Postgraduate research topics

Honours Students Research Options for 2018

Supervisor surname

Supervisor First Name

Projects on offer in 2018 (subject to change)

Any additional requirements

Atkinson

Quentin

Possible Research Options:

1. The foundations of human political ideology: Anyone who has debated politics over the dinner table knows that political opinions can vary widely, even within one family. But what is it that determines our views on taxation and welfare, military spending and climate change, abortion and gay marriage, and why do opinions about these seemingly disparate aspects of our social lives coalesce the way they do? This project will use survey and experimental data to identify the underlying psychological mechanisms that shape the human political landscape. This project will require and further develop good critical thinking, experimental design and quantitative skills. An interest in human evolution is preferred.

2. Can religion help us save the planet: Opinions differ regarding the extent to which religiosity promotes or suppresses concern about the environment. The ‘religious right’ in the US is notoriously blasé about the threat of climate change. Conversely, Pope Francis has put the moral weight of the Catholic church behind climate action. However, the potential for religion to help motivate environmental concern remains understudied. This project will review research in the area and design experiments to test predictions regarding how the psychology underlying religion could be used to motivate environmental action. The project will require and further develop good critical thinking, experimental design and quantitative skills. An interest in human evolution is preferred.

Ballard

Elaine

Topics will be in the area of bilingualism.  Possibilities would include but are not limited to

 a) language, attitudes and identity (e.g. 1.5 groups such as Koreans or Chinese or

 b) Language maintenance and shift in a multilingual community in NZ. 

Students must have taken Psych 313.

Students who have an interest in a topic in bilingualism should email Elaine at e.ballard@auckland.ac.nz.

Braun

Virginia

Students will be involved in critical qualitative research projects. I am specifically offering a project on 1) constructions of childfree people, and one on 2) gender and (academic) careers. I may have a project related to food and ‘healthy eating’, gendered bodies, or sex/sexuality

Prefer Hons students who have taken Psych319 if they have come through UoA. Hons students to take Psych 733 and ideally Psych 755 and Psych 726

Corballis

Paul

Topics in the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception and attention. Possible projects include:

1. Electrophysiology of target selection and distractor suppression in visual search. The project will explore the neural generators and functional significance of several lateralized ERP components that have been associated with the visual target selection and maintenance, and distractor suppression.

2. Competition for representation in the human visual system. The project will use event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioural data (response times and accuracy) to explore the conditions under which visual stimuli compete for representation in the brain. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a technique for studying the functional architecture of the visual system.

3. Modelling the human face.  The project will involve developing realistic computer-graphics models of the human face and facial expression.  The long-term goal is to generate a highly configurable simulation of the face for use in psychological research.

3. The interaction between facial expression of emotion and selective attention.  The project will use ERP and behavioural measures of performance to examine the influence of emotional stimuli – pictures or movies of facial expressions – on the allocation of spatial attention. 

Interested students should contact me to discuss requirements for this project. Some experience with elementary computer programming and/or data analysis would be helpful, but is not a strict requirement

Cowie

Sarah

On-going research in the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Research Unit. Projects generally examine how choice depends on events that have occurred in the recent past, and on events that are likely to occur in the future. Projects may involve basic experimental research with pigeon subjects, or translation of basic findings to behaviours that are harmful at excess, including gambling and unhealthy eating.

Must take PSYCH 711.

Must be available for 2 hours 1-2 days/week throughout the year to help run lab experiments.

Interested students should contact me to discuss potential projects.

Dowrick

Peter

Various topics are possible, linked to “Learning from the Future.” Applications based on video, audio, or other images of future behaviour and /or environments. May or may not involve self modelling or feedforward at the individual or community level (incl. communication, behaviour, mental or physical health, performance, education) or cognitive-neuro correlates.   Recent NZ/Oz examples include fear of dogs, selective mutism, autism, Down syndrome, stuttering, feeding disorders, communication, intellectual disabilities, reading fluency, early childhood development, ADHD, all kinds of special education, and changing sustainability in a high school.

