Graduate Students:
Stephanie Manuel
Program & Year: Clinical Psychology, 4th Year PhD Candidate.
About Me: My research explores how depressive symptoms shape individual’s social and emotional experiences. My dissertation focuses on how depression may strain relationships by disrupting self-disclosure—the sharing of personal thoughts and feelings that typically fosters closeness and emotional wellbeing. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time outdoors, enthusing about sushi, and coming up with endless nicknames for my polydactyl cat, Kittalina!
Bianca Wilhelm
Program & Year: Social-Personality Psychology, 3rd Year PhD Candidate.
About Me: My research focuses on the intertwined topics of research measurement/methodology and social identity. My dissertation research examines how the placement of demographic questions can alter participants' responses to other items by making certain social identities salient. Outside of the lab, I enjoy playing videos, cooking, and doing cross stitch and crochet.
Laura Fung
Program & Year: Social-Personality Psychology, 2nd Year MSc Student.
About Me: My research interests centre around personality, the self, and women's experiences with a specific interest in motherhood. My master's thesis focuses on selfships, which are the relationships people form with others who provide them specific types of self-relevant feedback. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with friends, playing games on my Nintendo Switch, or snuggling with my dogs Mickey and Ella!
Honours Thesis Students:
Antonia Escobar
Program & Year: 4th Year BSc Psychology Student
About Me: I am interested in how our cognitions are influenced by social processes like social exclusion. My thesis explores the concept of selfships: relationships used to regulate self-worth. It examines whether feedback from a close other (versus a stranger) influences perceived relationship quality, depending on whether the feedback is expected or unexpected. In my free time, I like to spend time with my friends and family and go on walks!
Keanna MacKinnon
Program & Year: 4th Year BSc Psychology Student
About Me: My research interests include developmental psychology, especially related to language, and social psychology, particularly how mood states influence social perception. My thesis examines how individuals with dysphoria may prefer to apply problem-solving over emotional support, and how this preference could impact their relationships. Outside of school, I enjoy spending time outdoors with friends, reading a good book, and playing with my dog Kali.
Directed Lab Students & Undergraduate Research Assistants:
- Sonia Backe
- Maya Campbell
- Joelle Ghobrial
- Isabela Heroiu
- Kaitlin McClelland
- Amy Russell
- Claire Waraich
- Katie Wong
- Carina Yeung
Lab Alumni
* Received CPA award for the best thesis or dissertation
† Received the McGhie Prize for top psychology PhD student
- Paige Babb (Honours Thesis): Dysphoria and Social Validation
- Nicole Maneh (Honours Thesis): Dysphoria as a Predictor of Problem Solving Versus Emotionally Validating Social Support in Social Interactions
- Milena Montanino (Honours Thesis): Dysphoria and Support Provision Tendencies in Friendships
- Teagan Schuck (Honours Thesis): Causal Uncertainty and its Relation to Roommate Rejection
- Alanna Dochuck (Honours Thesis): Dysphoria and Sensitivity to Social Rejection Cues
- Elma Sabanovic (Honours Thesis): Self-Judgements and Information Seeking
- Robert Rynard (Honours Thesis): Non-Naiveté and Replications of Judgement and Decision-Making Tasks
- Emma Wilkinson (Honours Thesis): Windows vs. Screens: Effects of Parallax on Social Interactions
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Shahnawaz Towheed (Honours Thesis): Meditation and Self-Enhancement
- Sophie Blackmore (Honours Thesis): Mimicry and Mental State Decoding Accuracy in Undergraduate Students with Dysphoria
- Ziyi Lai (MSc, Social-Personality): Dysphoria as a Moderator of Online Self-Presentation Via Image Selection
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Shana Marie Needham (PhD, Social-Personality): Causal Uncertainty and Romantic Relationships
- Dominique Mielnik (Honours Thesis): Causal Uncertainty and Empathic Accuracy about a Conflict Conversation
- Kelsey Rozema (Honours Thesis): Causal Uncertainty and Conflict in Roommate Relationships
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Harmony Jarvis (MSc Social-Personality): “Causal Uncertainty and Social Rejection"
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Kevin Rounding (PhD Social-Personality): “Religion and Self-Control"
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Maddie D’Agata (MSc Social-Personality):“ The Effect of Lying on Self-Control Depletion”
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Carly Parsons* (Honours Thesis):“Investigating the Role of Kinship Cues in the Response to Social Rejection”
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Allyson Smith (Honours Thesis): “ The Role of Attributional Biases in the Relationship Between Dysphoria, Theory of Mind, and Social Functioning ”
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Julia Gordon (Honours Thesis): “Examining the Effects of Social Influence on Face Recognition Accuracy of Individuals with Dysphoria”
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Janine Haq (Honours Thesis):“ The Effects of Causal Uncertainty on Self-Regulation Depletion in Dyadic Interactions”
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Alessia Milano (Honours Thesis):“ The Relationship Between Causal Uncertainty and Roommate Rejection ”
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Kristen Blackler (MSc Social-Personality): “The Effect of Adaptive Perfectionism, Maladaptive Perfectionism, and Feedback on Procrastination Behaviour”
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Nathalie Côté (Honours Thesis): “Examining the Implication of Feedback on the Relationship between Dysphoria and Theory-of-Mind Abilities”
