The PTG Lab recently attended the 125th meeting of the American Psychological Association in Washington D.C. from August 3-6. Together, members of the PTG Lab at Oakland University as well as members of the Posttraumatic Growth lab from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte under Dr. Richard Tedeschi presented recent findings at the symposium on August 5th. This symposium was dedicated to the life and memory of Shelby Jane Seyburn.
Shelby tragically passed on June 3rd of this year. Shelby was a beloved lab manager, colleague, and friend to all of us and has been missed beyond measure. The PTG Lab is determined to keep Shelby’s work and memory going. Dr. Richard Tedeschi began the symposium with a touching dedication to Shelby and her incredible work in the lab. This presentation at APA served as a reminder of the impact Shelby has had, and continues to have on so many people. She will remain as our eternal lab manager.
Kanako Taku, Lawrence Calhoun, Jenna Duronio, Aundreah Walenski, Velinka Marton, Lauren Harrison, Takaharu Nakamura, Leah McDiarmid, Whitney Dominick, Richard Tedeschi, Hitomi-san, Shuhei Iimura, Olivia Riffle, and Cara Blevins (from left to right)
Leah began the session, presenting her research titled “The Role of Family Values: Posttraumatic Growth in Adolescents.” (Presented by Leah McDiarmid). The main finding was that family valued PTG more strongly related to adolescent self-esteem than personally important PTG.
Whitney close the symposium with her presentation titled “Can Pets Help Us Experience Growth After Trauma?”(Presented by Whitney Dominick), which was a project she worked on with Aundreah Walenski and Jenna Duronio. A major finding was that the amount of time spent with pets predicts PTG in the relating to others domain.
Lauren presented her poster titled “A Cross-Cultural Study of Narcissim and Posttraumatic Growth” (Presented by Lauren Harrison) for which she received the “best poster” award for the Division 1, General Psychology. Way to go, Lauren! Lauren and Dr. Taku also presented a poster titled “Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Death in Japanese and American Undergraduates (Presented by Lauren Harrison).
Aundreah Presented her poster titled “The Importance of Attributing Events to Posttraumatic Growth in Adolescents (Presented by Aundreah Walenski).” In addition, Dr. Taku presented four papers with her colleagues in Japan, Atsushi Oshio, Shuhei Iimura, and Takaharu Nakamura.
FF-PTG LAB 