Psychology
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).
Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.
Recent deposits
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Perceptions of Social Support in Response to Racism: Consequences of White People Validating Versus Reframing Racial Discrimination
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-19)People of color (POC) commonly experience racism, yet little research examines how POC wish to be supported after instances of discrimination. This research draws on close relationship and intergroup relations literature ... -
Do Inclusive Norms and Diversity Statements Increase Intended Allyship and Advocacy Against Discrimination?
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-14)Many companies signal support for diversity (e.g., via statements and training) yet show group-based disparities, with people of color or women underrated or underpaid relative to White or male coworkers. For White women, ... -
Examining the relationship between boredom and creativity
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-08)Popular sentiment expresses that boredom leads to creativity despite a lack of research investigating the relationship explicitly. Across two experiments this thesis examined the relations between both state and trait ... -
Can children use probability to guide their choices under uncertainty?
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-01)We encounter situations in our everyday lives where we need to make decisions under uncertainty. But what kind of information do we use and what abilities are helpful to us when making decisions under uncertainty? In three ... -
Don’t Ask, I’ll Tell: Investigating Strategy Use During Disability Disclosure at Work
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-31)The nature and effects of workplace disability disclosure—sharing disability-relevant information with others at work—is of great interest to researchers and human resources professionals. In this dissertation, I investigate ... -
Perception of Probabilities which are Subject to Change
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-29)To navigate stochastic and changing environments, people need to keep track of ongoing probabilities as those probabilities are subject to change. Two distinct theories of mental-model updating are compared. In trial-by-trial ... -
Updating Local and Global Probability Events During Maze Navigation
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-29)Our mental models consist of relational knowledge. We apply this knowledge about whether something is near to or far from something else to solve tasks. As a specific exam- ple, when we navigate in our environment, we have ... -
Lay Theories and Self-Perceptions of Maturity in Young Adulthood
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-25)There is concern that maturity is becoming more and more of an elusive goal for contemporary young adults. Cultural definitions of maturity often emphasize timely achievement of traditional adult goals such as buying a ... -
Misjudging How to Help: Barriers to Effective Social Support Provision
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-23)Relying on others for support is a common coping strategy. However, support providers often fail to provide effective support. Past work suggests that support providers may prioritize help aimed at alleviating others’ ... -
When our co-workers share their unfair experiences, do we believe them? Perceptions of workplace fairness are negatively related to perceived credibility of coworkers’ claims of injustice
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-23)Prior research shows that when observing a co-worker being treated unfairly, employees who are third parties to the incident feel angry and want to punish the perpetrator. However, research has focused on situations in ... -
The Persistence of Involuntary Memory: Analyzing Phenomenology, Links to Mental Health, and Content
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-23)In daily life, memories of one’s personal past are often retrieved involuntarily (i.e., unintentionally and effortlessly). Termed involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs), recent evidence suggests that these are often ... -
The Influence of Gender and Sexual Prejudice on Empathic Responding
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-23)Although studies of the relationship between empathy and racial prejudice have become increasingly popular in recent years, there is comparatively little research on the potential relationship between empathy and sexual ... -
Adolescent Social Functioning: The Role of Parental Reflective Functioning and Adolescent Mentalizing in Predicting Adolescent Prosocial Behaviour and Peer Problems
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-22)Adolescence is a critical developmental period in which social relationships become especially influential, with social functioning producing a number of important downstream effects for adolescent’s psychological and ... -
How Exposure to Personal Distress With and Without Self-Compassion Affects Emotional Distress Tolerance: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial Conducted in a Sample of University Students and a Sample of Community Adults
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-15)Emotional distress tolerance refers to the perceived ability to tolerate one’s negative emotions (Simons & Gaher, 2005). Low emotional distress tolerance is a transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology (Leyro et al., 2010) ... -
A Critical Review of Measures of Mentalization from Peter Fonagy’s Conceptual Framework
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-15)Background: Mentalization is an expansive and multifaceted construct with important implications for psychological research as well as the etiology and treatment of psychological disorders. It is defined as the process ... -
Worth the Effort? The Effects of Task-Centrality, Annoyance, and Arrogance on Manager Effort Allocation During Feedback-Seeking Episodes
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-12)Employees seek feedback from managers to reduce work-related ambiguity. However, managers typically have other competing demands on their time, and as such, may not allocate sufficient effort to providing feedback. To this ... -
"Will I Be Happy in High School?” Exploring How Interpersonal and Executive Functions Influence Adolescent Subjective Well-Being Across the Transition to High School
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-11)The transition to high school is a stressful life event, with teenagers typically facing increased demands for independent academic work coupled with the need to establish new social networks. Students who successfully ... -
Capturing Dynamic Fluctuations in Remembered Momentary Attentional States
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-11)States of attention such as engagement and mind-wandering fluctuate dynamically over time. Although aggregate retrospective reports of attention have been used in prior research, the full nature of people’s remembered ... -
Social Anxiety and the Nature and Function of Social Pain
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-09)Humans have a fundamental need to belong that drives many of our present-day emotions and behaviours. When the need to belong becomes threatened, people experience “social pain,” which has been conceptualized as an adaptive ... -
Are screens to blame? Children’s digital media use and emotional problems during the COVID-19 pandemic
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-03)This study examined the relationship between digital media (“screen use”) and mental health in children during the COVID-19 pandemic. A multinational sample of caregivers (n = 549) provided bi-monthly reports on their ...
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