Monthly Archives: April 2021

Our lab member, Dr. Whitney Dominick, comments on posttraumatic growth in the context of COVID-19! Click here for the full interview.

Second-semester undergraduate lab member, Victoria Kaznowski, recently gave a presentation on the article titled Examining connection to nature and mindfulness at promoting psychological well-being.

The purpose of the presented study was to examine the relationship between nature connection, mindfulness, and psychological well-being by proposing a model demonstrating the nature well-being relationship. A survey measuring mindfulness and connection to nature (CN) was administrated to 360 undergraduates from a midwestern university enrolled in an array of courses. Students were compensated for their participation by receiving extra credit. Researchers hypothesized three potential mediating pathways from nature to psychological well-being: cognitive restoration, increase in positive affect and decrease in negative affect, and mindfulness. It was predicted that CN and mindfulness have indirect and direct associations with psychological well-being and that indirect associations are mediated by mindful attention and mindful awareness.

Results showed mindful attention and mindful awareness significantly mediated several connections between connection to nature and psychological well-being. Connection to nature could facilitate mindfulness and might be interacting with the direct attention relief provided by natural environments. Mindful awareness was found to significantly moderate the effect of perceived stress on life satisfaction. This suggests it may help individuals adopt a more temporary perspective of thoughts experienced during unpleasant circumstances. Mindful acceptance significantly moderated perceived stress and positive states of mind contrary to expectations. It was also discussed that nature exposure could be an avenue to overall mindfulness.

To further her investigation, Victoria used the data collected from the ARFID Study to examine if individuals participation in outdoor activities and exposure to nature relates to trait anxiety and social anxiety levels. After primary data analysis, an inverse relationship between nature observation and social anxiety was revealed. Those with lower levels of social anxiety had more exposure to nature through participation in nature observation activities.

Nature observation, a variation of connecting to nature, could facilitate mindfulness and may be beneficial in alleviating feelings of social anxiety. Victoria will be participating in a nature immersion program during the summer, which might aid in the preparation for her senior thesis. We are looking forward to future findings! Amazing job, Victoria.

Last week, Isabelle gave her first presentation in the lab titled Unmotivated or Motivated to Fail? A Cross-Cultural Study of Achievement Motivation, Fear of Failure, and Student Disengagement that focused on the Quadripolar Model of achievement motivation.

The Quadripolar Model categorizes students into groups based on level of success orientation and level of fear of failure and is used to predict which individuals may be susceptible to self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, and helplessness when it comes to academics. The purpose of the article being presented was to incorporate and strengthen research on achievement and motivation related to success orientation, fear of failure, and disengagement through a cross-cultural comparative design based on the self-worth theory. One study was conducted in Japan and another study was done with an Australian sample that both assessed the students’ tendency to approach success, failure appraisal, and patterns of adaptive learning. It was predicted that fear of failure would positively associate with maladaptive coping mechanisms and specifically positively associated with self-handicapping in the self-protector group. For failure acceptor students, the researchers predicted that there would be an interaction between success orientation and fear of failure in helplessness attributes. Another prediction was that success orientation would negatively associate with self-handicapping and helplessness while positively associating with defensive pessimism.

The interaction between success orientation and fear of failure on helplessness and self-handicapping were significant cross-culturally, with Australian students having higher rates of self-handicapping overall than Japanese students who had low success orientation scores. Japanese students were less vulnerable to adopting the maladaptive coping mechanisms, but the different cultures had no impact when it came to success orientation. Among the self-protection strategies, self-handicapping was most common among self-protecting students with helplessness, truancy, disengagement significantly correlating with fear of failure. Furthermore, researchers discovered trends of low self-esteem and poor academic performance in self-handicapping students. Isabelle is currently looking further into self-handicapping with a focus on long-term effects on academic achievement in the student population. Awesome work, Isabelle! We are looking forward to seeing where this line of research takes you!