obsessions. The current study is a replication and extension of these preliminary findings, exploring the phenomenology of the OCD voice and its association with OCD symptom severity and insecure attachment. Adults with a past diagnosis of OCD (N=20) were administered a semi-structured interview developed for this study. The interview included two within-participants conditions; one in which participants were asked about obsessions that evoked a compulsion and another in which the obsession did not evoke a compulsion. Well-validated measures were used to assess appraisals of the OCD voice, OCD symptoms, and attachment style. Qualitative results showed that all participants reported experiencing an internal OCD voice, and the majority (85%) engaged with it in internal dialogue. The OCD voice was predominantly rated as neutral and dominant across both obsessive-compulsive episodes. Quantitative analyses revealed that greater perceived benevolence and omnipotence of the OCD voice significantly predicted more severe OCD symptoms. These findings support the prevalence of a neutral and dominant OCD voice among a sample of adults with a past diagnosis of OCD. Appraisals of the OCD voice, particularly benevolence and omnipotence, may contribute to symptom severity. This study highlights the potential therapeutic value of targeting individuals’ relationship with the OCD voice.
Perceiving Change in Uncertain Times: Public Accuracy and its Individual Differences in Estimating Past Societal Shifts During COVID-19
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-20) Diep, Peter
Understanding where society is headed requires a clear grasp of where it has been, to make sense of what factors shape direction of societal change. Yet during periods of heightened uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, most people struggle to accurately perceive the direction of societal shifts. In this thesis, I used the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic as a naturalistic context of uncertainty to investigate how the public estimated societal change during such volatile periods, what domains may have been more accurately perceived, and what individual factors may have shaped this accuracy. U.S. participants (N = 644) estimated societal change across thirteen domains over six-month (April-October 2020) and one-year periods (April 2020-April 2021), either via free-text or on a -50% to +50% slider, providing their confidence for their estimates per domain. Next, they completed measures assessing general knowledge, confidence in their knowledge judgments, and metacognitive engagement (e.g., reflecting on limits of one’s knowledge when discussing social issues). I further assessed deliberation-related engagement by tracking time spent on each estimation. Results showed that Americans held a largely pessimistic view of societal changes over the pandemic, especially when considering actual change in the domains of depression rates, mortality, violent crimes, unemployment, and charitable donations. Out of all domains, the majority of the sample correctly estimated the direction of societal change for depression rates, life satisfaction, explicit prejudice, charitable giving, and religiosity. However, for other domains participants were either at chance or got the direction of change wrong. Participants were also more accurate in estimation of change for shorter (vs. longer) time frames, and when using open-ended response options (vs. percentage-based slider). Moreover, individuals showing greater task deliberation, metacognitive engagement, and confidence in their estimates, but not greater general knowledge or calibration in confidence and accuracy of their knowledge, were more accurate. Additionally, effects of knowledge calibration and deliberation varied as a function of domain, either improving estimates or increasing error or bias. These findings suggest that how people engage with information matters more than simply what they know. The thesis concludes by discussing implications for understanding public perceptions of pandemic-related societal changes and identifies factors that may help align these perceptions with actual social trends.
Semantic Relatedness or Arousal: What Drives Enhancement of Memory for Emotional Words?
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-19) Kim, Brian
Emotional stimuli are typically better remembered than neutral ones. Two accounts have been proposed for the advantage in memory for lists of words. The first is that it arises due to enhanced arousal, and the second is that it arises due to the inherent semantic relatedness of emotional words. We compared these accounts by examining memory performance for lists of words in which arousal and relatedness were manipulated. In three experiments (n = 418), conducted online, participants were asked to encode lists containing words that were either unrelated, related, or emotionally valenced, followed by free recall tests. List type was manipulated within-subject. Participants also rated the arousal and emotional valence they experienced for each word using a Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Latent semantic analysis (in Experiment 1) and free association norms (in Experiment 2) were used to match the semantic relatedness of words in the emotional (negative) and related lists. Free recall of related and negatively valenced word lists was significantly higher than for unrelated lists. In Experiment 3, we used free association norms to create emotional lists of mixed valence (negative and positive), effectively lowering semantic relatedness within the list, but keeping arousal high. Despite lowering relatedness of the emotional word lists, recall of related and emotional word lists was again of similar magnitude, with memory for both significantly higher than for unrelated lists. Importantly, using logistic regression we showed that participants’ arousal ratings predicted recall in all three experiments. Findings suggest that arousal, not semantic relatedness, explains why memory is better for lists of emotional words.