Some familiarity with related literature. See Dowrick 2012 articles in WIREs Cognitive Science, and Psychology in the Schools. 

Elliffe

Doug

On-going research in the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Research Unit. Probably investigating choice in pigeon subjects, but there is also some possibility of a project on stimulus equivalence with human participants.

Must take PSYCH 711, and must make contact with me in advance.

Must be available for 2 hours 1-2 days/week throughout the year to help run lab experiments.

Gavey

Nicola

Students are invited to collaborate on feminist research projects related to understanding and changing elements of ‘rape culture’.  Current possibilities include social action projects with boys and young men as agents of change, promoting ethical practice in relation to intimate digital communication, pornography and so on.

Students please contact me to discuss your interests. I recommend enrolling in PG courses taught by the Psychology and Social Issues Group, and attending PSI group meetings during the year. I prefer students to have done PSYCH 319.

Groot

Shiloh

My research interests are in community and liberation psychology, Indigenous worldviews and communities, resilience,  the global self, poverty and wellbeing. My primary area of interest is homelessness, the sharp edge of poverty. I also explore the relevance and application of Māori and other Indigenous cultural concepts for understanding contemporary relationships and peoples’ efforts to cultivate a positive sense of self and place. In particular my research is action-oriented where not only does theory and research inform practice, but practice also shapes the refinement of theory and research.

It is recommended that you take PSYCH 717. Interested students should contact Dr Groot to discuss the details of the project.

Hamm

Jeff

Comparing Endogenous and Exogenous attention.

1) We can choose to pay attention to a location in space, such as by paying attention to our left or right based upon the colour of a fixation cross (i.e. blue means attend left).  In addition, our attention can be automatically drawn to a location, such as by a brief flash in our peripheral vision.  It has been argued that these two forms of shifting our attention might be shifting the same or different kinds of attention.  Attention can be quantified by looking at how much faster we respond to targets in the attended location compared to targets that appear in a non-attended location.  So, if our voluntary shifts and the automatic capture are working on the same attention, then someone who shows a large difference in one condition should show a large difference in the other as well.  If, however, different and unrelated forms of attention are being shifted, then there is no reason to assume having a large difference in one case tells us anything about the size of the difference in the other.  Using this individual difference approach, we will examine whether or not the evidence suggests that the same attention is being directed by colour changes and peripheral flashes.

Illusory Line Motion:

1) If a bar is presented between two boxes, and one of the boxes flashes, when the bar is removed it appears to shoot away from the flashed box.  However, if the bar is removed during the flash, it appears to shoot into the box.  Previous research has determined that these two illusions arise for different reasons and are unrelated to each other.  Another way to create an illusion of motion is to present two differently coloured boxes (say, red and green) and when the bar appears, it will shoot out of the box that matches the bar in colour (a red bar out of the red box).  While the illusion away from the flash and these colour illusions are unrelated to each other, it is unknown if the illusion towards the flash is related to the colour based one.  Determining this will be the focus of the current project.

2) If a bar appears between two boxes after one of the boxes flashes, the bar will appear to shoot out of the flashed box.  One explanation for this illusion is that our attention has been drawn to the box and speeds our detection of that end of the bar, so it appears to come on first, just like a real bar in motion.  Others have suggested that the flash sets up low level visual features that result in the stimulus display that produce the illusion and that attention has nothing to do with it.  Attention can also be attracted by shifting a box up and down slightly.  This should not result in the same low level visual features, and therefore, if the illusion continues to arise it would be more consistent with the attention explanation, but if the illusion does not occur, it would be more consistent with a low level, non-attention based, explanation.

Students should be comfortable with statistical analysis and having completed PSYCH 201 and/or PSYCH 303 would be a benefit. Those interested should contact Dr. Hamm to discuss the project.

Hand

Linda

·         Further part of a qualitative study of special school staff on their perceptions of vulnerability in the children they teach. Data existing.

