Monthly Archives: January 2016

Are you 18 years of age or older? YOU ARE INVITED to participate in a one session online research study that is being conducted by researchers from Oakland University. This study is being led by Aundreah Walenski and Dr. Kanako Taku (Associate Professor). You will be asked to do the following: 1) provide demographic information such as your age, ethnicity and religious association 2) complete a few questionnaires about how you perceive stress, and 3) asked to recall your past experiences that were stressful life events. All procedures in this survey have been approved by the Oakland University Institutional Review Board. This study will last approximately 45 minutes.

Study Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/multitudeofeventsproject

Lab member, Lauren Harrison, presented her first Journal Club Presentation at our last meeting. Journal Club Presentations give our research assistants an opportunity to present a PTG article of their interest to the lab and challenge their research skills. Lauren choose an article on Personality, posttraumatic stress and trauma type: factors contributing to posttraumatic growth and its domains in a Turkish community sample. This study found that PTS severity contributed to PTG total and all domains except for appreciation of life. They also found that PTG and its domains were influenced by levels of personality and PTS severity.

This semester has been a productive semester for the PTG lab. Currently, three abstracts have been accepted for poster presentations at the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA), three abstracts are to be presented at the American Psychological Association (APA) this August 2016, and two symposiums are invited for International Congress Psychology (ICP). In addition, some of the lab members received awards this past semester.

• Aundreah Walenski received the Rosen fellowship award and Provost Undergraduate Student Research Award. Her project title is “Personal growth resulting from multiple stressful and challenging events among college and high school students.”
• Whitney Dominick received the Provost Graduate Student Research Award. Her project title is “Animal assisted therapy, perceived social support, and post traumatic growth in traumatized youth.”
• Kana Taku received the University Research Committee Faculty Research Fellowship Award. Her project title is “Effects of mortality salience and personality on post traumatic growth and group entitativity.”

Stay tuned for updates on another productive semester in the PTG lab for Winter 2016.