Tag: Reynolds K

Alegra Aviña, Janieve Boyles, Trevyn DuBois, Kelsey Hansen, Kaitlyn Moore, Karen Reynolds, Emily Sanders, Chelsea Stone & Chelsea Taylor

What’s going on in there?

The brain is a marvelous structure containing billions of cells making trillions of connections so that we may think, act, and feel. One might ask, “What’s going on in there?” And the response is, “A lot!” Students from a biological psychology course will present current empirical evidence about the brain on topics such as dreaming, attraction, touch insensitivity, smell, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and marijuana use.

PSY 390, Biological Psychology

Nani Skaggs

PFB 103

10:00 – 11:00 AM

Karen D. Reynolds

Capstone Presentation

Optimism plays a significant role in a person’s overall health and well-being. This presentation will review four major themes focusing on the value of having an optimistic outlook on life. The themes include the power of optimism to heal, the incorporation of optimism into one’s life, the development of a healthy life balance, and the genetic factors that play a role in one’s happiness baseline. Researchers identified important findings regarding optimism. For example, scientists reported that optimism may improve performance, increase longevity and ward off adverse effects of stress. Further, optimism may assist in constructive future planning as well as augmenting improvement of activities of daily living. Moreover, scientists found that when prompted to think optimistically about stressors, participants with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may have experienced the mitigation of negative symptoms. Conversely, researchers reported that having an extreme preference for optimism may be linked to Bipolar Disorder, and they observed that excessively optimistic people often engage in overly risky behaviors. 

Keywords: Optimism, well-being, happiness, positive thinking, health, stress, cortisol.

PSY 499, Capstone

Mary Ann Winter-Messiers

PFB 114

12:30 – 1:00 PM

Chasity Castañeda-Estrada, Jessica Hirte & Karen Reynolds

The Effects of Priming Analytical Thinking on Performance on a Cognitive Task

Priming, a technique used to influence how one thinks, has been shown to affect an individual’s performance on cognitive tasks that depend on either analytical or intuitive thinking. Using pictures of famous statues the Thinker and the Discus Thrower, the aim of the present study was to prime participants to think either intuitively or analytically. Undergraduate students from an introductory psychology class from Northwest Christian University were asked to participate. The hypothesis was that priming participants to think analytically would increase scores on a cognitive reflection task that required analytical, as opposed to intuitive, thinking.

PSY 350 Research Methods

Nani Skaggs

Banquet Room

1 – 3 PM

Breanne Johnson, Karen Reynolds & Darcy Snyder

Feast or Famine? How Does a Person Prepare?

For our project we are conducting a survey looking at the relationship between Stress levels and eating habits of students one week prior to a major test. Specifically, we are considering whether the students consume additional food or a smaller amount, and of those who eat more food are they making healthier choices? Or preferring to go the junk food route. Our pool of subjects will come from NCU students who are enrolled in two different Psychology classes here at NCU. Both the Personality and Cognition classes that we chose have a random selection of students from all grade levels.

MATH 315

Tim Bergquist

Banquet Room

1 – 3 PM