• Investigating the effectiveness of interprofessional sessions between interpreters and speech language therapy students on the complexity of interpreted sessions. Data existing
• The complexities of learning and maintaining language through sign in a hearing world.
• Any project on children and communication difficulties, including youth justice areas, would be considered.

It is advisable, but not essential, to have taken PSYCH 313.

Please email me if you want to discuss the proposed projects l.hand@auckland.ac.nz

 I’m based at Tamaki.

Harre

Niki

Possible projects on offer for 2018:

Further development of the Infinite Game Workshop and an exploration of intrinsic and extrinsic values in applied settings

The investigation of a  school sustainability network and the dynamics that have led to its success

Evaluation of an interdisciplinary teaching unit on the global clothing industry

The motivations and tensions that drive political and environmental activism

Students must enrol in Psych 715.

Hautus

Michael

tba

Henderson

Annette

Potential topics:

Cooperation in early childhood: Cooperative activities pervade our everyday lives. Given how essential cooperation is to human groups, it is not surprising that infants learn to cooperate within the first two years of their lives. However, little is known about the factors that influence the development of cooperative competence in early childhood. This project will involve being a part of a longitudinal study looking at the emergence of cooperation across the first two years of life. Questions the project might address are: Does previous cooperative experience influence later cooperative ability? Is there a relationship between socio-cognitive skills such as imitation and joint attention influence infants' cooperative understanding and ability? What demographic factors influence infants' cooperative ability? Are infants who are good cooperators also good helpers? The specific question in this topic to be addressed in the honours thesis will be determined once the student has been matched to Annette. 

Cooperation in early parent-infant interactions: Infants engage in cooperative interactions with their caregivers from the moment they are born. The goal of this project is to identify the aspects of early cooperative interactions, such as peek-a-boo, that generalise across infant-caregiver dyads across the first two years of life. Questions the project might address are: How does the structure of cooperative interactions, such as peek-a-boo, change as infants age? How do these strategies differ across parent-infant dyads? How do parents teach their infants words at the earliest stages of development? These are just a few questions that could be examined by the student working on this project. The specific question in this topic to be addressed in the honours thesis will be determined once the student has been matched to Annette.

Relevance and selective learning in early childhood: Words are effective communicative tools when their meanings are shared by members within a linguistic group. This fact about language becomes strikingly clear when you visit a foreign country and are unable to communicate with the population because you do not share knowledge of the meanings of their words. We study when infants understand the shared nature of word meanings and how this understanding shapes older children's word learning. Students working in this domain may work on either looking at infants' expectations surrounding the shared nature of words or how information about the relevance of a new word influences preschoolers' word learning.    

Hughes

Barry

If a person went blind yesterday and began to learn to read braille today, how would s/he fare? Like the alphabet, braille is a consistent but arbitrary code, so it takes some learning. Raised dots are easily felt, but are they easily distinguished or identified? We perform precise finger movements when we undertake many everyday activities, but nothing quite like reading braille.  Fluent readers demonstrate that it can be done well.  continued

What distinguishes the fluent from the novice? I would love to work with students who are intrigued by any aspect of these complex questions and would like to investigate some precise questions that derive from it. Students will acquire new skills in experimental design, research methods, data acquisition (behavioural and perhaps EEG) and analysis, working at the cutting edge of research into reading.

Students should be enrolled in PSYCH 746.

Students who are potentially interested in this area should contact me to discuss.

Jackson

Bianca

Learning by watching: we want to understand what students learn from watching their peers as part of their clinical practicum. A deeper understanding of their experiences will enhance curriculum design to maximize these opportunities. You’ll be interviewing SLT students about their experiences of clinical placements.

Ideally you should have done PSYCH313 and a qualitative research methods course and have

 an interest in healthcare or teaching. Please talk

to me personally to express your interest.

Jiang

Lixin

My research focuses on organizational psychology in general and occupational health psychology in particular. My overarching research question is: How and why various work stressors might impact employees.