Towards a Balanced Lens: Strengths-Based Psychoeducational Assessments in Canadian Schools
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-18) MacPherson, Brianna
Psychoeducational assessments are commonly used in schools to evaluate concerns relating to cognitive domains (e.g., academic, attention, memory, etc.). After the assessment, the goal for the student and their family may be to have a better understanding of themselves, how they function within their world, and the possibility that they can recognize and use their strengths. Unfortunately, social-emotional-behavioural outcomes seem to worsen over time through deficit-focused lenses as negative experiences tend to be more salient than positive experiences. Grounded in positive psychology and resilience perspectives, strengths-based approaches (SBA) to assessment offer an alternative approach that highlights students’ assets and resilience, while paying equal attention to areas of challenge. Studies show that despite adopting strengths-based tools and strategies, client and family engagement (e.g., retention and satisfaction) is truly dependent upon if the clinician taking this SBA recognizes its worth. While SBA is conceptually supported in the literature, little is known about how aware school psychologists and psychological associates in Canada are about SBA, and how they implement these practices in their assessment work. The present study surveyed 42 Canadian school-based clinicians to examine beliefs and practices related to SBA, as well as whether clinician characteristics predict SBA practice. Multiple regression models indicated that stronger endorsement of SBA beliefs and greater years of experience (i.e., later career stage) significantly predicted greater use of SBA practices. These results suggest that both clinician attitudes and continued professional development are key to integrating SBA within psychoeducational assessments. This study sheds light into assessment practices in Canadian schools and provides a foundation for future research and training to promote more balanced and empowering assessments for students.
The Self-Reference Effect in the Visual and Auditory Modalities: Effects of Referent and Valence on Memory Performance
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-18) Anacleto, Alexandra Pascoal
People tend to better remember information that has been encoded in reference to the self than information that pertains to someone else, a phenomenon termed the self-reference effect (SRE). It is also believed that this bias for self-relevant information is selective, such that healthy adults prioritize the encoding of self-positive relative to self-negative information (a self-positivity bias). Depressed individuals, on the other hand, are believed to display a self-negativity bias, whereby they remember more negative than positive information about themselves. Previous studies have assessed these two biases using the Self-Referential Encoding Task (SRET). In this task, participants first endorse, using a yes/no judgement, visually presented positive and negative trait adjectives, as either accurately representing themselves or another known character (e.g., Harry Potter). This task is then followed by surprise memory tasks for these adjectives. After the task, when depression is a variable of interest, participants complete a self-report measure of depression. In our study, depression was assessed in a non-clinical sample using the CES-D self-report measure. Participants classified as "depressed" were those who reported levels of depressive symptoms superior to 16, based on the measure’s established cutoff. To our knowledge, no research using the SRET has examined whether these two biases also exist when the information is presented through the auditory modality. Given that self-relevant information is often encountered through spoken language in daily life, it is important to explore how these biases operate in the auditory modality. In the present study, participants were assigned to complete the SRET in either the visual (n=176) or auditory (n=176) modality. Results confirmed a significant SRE in both modalities and did not reveal an interaction between SRE and modality. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence of a self-positivity bias, nor were there any differences in the pattern of results for depressed (n=186) vs. non-depressed (n=166) participants in the recognition task, although a significant decrease in positivity bias was found for depressed individuals during the endorsement task. Overall, these findings suggest that the SRE is consistent across modalities. However, the absence of both a self-positivity bias in healthy individuals and a self-negativity bias in depressed individuals diverges from previous research. Given the large in-person sample size and highly controlled stimuli in this study, these null effects warrant further investigation into the valence-related memory biases previously reported.
