Clinical Research Projects Available for 2017
You can discuss potential Masters and PhD projects with any staff in the School of Psychology. Their research interests can be found at: http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/psychology/our-people/home.cfm
There are also a variety of specific project areas that have been outlined below, some by external supervisors, others by staff in the School of Psychology.
Projects Supervised by School of Psychology Staff
Michelle Arnold (Lecturer, School of Psychology)
My interests include the reconstructive nature of memory (e.g., subjective experience of remembering, false memory), strategic regulation of accuracy (e.g., knowing when to act on a piece of information or when to keep quiet), and judgment and decision making across a variety of situations. One current interest in our lab is understanding how the context of a situation affects strategic regulation; for example, whether punishing people for reporting wrong information works better than rewarding people for reporting correct information.
Another current interest is understanding anomalistic belief (i.e., belief in the paranormal, extra-terrestrials, etc.). Previous work in this area is limited, but typically indicates there are performance differences between people who hold such beliefs and those who do not. Our work focuses on understanding these differences, as well as how other variables may be related to anomalistic belief (e.g., religiosity, schizotypy, belief in complementary and alternative medicine, etc).
Dr Lisa Beatty (Cancer Council SA Postdoctoral Fellow (Cancer Support), Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer & School of Psychology):
There is currently 1 project on offer to a Master of Psychology (Clinical) student exploring the real life utility of open access online psychological interventions in cancer. While the evidence base for online psychological interventions in cancer populations is building, this evidence base has been derived almost exclusively from clinical trials. It appears that usage and effectiveness differ markedly in real-world open-access settings compared to clinical trial settings, however no published study to date has explored the feasibility (uptake, adherence) and basic effectiveness of an open access program in cancer. The project will address this gap, and evaluate the feasibility and clinical effectiveness of ‘Finding My Way’ (an online psychological intervention for cancer related distress) in an open access setting. This project will be co-supervised by Prof Bogda Koczwara, Medical Oncologist, Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer.
Mariëtte Berndsen (Lecturer, School of Psychology)
My primary research interests involve the social psychology of emotions, stigma, and prejudice. I would like to supervise projects in the area of:
- Guilt and shame. How do people cope with these emotions (e.g., avoiding specific situations) and how can we mitigate these emotions?
- Stigma. Individuals who deviate (in negative ways) from normative standards in their behaviour and/or appearance are often stigmatized. This is especially so when they are perceived to have some control over their behaviour/appearance (e.g., obese people, people who suffer from depression). How do stigmas affect one’s life and can we reduce stigmas?
Junwen Chen (Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology)
My research primarily focuses on anxiety disorders, specifically social anxiety (disorder) and excessive worry, as well as the cross-cultural study of these problems in different populations. For 2017, I am keen on supervising projects related to these areas. Examples of projects are:
· Investigating the maintaining mechanisms of, and factors pertaining to social anxiety, excessive worry (e.g., cognitive processes such as interpretation bias or post-event rumination; intolerance of uncertainty);
· Investigating preventative strategies for school refusal behaviours in youth with anxiety and depression, targeting excessive worry as a transdiagnostic process
· The role of perfectionism in social anxiety and its cognitive processes (e.g., interpretation bias, rumination)
· Undertaking a cross-cultural comparison of underlying factors and symptoms of these disorders/problems.
Sarah Cohen-Woods ( Matthew Flinders Fellow, School of Psychology)
My research focuses on establishing the role of genetics and epigenetics in psychological outcomes, and how environmental risk/protective factors mediate their influence through our biology (i.e. via epigenetic change. Understanding how it is the environment interacts with our genetics to either increase or decrease risk of poor mental health). Epigenetics provides a possible mechanism by which the environment can interact with our genome. Current projects that could be of interest to Masters and PhD students include: 1) investigating epigenetic change in context of cross-generational inheritance of childhood maltreatment (poor outcomes in children born to fathers exposed to childhood maltreatment); 2) understanding the genetic and epigenetic basis of psychosis in context of childhood maltreatment, and neuroimaging-related and cognitive phenotypes in psychosis; 3) understanding the mechanisms of comorbidity between depressive symptoms, and obesity through child and adolescent development, and the impact of stressors in that time; 4) investigating if there is evidence for psychological disorders mediating the effect of obesity genetic risk variants from childhood through to adulthood; and 5) investigating epigenetic and biological effects of yoga and if biological changes are related to psychological change.
