Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano published an article with several current SU undergraduates, including Georgia Micknal (first author) ’25, Samantha Gonzales ’26, Lauren Levee ’27, Gabrielle Fullard ’27, and Kalista Esquivel ’26. The article is titled “(Don’t) hit me up: The effects of initiator gender and setting on perceptions of date initiation” and will be published in the December issue of the North American Journal of Psychology.

Recent graduate Ian Klepcyk ’24 and Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci published one of two submitted entries in the Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior, published by Springer. This entry also includes videos Ian filmed in the lab as a companion to the written submission. The entry can be read here.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and her students, Lainey Gutierrez ’25, Jaxson Haynes ’25, Maryn Medlock ’25, Cassidy Reynolds ’25, and Lauren Sanders ’24, presented a poster titled “Developing the Self-Perceived Parental Effort Scale (SPES)” at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, CA on May 25.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano has a chapter entitled, “Making Personal Connections with Social Psychology,” appearing in the forthcoming book (to be published in August), Teaching Social Psychology.

French and psychology double major Sarah Woods ’21 is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, studying cognition and neural science in the department of psychology. She was recently selected as a recipient of the prestigious and nationally competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations to Sarah and her SU faculty champions who prepared her for this next step!

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano published an article entitled “Successfully publishing with undergraduate coauthors in psychology: Insights from faculty with top track records.” Coauthors are former students Will Hebl ’23 and Jennifer Howell ’09. The article can be read here.

Several Psychology faculty members and students presented papers at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association in San Antonio. Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano and student Megan Muskara ’24, presented a poster titled “Identifying predictors of the psychological benefits of travel.” Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and students Lainey Gutierrez ’25, Jaxson Haynes ’25, Maryn Medlock ’25, Cassidy Reynolds ’24, and Lauren Sanders ’24 presented a poster titled “Developing the Self-Perceived Parental Effort Scale (SPES).” Assistant Professor of Psychology Karen Lara and students Mara Strohl ’25, Paige Chapman ’25, Tessa Elizondo ’24, Jessica Metcalf ’25, Hailey Brisco ’25, and Ashten Wheeler ’25 presented a poster titled “Children’s and Adults’ Reasoning About How Expected Wait Time Influences Preferences and Emotions.”

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano presented a poster titled, “Using ‘Personal Connections’ Writing Assignments in Introductory Psychology,” at the annual meeting of the Society for Teaching of Psychology in Portland, Oregon, Oct 6-8.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci was invited to give a talk at the symposium titled Gender Incongruence at the 63rd annual meeting of the European Society of Pediatric Endocrinology in den Hague, Netherlands, in September. The talk “Animal Models of Transgender Care: Advantages and Drawbacks” was well received by a mostly clinical audience.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano published an article entitled, “How common is undergraduate publication in psychology? An examination of faculty vitae from top colleges and universities.”Coauthors are former students Will Hebl ’23 and Jennifer Howell ’09.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux has accepted an invitation to join the Editorial Board of the interdisciplinary journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. This biannual publication focuses on evolutionary approaches to sociocultural aspects of life such as the arts, humanities, philosophy, history, and pop culture.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with alumni Alyssa Sucrese ’21, Erica Burley ’22, Sarah Woods ’21, and Zach Bencal ’21, have published a paper titled “Just friends? Jealousy of extramarital friendships” in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences (after nearly a year and a half ‘in press’!). This article is based on the group’s Capstone research.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and alumna Sarah Woods ’21 presented a poster titled “Parental Burden Predicts Jealousy in Married Individuals” at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) in Palm Springs, CA, at the beginning of June. This work reflects Sarah’s capstone research at SU (she is currently in graduate school at the University of Utah).

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and students Madeline Bollinger ’24, Laurel Mulkey ’24, and Vy Nguyen ’23 presented a poster titled “Calm Yourself Up? Converse Effects of ASMR on Heart Rate and GSR” at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in Atlanta this past weekend. This reflects work completed during SCOPE 2022.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano and psychology major Will Hebl ’23 presented a poster entitled “How Common is Undergraduate Publication in Psychology” at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Atlanta, Georgia, this past weekend.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano recently delivered a “Guest Expert Webinar” for the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. Her presentation was titled “Lessons Learned from Two Decades of Publishing with Undergraduates.” The NCFDD’s mission is to provide underrepresented faculty at member schools with on-demand access to mentoring, tools, and support to thrive in academia– including help with planning, productivity, healthy relationships, and work-life balance.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano participated at the 4th Annual College Readiness Symposium (Breaking Barriers, Growing Generations) sponsored by the Austin ISD and held at St. Edwards University on Saturday, Feb 11th. Dr. Giuliano gave two sessions of a presentation called “A Professor’s Tips for Succeeding in College.”