Towards a Holistic Understanding of the Drivers of Media Multitasking
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-15) Drody, Allison
Media multitasking, defined as simultaneously engaging with multiple tasks when at least one of the tasks involves media, is a highly prevalent behaviour known to negatively impact performance across a variety of contexts. It is therefore crucial to understand what motivates individuals to engage in this behaviour. The studies presented in this thesis examined participants’ decisions to engage in media multitasking during sustained attention tasks, along with the predictors of these decisions, to provide a more nuanced understanding of the drivers of media multitasking. Chapter 1 discusses the current media multitasking literature, highlighting a need for further research investigating the variables that underly changes in this behaviour over time, as well as research investigating the combined role of individual differences and contextual factors in media multitasking. Chapters 2 and 3 explored whether variables relevant to the perceived opportunity costs of completing a task, namely boredom and motivation, are associated with changes in media multitasking over time. Chapter 2 provided evidence that rising opportunity costs, signaled by increases in boredom over time, may drive temporal increases in media multitasking. Across two studies, Chapter 3 demonstrated that increasing motivation attenuates temporal increases in media multitasking. Chapters 4 and 5 examined the joint role of individual differences and contextual factors in predicting media multitasking. Chapter 4 specifically explored the interactions between these two classes of factors, revealing that relations between in-study media multitasking and individual differences in attention-related and self-regulatory traits, as well as real-world media multitasking tendencies varied based on two key contextual variables: whether participants were completing an easy or challenging task and the order in which they completed these tasks. Chapter 5 tested the assumption that, if media multitasking arises from a combination of individual differences and contextual factors, then when context is held constant over time, patterns of media multitasking should remain consistent. Moreover, this consistency should largely be driven by individual differences. Media multitasking was assessed in the same laboratory context on two separate occasions and was found to be consistent across sessions. Additionally, several individual difference factors interacted with session when predicting media multitasking. For the most part, relations involving these factors varied in strength, but not direction across sessions. The final chapter (Chapter 6) summarizes the work presented in this thesis, contextualizes it within the current literature, and emphasizes the need for further work investigating how factors within various layers of influence interact to give rise to media multitasking. This chapter also proposes a novel framework for considering and guiding future research on these interactions.
Boredom and the Sense of Agency
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-14) Dadzie, Baaba Vanessa
Previous research has established boredom as an uncomfortable affective experience with a number of cognitive, physiological and behavioural correlates that are more prevalent for those who experience the state more frequently and intensely—the so-called boredom prone. The conundrum of boredom is that the individual fails to engage meaningfully with their environment despite the strong desire to do so. A proposed contributor to the experience of boredom that has had relatively little focus to date, is the sense of agency, the feeling of being an active contributor to one’s outcomes. This thesis explores the notion that agency is critical to the experience of boredom and boredom proneness. In Chapter 2 of this thesis, where boredom is conceptualized within a self-regulatory framework, the sense of agency negatively predicted boredom proneness in two separate samples (N= 283; N=1,358) over and above other known correlates of boredom proneness. In Chapter 3, the possibility that this relation was due to an impoverished capacity to perceive agency external to the self was explored. Results indicated that trait boredom showed no association with the perception of agency external to the self. In contrast, state boredom was negatively associated with perceptual judgements of agency, a relationship that was partially mediated by attentional engagement. Chapter 4 investigated the possibility that the highly boredom prone report a diminished sense of agency because they are less tolerant of disruptions to agency. Both state and trait boredom were significantly associated with metrics in this study indicative of an intolerance to agency disruption. Those high in boredom proneness tended to reset game play more frequently when faced with disruptions to agency and did so earlier than did those low in boredom proneness. This is taken to reflect a lower level of tolerance for disruptions to agency. Finally, Chapter 5 assessed possible cross-cultural influences of the association between boredom and agency given differences in the adherence to individualist and collectivist ideals. Culture showed only a minimal influence on the relation between boredom and agency, indicating that this relation is robust across multiple cultures. These results give meaningful insights into the individual differences that drive boredom proneness and emphasize that a strong sense of agency is imperative in responding to boredom’s signal to re-orient and engage more meaningfully.