Some of the terms and ideas may sound intimidating, particularly if you have not yet had exposure to behavioural genetic research, however I will provide information and resources for gaps in knowledge, and the appropriate support to develop required skills. Please could interested students contact me at to discuss potential projects.
Michael Gradisar (Associate Professor, School of Psychology):
There is currently 1project on offer to a Master of Psychology (Clinical) student. Aspects of sleep (eg, REM sleep) are associated with learning, memory, and emotional processing. Currently we are providing a simple 2-week treatment for school-aged children who have fears of sleeping alone. Data thus far show improvements in diary-reported sleep and reductions in self-reported anxiety. This suggests a rapid fear extinction process. The project on offer intends to measure objective sleep in these children (ie, polysomnography), before and after treatment, and against a control, to identify which sleep stages may be implicated in fear reductions.
Eva Kemps (Professor, School of Psychology): I am interested in supervising projects that apply experimental cognitive psychology to the study of health behaviours, in particular eating behaviour and physical activity. Examples of possible projects include:
· Investigating the role of mental imagery in the experience and reduction of food cravings
· Evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive bias modification for reducing unhealthy as well as dysfunctional eating behaviour (including emotional eating and over-eating, as well as the consumption of beverages such as energy drinks and soft drinks) and/or increasing physical activity
· Examining effects of nutrition and/or physical activity on cognition and psychological well-being
Leon Lack (Professor, School of Psychology)
Two funded projects for 2017 that could accommodate a master's project include:
· We have evidence that insomniacs experience poor days following poor sleeps. We want to explore whether successful treatment of insomnia with CBTi results in a decrease of this relationship as is true for good sleepers and underlies the decreased beliefs about the impact of poor sleep on their subsequent daytime functioning.
· We are further exploring aspects of Intensive Sleep Re-training, a novel and very promising treatment of insomnia. In particular we aim to translate a presently laboratory administered therapy to the home environment.
Robert Lynd-Stevenson (Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology)
I’m trained and registered as a clinical psychologist and worked in the community as a clinical psychologist for a number of years. My primary interest when conducting research is to use modelling methods (i.e., nonexperimental methods) to investigate various theories about the role of cognitions in the aetiology and treatment of anxiety and depression. Perhaps a bit of background may help to explain my research interests. Seligman (1966) argued that the causal conclusions reported in modelling research are just as valid as the causal conclusions reported in experimental research. A major implication of Seligman’s argument is that there’s nothing about experimental research to guarantee that clinical interventions (or any other interventions) actually work in the community. Seligman’s article was criticised by a number of people and I published a methodological article in defense of Seligman’s argument (Lynd-Stevenson, 2007). A few examples of research topics that I’d be interested in supervising that would involve the use of modelling methods (if you’re curious, I can cite examples from the research literature to stimulate your thinking):
· investigating the contribution of threat cognitions to the aetiology and treatment of anxiety;
· the role of cognitions (e.g., automatic thoughts, schema) in the aetiology and treatment of depression;
· developing a causal model to account for the factors that moderate the influence of clinical treatments in real-world settings.
· the contribution of social, political and community factors involved in the increasing levels of depression and anxiety reported in Western societies.
· Another field of interest concerns the scientist-practitioner model (again, if you’re curious, I can cite examples from the research literature to stimulate your thinking):
· the scientist-practitioner model doesn’t appear to be working as originally envisaged. In what way (if at all) does the model actually work?
· what are the procedures presently followed around Australia for allocating students to clinical placements in the community?
· why don’t many clinical psychologists offer placements?
· what are the factors that students consider make a good supervisor?
· what are the factors involved in generating student satisfaction with placements?
· what amount of psychopharmacology should be taught to clinical students?
Julie Mattiske (Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology): For Masters projects, I am broadly interested in anxiety, anxiety disorders, and health-related issues. I have supervised Masters projects in a range of other areas including perfectionism, schizophrenia, and alcohol dependence. I would be very happy to serve as the internal co-supervisor for most of the nominated health projects, e.g., diabetes, oncology.