Examples of research topics that students could work on include:

• How job insecurity impacts one’s proactive behaviours in the workplace?
• How organizational constraints influences one’s voice behaviours in the organizational setting?
• How workplace incivility/bullying/harassment influences one’s turnover intentions?
• Why abusive leadership might be detrimental to employee work engagement?
• Why financial inadequacy might be negatively related to employee psychological well-being?
• Why interpersonal conflict in the workplace might increase employee burnout?

It is strongly recommended that students take PSYCH 761-Organizational Psychology and PSYCH 737-Work and Wellbeing.

Kirk

Ian

Memory systems and EEG. Oscillations in memory networks. Looking at the role of theta and gamma in working or recognition memory.

Memory and synaptic plasticity (human LTP; EEG, fMRI) and genetics (e.g. BDNF and COMT polymorphisms).

Structural imaging (diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)) of brain pathways in different populations.

Social neuroscience – political ideology. EEG signatures correlated with ideology or personality.

All Projects involve a combination of the acquisition and analysis of high-density EEG, structural or functional MRI, and/or genetic data.

Students will likely have taken Psych 202 and 305 or equivalent, and will likely also take Psych 714 (and possibly 721 and 742), and Psych 744.

Lambert

Tony

Attention and conscious awareness

Visual attention and eye movements.

Dual stream models of vision and mechanisms of attention shifting.

Behavioural and EEG studies of visual attention.

Vision science and visual art

Le Grice

Jade

Jade’s research programme explores the intersections of Indigeneity, gender, youth and sexuality, pertaining to reproduction and sexuality. Specific focus areas include domains of reproductive decision-making, early reproduction, sexual health, sexuality education, abortion, sexual violence, sexual violence prevention, and whānau as an enriching socioemotional environment. Theorising the connective tissue between lived experience, psychosocial and sociocultural contexts, knowledge, policy and practice – research projects are designed to highlight invisibilised issues, have community relevance, and address areas of social injustice.

Please feel free to discuss questions you might be interested in that map onto these areas. Possible research ideas that already have community support include –

What are the experiences, challenges, pleasures, and support needs of young Māori fathers? (with Northland District Health Board)

What do Māori experts consider important for setting a sexual violence prevention agenda? (with a HRC fellowship)

What do Māori experts consider important for the care and support needs of taitamariki Māori who have been placed in state care? (with Ngāpuhi Social Services)

There is scope to develop work on the Te Roopu Whariki and University of Auckland project on Wairua, Affect and National Days (with Principal investigators Helen Moewaka Barnes, Tim McCreanor and Margie Wetherell) http://www.wairuaaffectnationaldays.info/

There is also scope to develop research on Ballet dancers’ wellbeing following career transitions and change (with former principal dancer, Antony Pannell)

Familiarity with Kaupapa Māori, Mana Wahine and/or Critical psychology through the study of PSYCH320 and/or PSYCH319 is advised. Honours students are strongly advised to take postgraduate papers taught by members of the Psychology and Social Issues groups PSYCH717, 726, 733 and 755).

Lueders

Eileen

tba

McCann

Clare

Mood, anxiety & cognition in people with aphasia

It is advisable to have taken PSYCH 313. Please email me if you want to discuss the proposed projects c.mccann@auckland.ac.nz  because I’m based at Tamaki.

Miles

Anna

Longterm outcomes after spinal injury - voice, swallowing and mood

Moreau

David

Potential topics:

1. An 8-Week Physical Exercise Intervention Influences Human Long-Term Potentiation:

This project will explore the effect of physical exercise on neural plasticity, assessed via long-term potentiation. We will use EEG  to measure differences in plasticity before and after an exercise training program, in combination with physiological measures that will track exercise-induced improvements. 

2.  The effectiveness of the MovinCog program in children with neurodevelopmental disorders

The overall aim of this project is to investigate the MovinCog intervention to enhance cognitive abilities in children. We will combine EEG and behavioural data in pre-test/post-test designs to identify the effectiveness of the intervention in children.