Towards an Understanding of Social Anxiety and Close Friendships: The Role of Expectations, Negative Self Portrayal Concerns, and the Discrepancy Gap
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-14) Vidovic, Vanja
Past research has demonstrated a robust correlation between higher social anxiety (SA) and lower friendship satisfaction, suggesting that the interpersonal difficulties experienced by socially anxious individuals in anxiety-provoking social situations with evaluative others might extend to their close friendships. My dissertation sought to clarify how symptoms of SA manifest within close friendships, as well as the potential cognitive-behavioural mechanisms by which SA symptoms may influence friendship outcomes. Each research question was first investigated within an undergraduate student sample (Studies 1A and 2A), with SA assessed as a continuous variable across the full spectrum of symptom intensity, followed by replication and extension using a clinical sample (Studies 1B and 2B). First, I developed a measure of adult friendship expectations and assessed variability in how individuals with different levels of trait SA believe their close friends ought to behave. Findings showed that, among undergraduate students, ratings of friendship expectations did not vary by participant level of SA; however, among community participants, diagnosis of Social Anxiety Disorder was predictive of significantly lower expectations related to solidarity and agency, but no differences in expectations of symmetrical reciprocity or communion. To assess the extent to which participants were concerned about negative self-portrayal when in the company of their close friends, I adapted the instructions of the Negative Self Portrayal Scale (Moscovitch & Huyder, 2011) to inquire specifically about the extent to which participants have such concerns within close friendship contexts. Consistent with hypotheses, among both undergraduate and community participants, SA was predictive of greater concern about revealing perceived personal flaws to close friends. Next, I used an experimental study design in which discrepancy threat salience was manipulated as a between-subjects variable, to test how socially anxious individuals respond to potential friendship ruptures. While all participants reported more interpersonal threat in response to the Threat versus Control condition, this effect was particularly strong for individuals with social anxiety disorder. Consistently across samples, SA was linked to greater negative emotionality regardless of study condition, while results regarding positive emotionality were more varied, highlighting the importance of assessing positive and negative affect as distinct facets of human experience. Effects of perceived interpersonal threat on self-reported behavioural motivation was also surprisingly inconsistent across studies: although SA symptoms predicted motivation for lower approach and greater avoidance among undergraduate students, a clinical diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD) was unrelated to self-reported behavioural motivations within the community sample. Findings are interpreted within the context of cognitive and interpersonal models of SA, highlighting methodological strengths and limitations of my research, and suggesting future research to build on the present studies that may inform interventions that enhance social connection in individuals with SAD.
Cued by music: Eliciting autobiographical memories across the lifespan and assessing their emotionality
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-13) Husein, Khalil
Music holds a unique capacity to involuntarily and rapidly evoke autobiographical memories (AMs), yet the source of its cueing ability is unspecified. In experiment 1, I examined what components of music are most beneficial in triggering AMs. Younger adults were presented with short clips of popular songs from their youth as memory cues, that were either unmodified, instrumental versions, lyrics-only, or a visual presentation of song and artist name. If participants experienced a memory, they provided a description of it. Unmodified song clips were most effective at evoking memories, and recall was enhanced in those high in trait music-related reward sensitivity. I also found evidence of temporal alignment between the song’s year of popularity, and timeframe of the evoked AMs. Given the powerful cueing effect of music on AMs, in experiment 2 I examined whether the findings would generalize to an older adult population, and whether music could serve to reduce age-related episodic memory deficits. Strikingly, song cues evoked more AMs in older than younger adults, offering a means of enhancing access to personal memories. I observed a temporal alignment between the year of popularity of the song cue and the time frame of the evoked memory in both age groups. I propose that songs are particularly effective memory cues because they help set temporal context, constraining the search for AMs to a specific point in time, facilitating access. These findings are particularly relevant for older adults who may have difficulty spontaneously recreating context. In chapter 3, I investigated whether computational approaches using natural language processing can be employed to examine emotional sentiment within autobiographical narratives. Current methods of analysis require extensive manual human coding, limiting the sample size that can feasibly be examined. I compared the congruence in classification of two popular lexicon-based sentiment analysis tools, VADER and TextBlob, with self-reported valence of 3,309 AM narratives from two datasets. Confusion matrices showed better congruence using VADER than TextBlob. Accuracy improved significantly when classification required binning valence into three rather than five categories, regardless of dataset size. Results suggest sentiment analysis is a promising avenue to determine broad classifications of valence within AM narratives. Overall, this thesis shows that songs are powerful cues for eliciting personal memories and can reduce age-related memory decline by setting the temporal context, facilitating access to content. Moreover, this thesis shows that VADER is a sentiment analysis approach that can be reasonably used to determine emotional valence, offering a means of characterizing autobiographical memory narratives.