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Jacob Deodato (Honours Thesis): “The Role of Gender in the Relationship between Causal Uncertainty and Mimicry”
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Kevin Rounding* (MSc Social-Personality): “Compounding Effects of Dysphoria and Mood Stability on Eyewitness Identification”
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Sarah Shallwani (Honours Thesis): “Mimicry and Mental State Decoding Accuracy in Undergraduate Students with Dysphoria”
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Eliane Boucher* (PhD Social-Personality): “Causal Uncertainty in Social Interactions: The Impact of Interpersonal Expectations and Uncertainty Reduction on Liking”
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Meghan McPhie (Honours Thesis): “An Examination of the Relationship Between Accuracy of Mental State Decoding and Dysphoria in University Students”
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Jennifer Passey (PhD Social-Personality): “Causal Uncertainty and Self-Regulation Abilities”
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Rachel Ruttan (Honours Thesis): “The Relationship Between Causal Uncertainty and Nonconscious Mimicry”
- Emilie Chan (MSc Clinical): “The Roles of Theory of Mind and Empathy in the Relationship between Dysphoria and Poor Social Functioning”
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Carly Ainlay (Honours Thesis): “Causal Uncertainty and Social Information Seeking”
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Rebecca Brown (Honours Thesis): “Responses to Medical Tests with Uncertain Results”
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Kimberly Thomson (Honours Thesis): “Nonverbal Mediators of the Relationship between Causal Uncertainty and Liking”
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Michelle Vitti (Honours Thesis): “Causal Uncertainty and Stop Rules in Dyadic Interviews”
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Alexandra Wilson (Honours Thesis): “The Influence of Involvement, Source Credibility, and Message Strength on Responses to Pro-Attitudinal Messages”
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Stacy Crosson (Honours Thesis): “Longitudinal Effects of Life Experiences on Causal Uncertainty”
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James Doiron (Honours Thesis): “An Analysis of Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Parents of Autistic Children”
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David Duong* (MA Clinical): “Dysphoria and Theory-of-Mind Abilities: The Role of Cognitive Processing”
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Rebecca Hockin (Honours Thesis): “An Analysis of the Relationship between Maternal Depression and Infants’ Theory-of-Mind Abilities”
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Jennifer Passey (MA Social-Personality): “Causal Uncertainty and Social Rejection”
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Graeme Rassenti (Honours Thesis): “Communication Accommodation in CMC: Investigating the Role of Anticipated Future Interaction on the Use of Emoticons”
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Kyla Bondy (Honours Thesis): “The Effect of Causal Uncertainty on Empathic Accuracy in Computer-Mediated Communications”
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Eliane Boucher* (MA Social-Personality): “Examining the Effects of Causal Uncertainty in Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Interactions”
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Angela Collins (Honours Thesis): “Life-Sustaining Treatment Preferences as a Function of Context”
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Shannon Currie (Honours Thesis): “The Role of Causal Uncertainty in Empathic Accuracy Judgments”
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Elizabeth Donnery (Honours Thesis): “The Effect of Unrealistic Optimism and Culture on Health in People Living with HIV/AIDS”
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Chiara Papile (Honours Thesis): “The Effects of Causal Uncertainty on Ego Depletion in Dyadic Social Interactions”
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Elena Ballantyne (Honours Thesis): “Life Events and Health Outcomes of Older Adults”
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Jennifer Laforce*† (PhD Clinical): “Experience of Parenting: Parenting Strategies and their Relationship with Parental Self-Efficacy, Perceptions of Control, and Parental Affect”
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Anna Ebel-Lam* (MA Social-Personality): “Optimism, Self-Mastery, and the Perceived Controllability of a Health Threat as Moderators of Reactions to Negative Feedback About One’s Health”
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Veronica Legnini (Honours Thesis): “A Cross-Cultural Evaluation of a Health Threat in Canadians and Asians”
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Nina Rytwinski (Honours Thesis): “The Relationship Between Causal Uncertainty and Roommate Rejection in University Students”
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Michelle Lafrance (Honours Thesis): “Theory of Mind and Dysphoria: Investigating Memory Perspective and Emotion Projection”
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Sharon Lin (Honours Thesis): “Temporarily Activated Causal Uncertainty Beliefs and Stop Rule Usage”
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Nisanne Tadman (Honours Thesis): “Effects of Causal Uncertainty and Judgement Objectives on Stereotyping”
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Jessica Bloomfield (Honours Thesis): “The Relationship Between Causal Uncertainty, Reassurance Seeking, and Depressive Symptomatology”
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Sarah Reiss (Honours Thesis): “The Effects of Self-Construal on Motivated Skepticism”