 The project will allow the following:

- Identification of effective training protocols to enhance cognition via behavioural

procedures (non-invasive);

- Identification of the factors contributing to training effectiveness (behavioural, cognitive, neural);

- Contribution of study design (types of procedures and training content);

- Informed future interventions to remediate learning disorders.

continued

3. Big data analysis in brain training

This project will focus on the statistical analysis and implementation of machine learning algorithms to better understand brain training data from the MovinCog Initiative. In particular, one of the goals of the project is to better predict individual responses to training, so as to offer the most effective intervention possible for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. More information about the MovinCog Initiative can be found at: movincog.com

Muthukumaraswamy

Suresh

Studies in Human Neuropharmacology.

Students will analyse existing EEG/MEG/fMRI datasets from completed human neuropharmacology studies including options of studies of medicines, anaesthetics and psychedelics. The projects would suit students considering future research in neuroimaging and/or human neuropharmacology.

“Psych 305 or equivalent"

Interested students should email

sd.muthu@auckland.ac.nz"

Osborne

Danny

Topics broadly situated within the areas of intergroup relations and political psychology. The specific research topics may include, but are not limited to:

The effect of stereotype threat on women’s performance in maths.

Forms of system justification and their impact on people’s attitudes toward (in)equality.

The system-justifying functions of political ideology.

The impact that racial stereotypes have on people’s memory of others.

The effects of moral credentialing on people’s attitudes toward racial minorities

General topics on intergroup relations in New Zealand.

It is recommended students have taken PSYCH 204 and/or PSYCH 311. It is also strongly recommended that students take PSYCH 700 and PSYCH 744 (or related courses). All students who are interested in these (or related) topics should email Danny (d.osborne@auckland.ac.nz) before applying to the program.

Overall

Nickola

Nickola has a range of research programs focusing on close relationships and interpersonal processes. Examples of research topics that students could work on include:

investigating the role of social support in protecting psychological and physical health from the damaging effects of stressful life events

identifying the communication strategies that are most effective in resolving relationship conflict and the communication dynamics that increase the risk of relationship dissolution and divorce

examining the impact of attachment insecurity and low self-esteem on relationship functioning, and identifying the factors that can overcome these vulnerabilities

exploring how power and sexist attitudes influence interpersonal interactions, including emotional and behavioural reactions to conflict and biased perceptions of relationship transactions

It is recommended that students have taken PSYCH 311 and PSYCH 204.

Students must take PSYCH 716 (Social Psychology and Interpersonal Processes) and must be available for group meetings and workshops one afternoon a week.

Visit the following link to learn more about Nickola’s research programs:

http://relationships.auckland.ac.nz/

Visit the following link for more information about what Hons/Masters entails with Nickola:

 http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/en/for/future-postgraduates/postgraduate-study-options/social-psychology-postgraduate-programme.html

Purdy

Suzanne

Cortical auditory evoked potentials in adults and children with

auditory processing disorder: EEG evidence for altered neural

processing of speech sounds?

It is recommended but not essential that you have taken PSYCH 313.

Interested students should e-mail sc.purdy@auckland.ac.nz

Sibley

Chris

6-7 possible honours topics to choose from:

1. How can we measure psychological distress in New Zealand? This study will validate and provide normative data for a measure non-specific psychological distress, anxiety and rumination in the New Zealand population using data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study ‘(NZAVS)’. The study will also look as specific differences across gender, age and ethnic groups in psychological distress in the New Zealand population.

2. How many New Zealanders are using facebook, and is facebook use linked to psychological outcomes? This study will analyse data from the NZAVS to look at the use of facebook in a nationally reprehensive New Zealand sample, and document trends across cohorts. The study will also examine psychological correlates and outcomes associated with facebook use in the population.

3. What do New Zealanders value? The study will look at the social values held by New Zealanders, such as values of equality, authority, tolerance, and respect for elders, using data from the NZAVS. The study will also look at possible change in the values held by New Zealanders over the last three years, and across different groups in New Zealand society.