Online Social Support During Discussions of Racism: Affirming Shared Reality Across Racial Lines
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-13) Yee, (Shawn) Yan Hui
Despite recent attempts at reform, racial discrimination against people of color (POC) remains prevalent, with serious psychological and physical consequences. In prior research on imagined interactions, POC seeking social support for racism tended to prefer validation (i.e., empathizing and acknowledging negative thoughts or emotions in response to the experience) over reframing (i.e., reinterpreting the experience in a positive light) and feel more supported by same-race than White conversation partners. However, most research has been limited to manipulating support through standardized vignettes and investigating partner race preferences with hypothetical support interactions. The current study increases external validity by leveraging an online chat platform that enables participants to engage in real-time conversations with partners (confederates who provide differing types of support), while manipulating their ostensible race. Replicating and extending past research, participants generally reported more favorable outcomes after receiving validation (vs. reframing) and when chatting with ostensibly same-race (vs. White) partners. In moderation analyses, these differences are especially strong for participants chronically higher in suspicion of White people’s motives for unprejudiced actions and for those who disclosed experiences that (a) were perpetrated by a White person, (b) felt more severe, or (c) felt more distant. Additionally, mediation analyses with both hypothesized and exploratory mediators showed these more favorable outcomes were mediated by perceptions of racial shared reality and perceptions that the confederate was trying to affirm (i.e., respect) them. Implications for fostering responsive social support for POC who have experienced racial discrimination are discussed.
Identifying Latent Profiles of Family-Wide Dynamics: Associations with Child and Caregiver Mental Health
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-12) Castelino, Chantelle
Family functioning and the mental health and wellbeing of individual members are intricately connected and intertwined. However, the conceptualization of mental health concerns based on relational patterns remains underutilized within clinical practice. Moreover, most family research focuses on dyadic processes, often overlooking broader family-wide phenomena and within-family differences. To address these limitations, the present study identified latent profiles of family functioning, based on indicators relating to family subsystems and contextual factors. Subsequently, latent profiles were used to predict child and caregiver mental health. Participants came from two samples with harmonized measurement: one general population cohort (n = 549 families) and one cohort from a family-based psychological clinic (n =124 families). After identifying latent profiles, child and caregiver mental health outcomes at a later time (i.e., 18 and 12 months, respectively) were examined as a function of profile. The distribution of covariates was also examined across profiles. Results of this study support the presence of heterogeneity in family dynamics in two populations. Four profiles emerged in the general population sample: Higher Functioning, Moderate, Couple Distress, and High Conflict. Three profiles emerged in the treatment-seeking sample: Higher Functioning, Couple Distress, and Child/Sibling Tension. In both samples, profile membership predicted later child and caregiver outcomes. This study’s findings demonstrate the importance of studying family processes across multiple relational subsystems. Moreover, results support the utility of person-centered approaches and their applications towards clinical conceptualizations and tailored interventions.

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