Reg Nixon (Professor, School of Psychology) My primary interest is child and adult response to traumatic stressors that can include (among others) physical and sexual assault, motor vehicle accidents, losing relatives to homicide and combat/war-related trauma. I am specifically interested in how psychological difficulties such as acute stress disorder (ASD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develop following trauma, and in the treatment of these disorders. I am currently researching memory in traumatised children, intrusive memory in traumatised adults and the treatment of posttraumatic stress in adults. I have several possible projects in these and related domains that I am happy to discuss further.
Marika Tiggemann (Professor, School of Psychology) (This research project is only offered to the Master of Psychology (Clinical) students.)
I am interested in supervising projects in the broad area of body image. Specific interests include media effects, sexualisation of children, adult women, and applications of Objectification Theory.
Michael Tlauka (Lecturer, School of Psychology). My research focuses on human spatial memory. I am interested in supervising projects examining people's ability to learn spatial information in a variety of contexts. Recent investigations include forgetting, virtual learning and sex differences in spatial ability.
Tracey Wade (Professor, School of Psychology): There are three areas on ongoing research that may be of interest to postgraduate students. The first is evaluation of an online perfectionism treatment program. We have evidence to show that an 8-session face to face protocol works, and that also produces significant benefit in an online context. However, we now want to know if a shorter online program (i.e., around 3 sessions) can also produce significant change in perfectionism and associated psychopathology. The second is the evaluation of a three-session perfectionism intervention in children, designed as a universal prevention program for the classroom. The third is developing a better understanding of which clients with eating disorders are best suited to an intensive 10-session CBT (CBTi).
Michael Wenzel (Associate Professor, School of Psychology)
My research currently focuses on responses to victimizations and wrongdoing in interpersonal or intergroup contexts. Specifically, I am interested in victims’ and wrongdoers’ responses to wrongdoing and the roles of confession, apology, forgiveness and self-forgiveness, punishment and self-punishment, etc., in the restoration of justice perceptions, moral identities, and social relationships.
Tim Windsor (Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology):
I am interested in projects concerned with changes in social behavior and emotion regulation that occur during adulthood and ageing. Potential projects might involve examining the different types of emotion regulation strategies that older and younger adults use, and whether use of different strategies are more or less effective for younger and older adults in managing their emotional reactivity to different stimuli. I am also interested in age differences in peoples’ attempts to regulate the emotions of social partners (extrinsic emotion regulation), and whether older and younger adults can be primed to engage in self-regulatory behaviors (e.g., avoidance of negative stimuli) using implicit means (i.e., outside of conscious awareness).
Urry,H.L , & Gross, J.J. (2010). Emotion regulation in older age. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 352-357.
Robyn Young (Assoc Prof, School of Psychology)
My research is in the area of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I am interested in outcomes of persons with ASD ( children and adults) as well as comorbidity issues. I am also interested in early detection of autism, and female profiles. I am also interested in people’s fitness to stand trial and other matters related to ASD and criminality; either perpetrators or victims.
I am engaged in a collaborative research project with Neil Brewer (Professor, School of Psychology) which provides many possible avenues for clinical projects. Broadly speaking the project is concerned with the interactions that adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have with the criminal justice system. We have recently completed a book manuscript titled The Crimes of People with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Myths and Mechanisms. In this we identify numerous interesting but largely unresearched issues. These primarily relate to those social-cognitive characteristics of individuals with ASD that might contribute to their becoming involved in crime (as a culprit or a victim) or to prejudicial (i.e., negative) interactions with the police and the courts. We can accommodate a couple of students working on projects in this area, particularly projects that might tackle closely related investigations of the same basic issue. Many of these projects are amenable to laboratory experimentation – so, just to illustrate (note: these are but a couple of examples from numerous possibilities), one might examine how some particular characteristics of the verbal or nonverbal presentation of individuals with ASD affect the way in which others perceive or respond to them, or how an inability to detect the intentions of others through reading their nonverbal behaviour may contribute to a problematic interaction with that person.