4. What predicts identification with multiple ethnic groups? This study will look specifically at people in the NZAVS who identified with multiple ethnic groups and examine whether identification with multiple group memberships changes over time. The study will try to determine what factors might predict change in the identification with only one ethnic group, or with multiple ethnic groups, and test whether this is linked to psychological health and wellbeing in different contexts

5. Does income predict life satisfaction, and if so for whom? This study will use data from the NZAVS to examine the extent to which income is linked with various measures of subjective wellbeing and health. The study will determine at which point income reaches a point of diminishing returns in predicting subjective wellbeing. The study will also explore whether the link between income and life satisfaction holds constant for different group in society, or whether income is more strongly linked to wellbeing for some groups relative to others.

6. What predicts the wellbeing and acculturation of Asian immigrants in New Zealand? This study will use data from the NZAVS to look specifically at Asian immigrants living in New Zealand. The study will look at the factors that buffer or ameliorate the psychological health, wellbeing, and acculturative stress of Asian peoples in New Zealand society.

7. How do women’s and men’s body images differ? And do differences in body image predict difference is psychological health, rumination and eating behaviour? This study will use data from the nationally representative NZAVS dataset to look at men’s and women’s levels of satisfaction with their bodies depending on their BMI and income.       Continued

 The research will examine possible gender differences and the power of social roles in the extent to which concerns about body image predict psychological wellbeing, eating behaviour and self-esteem for people within different BMI ranges.

Required courses are PSYCH 744 and PSYCH 731. Students should come and talk to me in person to discuss the topic and details

Taylor

Alex

Current research suggests that dogs are much more intelligent than we give them credit for.  For example, dogs seem much better at following human pointing gestures than chimpanzees, our closest living relative.

The Clever Canine lab at UoA (http://clevercaninelab.auckland.ac.nz/) is focused on understanding how dogs think, particularly when it comes to their owners. We hope our research will not only shed light on how social intelligence evolves, but also lead to a better understanding of dog-human social interactions. We have two honours projects available in 2018:

1. Do dogs show empathy towards their owners and other people? This project examines how dogs reacts to friendly people and those that ignore them. It also examines how dogs react when their owners and other people cry.

2. Do dogs show jealousy when their owners interact with another (toy)

dog? Jealousy is thought to be unique to humans, yet owners often report their dogs showing behaviours associated with this emotion.

This project will examine the degree to which human and dog jealousy are similar.

Recommended students have completed psych 317 and take Psych 725

Tippett

Lynette

Testing the efficacy of a memory training programme on healthy older adults.

Waldie

Karen

1. Testing a new cognitive remediation programme for children with learning difficulties: cognitive and/or EEG effects.

2. Depression and its relation with dyslexia and ADHD status in 16 year old members of the ABC study.

3. Understanding cognitive development at age 4 years: Analysing data from Growing Up in NZ

4. Gene-environment interactions in bullying and Depression in 16 year old members of the ABC study.

Wetherell

Margaret

Research related to discourse and emotion in public life applied to topics such as:

Affective practices in media representations of NZ national identity;

Narratives of migration, identity and belonging;       continued

Misogyny and masculinities in social media;

Life history and social history.

Students will need to take Psych 726 and be familiar with basic discourse analysis approaches.

Willis

Gwenda

Topics:

An analysis of media reports of sex crimes to examine cross-country differences in how the media portrays people who have sexually offended

Projects that relate to conceptualising and identifying protective factors against sexual reoffending.   Students would join a longitudinal study investigating what factors protect against reoffending in a sample of men convicted for sexual offending.

Students must take Psych 707 and attend research group meetings

Interested students must contact Gwen to discuss further g.willis@auckland.ac.nz

Addis

Donna Rose

Peterson

Elizabeth

Hayward

Will

Virues-Ortega

Javier

Barker-Collo

Suzanne

Cartwright

Claire

Dudley

Margaret

Gibson

Kerry

Lambie

Ian