Second-year master’s student, Olivia Rothig, and fifth-year PhD student, Whitney Dominick, presented an update of their respective current studies at the most recent Psychology Department’s Research Colloquium. The Research Colloquium hour provides a monthly opportunity for students and faculty to gather and view presentations of current psychological research at Oakland University. The presentation hour is open to all OU students and faculty.
Olivia presented results from her master’s thesis entitled, The Relationship Between Growth and Creativity in Children. She conducted a study that analyzed creativity, personal growth, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in children between the ages of 8-11 years old. She found that creativity is positively correlated with both PTG and personal growth in children and that the level of extraversion and openness within the children plays a significant role in that relationship. However, Olivia did not find significant results on the caregiver’s level of openness on the relationship between the children’s PTG and creativity. Overall, Olivia’s research suggests that daily life stressors might encourage positive outcomes like creativity.
Whitney shared results from the third part of her doctoral dissertation titled, The Impact of Captive Swim-With-Dolphin Programs on Children’s Mental Health and Environmental Attitudes. She conducted a study that examined children’s educational and psychological aspects before and after interacting in a swim-with-dolphin program. She found that swimming with captive dolphins can help with emotion regulation, knowledge of dolphin welfare, and heart rate in children, but her findings suggest little long-term impact. She also found that the length of the program impacted the children’s environmental awareness and conservation behavior. Lastly, her participants enjoyed interactions with dolphins, found it to be entertaining and novel, and many of the children wanted to stay longer and/or do again.
The PTG Lab is extremely proud of Olivia and Whitney for representing the lab well with their fascinating research. Both presentations sparked curiosity in the audience and prompted many follow-up questions. We look forward to the completion of each of their studies and further presentations that will incorporate even more fascinating results! Wonderful job, Olivia and Whitney!
FF-PTG LAB 