The StAR Team

Avielle completed her honours thesis in 2023, entitled Understanding The Lived Experience of Third Culture Kid University Students. Using a Transactional Model of Stress and Coping framework, this qualitative study identified stressors and coping strategies commonly used among this subpopulation of university students.

Rhiannon’s undergraduate honors thesis examined  the effect of a brief mindfulness practice with and without priming on attentional control and affect in undergraduate students.

This work was published in Mindfulness (see publication list). Bravo Rhiannon!82

Natalie Loserro’s honours thesis examined the association between perfectionism type (maladaptive/adaptive) and indices of wellbeing and academic performance among undergraduate students, and the moderating role of trait mindfulness.

Study Findings may be found HERE.

Maya Amestoy’s  undergraduate honours thesis investigated the moderating role of physical activity in the association between stress exposure and emotional eating. Maya has presented research stemming from her thesis project at 4 scientific conferences and published a manuscript stemming from data collected as part of her thesis:

Amestoy, M.E., & Fiocco, A.J. (2021). The Moderating Role of Emotional Eating in the Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Depressive Symptoms in Undergraduate Students. Journal of Student Research. 10(3), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.47611/jsr.v10i3.1281

Maya was accepted into the clinical graduate program at the University of Toronto in 2021. Bravo Maya!

Andreina’s Honours Thesis examined the association between procrastination and wellbeing, and the modulating effect of flow in this relationship.

Shruti has played many roles in the StAR Lab, including a quasi honours thesis trainee under my supervision. Shruti developed and ran an independent project which examined the association between stress and facial processing in undergraduate students.

After taking one year off following her BA, Shruti was accepted into the Psychological Sciences program at TMU (formerly Ryerson University), to work under the supervision of Dr. Meg Moulson.

Research shows that discrimination is associated with an increased risk of negative outcomes within the LGBT community. However, little is known about why this relationship exists. Martin’s thesis examined possible underlying factors related to the link between perceived discrimination and its outcomes, with a particular interest in sexual objectification.

Recipient of 2016 CPA Certificate of Academic Excellence

Nurit examined the effects of body image stereotype on cognitive function in undergraduate students. No significant results were found.

Anastasia examined whether exposure to a therapy dog can buffer the stress response and whether the buffer effect is moderated by pet attitude or personality.

Findings show that therapy dog exposure significantly buffers the stress response as measure by skin conductance. A similar pattern was found for affective reactivity in that participants exposed to a therapy dog reported less decline in positive affect compared with the control group who reported greater decline in positive affect.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Anastasia on this project.

Findings are published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (see publication list).

Prudence examined the effect of stress exposure on eyewitness testimony and the moderating role of personality. She hypothesized that exposure to stress would impair recall of prior learned information about a crime scene; and further hypothesized that impairment would be greater in participants who score high on neuroticism. In contrast to her hypothesis, Prudence’s findings suggested a trend for the Control group to display poorer memory for a crime scene compared with the Stress group. However, in examining the physiological data (skin conductance and blood pressure), it appeared that participants in the Control condition were more physiological aroused that participants in the Stress condition.

Prudence presented these findings at the 2015 Canadian Psychological Association convention.

It was a great pleasure to work with Prudence on this project and to watch her progress to where she is today.

Alyssa’s study  showed that greater perceived stress was associated with increased reporting of physical symptoms, symptoms of depression and anxiety. The most frequently reported physical symptoms were headache, sleep disturbance and cold symptoms. In student reported high levels of stress, problem-focused disengagement coping (i.e. problem avoidance and social withdrawal) was associated with greater depressive and physical symptom reporting. Use of emotion-focused engagement coping (i.e. seeking social support and emotion expression) among high stress students was associated with significantly greater anxiety. Findings indicate that when assessing the moderating effect of coping on outcome, it is important to consider the type of stress-outcome (i.e. psychological or physical). This study provides preliminary evidence that the moderating role of coping and coping subtypes, whether adaptive or not, may depend on the health outcome of interest.

Michaela’s thesis examined the association between video game play and cognitive function in undergraduates and the moderating role of video game platform. Overall, students who reported frequent video game play performed better on executive function tasks compared with non-video game players. Further, cognitive benefits are not only found in console/computer gamers, but mobile players as well.

With the help of Vivian Huang, these results were published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking (see Publication List)

Robyn examined the association between perceived stress, diet self-efficacy, and food intake in undergraduate students. Her study showed that high perceived stress was associated with increased intake of fat and sodium intake. However, this association was moderated by diet self-efficacy.

It was a great pleasure working with Robyn on her thesis and on the publication of her project. Bravo Robyn!

Nastaskin, R. & Fiocco, A.J. (2015). A survey of diet self-efficacy and food intake in students with high and low perceived stress. Nutrition Journal. 14, 42, doi:10.1186/s12937-015-0026-z.