News

As lead author, Brady Roberts worked with his supervisors Myra Fernandes and Colin MacLeod, both UWaterloo professors in psychology, to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the past 60 years of research on the enactment effect. Meta-analyses chronicle what previous studies have shown and assess various factors in the studies including how study design influences the reliability of results.

The CACBT is a national organization by and for Canadian mental health practitioners involved in the practice and theory of cognitive behaviour therapy. The mandate includes: training, advancement of knowledge, advocacy, and accreditation in the practice of CBT. 

A well deserved congratulations to Dr. Purdon!

Big congratulations to UW Social Psychology CRC, Dr. Abby Scholer, on her election to the Executive Committee of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. This comes as no surprise given Abby's steadfast dedication to the advancement of social psychological research. The term of the appointment will run for two years.  

Does spending a lot of time on your phone affect your parenting skills? According to Jasmine Zhang's research, recently featured on BBC news, parents who consume a lot of digital media to relax are more likely to be more irritable, to shout more at their kids, and to generally engage in negative parenting practices.

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Congratulations to Sophia Tran, Alyssa Smith, and Megan Kelly, who recently received awards for their presentations at CPA and CSBBCS!

Sophia Tran won the Peter Graf Award for Excellence in Brain and Cognitive Science Research for her talk entitled “Drawing Compared to Writing in a Diary Enhances Recall of Autobiographical Memories” at CPA in Calgary this June.

As a part of O’Neill’s seminar in a developmental psychology course, students worked on proposals for three different parks in the region that would allow students of all socio-economic statuses to take part in “playful learning” — using play to build skills.

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University of Waterloo Psychology ranked 5th in Canada and is in the top 100 Psychology Departments in the world, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)! This is once again a huge achievement and a wonderful testament to our world-class faculty and students... Have a scroll through here.

New research reveals that devotion to selfless values can help people feel more confident and less hostile in stressful circumstances.

“Selfless values can be like life vests that buoy a kind of higher power and resilience, freeing us from worry and defensiveness,” said Ian McGregor, professor of personality and social psychology at the University of Waterloo and the study’s lead author. “Focusing on a greater good beyond themselves had the paradoxical effect of making participants’ psychologically stronger and more reasonable.”

Beck and his graduate student, Arden Flow, collected data from a sample of 94 full-time working adults who either had or had not contracted COVID-19 at least one month prior to the study. Their study shows individuals who had contracted COVID-19 reported significantly more cognitive failures at work. “Relative to the group who had never had COVID-19, the group who had contracted COVID-19 reported more cognitive failures at work, which are defined as problems with memory, attention, and action,” Beck said.

This year, three members of the Department of Psychology have been recognized in ALL THREE of the UW Arts Awards categories:

Katherine White is the recipient of the 2022 Arts Award for Excellence in Research. This award recognizes the quantity and quality of Katherine’s research contributions and the disciplinary/interdisciplinary impact of her work.