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci and current students Megan Kelly ’23, Amanda Gale ’23, Jasmine Belfield ’23, and Natalie Williams ’25, as well as alums Layla Avendano ’22, Cler Estoestra ’22, Brooke Frohock ’21, Lily Yepez ’22, and Bernard Sencherey ’22, recently published the article “Chronic periadolescent leuprolide exposure affects the development of reproductive physiology and behavior of female and male rats differently, but both mature after treatment termination” in Biology of Sex Differences.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano published an article titled “A Three-Pronged Approach for Teaching Psychology Students to Understand and Avoid Plagiarism” in Teaching of Psychology.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci coauthored an article with Layla Avendano ’22, Isabel Candelario ’21, Cler Estoesta ’22, Brooke Frohock ’21, Kate Davis ’20, Megan Kelly ’23, Matt Oevermann ’21, Bernard Sencherey ’22, Erin Toro ’21, and Hannah Valdivia ’22 that was accepted for publication by Physiology & Behavior.The project, titled “Daily GnRH Agonist Treatment Effectively Delayed Puberty in Female Rats without Long-Term Effects on Sexual Behavior or Estrous Cyclicity,” was supported by a grant from the American Psychological Foundation. Part of the work also was supported by SCOPE funding.

Allison Hewett ’22, Vy Nguyen ’22, and Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux presented a poster at the Western Psychological Association 102nd Annual Convention, held April 27–May 1 in Portland, Oregon. This poster, titled “Who Gets the Tingles? Modeling ASMR Predictors,” represents their work during SCOPE 2021.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano’s article “High Impact: Examining Predictors of Faculty-Undergraduate Coauthored Publication and Presentation in Psychology” was published in the journal PLOS ONE. All three coauthors, Isham Kimbell ’21, Emily Olsen ’20, and Jennifer Howell ’09, were current or former undergraduates at the time the research was conducted.

Alumna Alyssa Sucrese ’21, Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, and current student Erica Burley ’22 presented a poster titled “Just Friends? Jealousy Attributions for Extramarital Friendships” at the 2022 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention, held virtually and in person February 16–19.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with collaborator Jaime Cloud of Western Oregon University, published two articles in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences: “This Old Thing? Responding to Compliments Depends on Sex and Relative Status” and “The Relationship between Mating Context and Women’s Appearance Enhancement Strategies.”

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci was recently awarded the American Psychological Foundations 2021 Division 1–Society for General Psychology Mary Whiton Calkins Grant. The grant will support research on the development of an animal model of puberty delay and gender-affirming hormone treatment to better understand the long-term outcomes of puberty suppression and adult hormone treatment in the context of gender transition. Mary Whiton Calkins was the first woman to preside as president of the American Psychological Association in 1905.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci recently published an article that was a collaboration across three countries investigating the patterning of male sexual behavior in two strains of rats. The article, “Male Rat Sexual Behavior: Insights from Inter-Copulatory Intervals,” was published in Behavioral Processesthis month.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux  has accepted a position on the editorial board of the new Journal of Social Psychology Research ( JSPR ) . JSPR  is a fully open-access journal that functions as an outlet for pioneering integrative frameworks toward existing social psychology theories and concepts. This journal aims to deliver theoretical and empirical papers based on interpersonal relationships at the level of individuals and social groups. The editors encourage submissions on substantial interdisciplinary research on the theory, content, models, directions and problems of social psychology developments.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and her capstone students, Zack Bencal ’21, Erica Burley ’22, Alyssa Sucrese ’21, Sarah Woods ’21, and Michael Vitullo ’20, presented a poster titled “Just Friends? An Evolutionary Perspective on Jealousy and Extramarital Friendships” at the (virtual) annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society on June 25, 2021. Their poster was selected as one of the 12 finalists in the conference poster competition. You can watch Perilloux’s three-minute poster talk here. A copy of the poster is available here.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Karen Lara had an article titled “This Is Not What I Expected: The Impact of Prior Expectations on Children’s and Adults’ Preferences and Emotions” recently published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett ’05, Tyler Norman ’20, and Monique Pollmann (Tilburg University) published the article “Reading between the Lines: The Effects of Texting on Relationship Satisfaction and Understanding in Romantic Couples” in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Emily Sydnor was a panelist, presenter, chair, and discussant for several sessions at the (virtual) Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting. The highlights included presenting her work on students’ physiological reactions to controversial speech on campus, a collaborative project with Emily Tesmer ’20 and Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett ’05, and participating in a roundtable on “Polarization, Animosity, and Violence in American Politics.” Senior political science major Emily Gilby ’21 also presented her honors thesis, “Institutional Barriers to Youth Voter Turnout,” at the conference.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with collaborator Jaime Cloud of Western Oregon University, had two articles recently accepted for publication in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences: “The Relationship between Mating Context and Women’s Appearance Enhancement Strategies and “This Old Thing? Responding to Compliments Depends on Sex and Relative Status.” 

Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett published an article with colleagues in the Netherlands titled “Does Attachment Style Moderate the Effect of Computer-Mediated versus Face-to-Face Conflict Discussions?” The article was published in the journal Personal Relationships.  For more information, click here .

Kate Davis ’20 and Hannah Hanson ’22 conducted a SCOPE project under the supervision of Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci, which was recently published in Physiology & Behavior. This collaboration also involved Jessica Bolton ’10, who will soon begin a tenure-track position at Georgia State University. Davis, a current graduate student in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, designed the project, and together, the team found that using an animal model of poverty caused long-term deleterious effects on reproductive physiology and behavior. Neonatal poverty disrupted maternal behavior, which accelerated physiological maturation in females but delayed sexual maturation in males. However, both male and female rats displayed enhanced sexual motivation. These results have implications for precocious sexual behavior and disrupted puberty in children who are born into poverty. This research was also supported by a Sam Taylor Award. 

Recent alumni Maryam Ali ’20, Michael Broyle  ’20, Kate Davis  ’20, Chantal Gonzalez  ’19, Devon Lucero  ’19, and Lainey Stary  ’19 and Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci  published a new research project investigating the long-term effects of neonatal exposure to a component of soy (genistein) on male and female reproductive physiology and behavior in the journal Behavioural Pharmacology.  Although this research was conducted in rats, it suggests that there may be some consequences of feeding neonates soy-based formula.

For the first time, members of Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci’s  team of researchers, the Guarraci Lab, had two articles accepted for publication as companion papers in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior.  These two papers reflect a collaboration between the Guarraci Lab and Sarah Meerts from Carleton College and her student. The SU coauthors include current psychology major Shannon Odell  ’20; recent psychology graduates Kate Davis  ’20, Wes Clemmons  ’20, and Beth Henneman  ’20; Maryam Ali  ’19 (biology); as well as alumnae Chantal Gonzalez  ’19 (psychology) and Devon Lucero  ’19 (animal behavior). The first article is titled “I. Antidepressants and Sexual Behavior: Weekly Ketamine Injections Increases Sexual Behavior Initially in Female and Male Rats.” This work was supported by multiple SCOPE awards and a Sam Taylor Award. The second article is titled “II: Antidepressants and Sexual Behavior: Acute Fluoxetine, but not Ketamine, Disrupts Paced Mating Behavior in Sexually Experienced Female Rats.”

Assistant Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux presented a poster with her collaborator Dr. Jaime Cloud (Western Oregon University) at the evolutionary psychology pre-conference at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in New Orleans, LA. You can download an image of the poster, “Women with Attractive Faces Want it All,” here.

Daniela Beckelhymer ’20 and Emily Thompson ’22 presented “Who Feels the Tingles? The Emotional Side of ASMR” at the emotion pre-conference with Assistant Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in New Orleans, LA. This poster is based on work completed on a 2019 SCOPE project.

Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett presented a poster with students MacKenzie Maddox ’19, Athena Pinero ’20, and Aaron Mink ’21 titled “Is Emotional Suppression All Bad? The Consequences Associated with Suppressing Negative and Positive Emotions” at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in New Orleans, LA. This research was the result of a faculty-student research project in the summer of 2019.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano presented a poster titled “A 3-Pronged Approach for Teaching Psychology Students to Understand and Avoid Plagiarism” at the teaching pre-conference of the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in New Orleans, LA.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci, Chantal Gonzalez ’19,  Devon Lucero’19, Kate Davis’20, and Sarah Meerts, an associate professor of neuroscience and psychology at Carleton College, published a longitudinal study in the journal Current Aging Science titled “Sexual Behavior Is Enhanced by Regular, Repeated Mating Behavior from Young Adulthood to Middle Age in Female Long-Evans Rats.”