Evaluation of a brief parenting intervention for parents of children suffering asthma or eczema. Childhood illnesses create a great burden for Australian families and many parents struggle with keeping their child healthy and well adjusted. This research will examine the effects of a brief parenting intervention to help parents become more skilled and confident in their role, leading to better child adjustment, health and wellbeing.
Evaluation of profile edge markings as a road safety countermeasure: Analysis of crash statistics and on-road study of driver behaviour and attitudes. Fatigue contributes to 20% of fatal car crashes. Profile line-marking (PLM) aims to reduce fatigue-related crashes by alerting drivers when they begin veering off the road. Substantial stretches are laid annually Australia-wide, although evaluations of PLM have been unsophisticated or flawed. We aim to improve understanding of PLM impacts by inve ....Evaluation of profile edge markings as a road safety countermeasure: Analysis of crash statistics and on-road study of driver behaviour and attitudes. Fatigue contributes to 20% of fatal car crashes. Profile line-marking (PLM) aims to reduce fatigue-related crashes by alerting drivers when they begin veering off the road. Substantial stretches are laid annually Australia-wide, although evaluations of PLM have been unsophisticated or flawed. We aim to improve understanding of PLM impacts by investigating: 1)beliefs/attitudes regarding PLM (e.g. "PLM damages cars"); 2)whether road-edge PLM increases head-on crashes; 3)the efficacy of PLM with more widely spaced "ribs", with and without separate raised pavement markers; 4)underlying mechanisms (e.g. reducing fatigue, increasing visibility during night/wet) in order to improve the efficacy and efficiency of PLM use.Read moreRead less
Affective influences social thinking and behaviour: A social neuroscience approach. Affective states have a major influence on how people think and behave in everyday life. However, the psychological and neural mechanisms producing these effects remain incompletely understood. This project will investigate how external situations and internal cognitive and neurological mechanisms interact to facilitate or inhibit affective influences on judgments and behaviour. The project will also develop and ....Affective influences social thinking and behaviour: A social neuroscience approach. Affective states have a major influence on how people think and behave in everyday life. However, the psychological and neural mechanisms producing these effects remain incompletely understood. This project will investigate how external situations and internal cognitive and neurological mechanisms interact to facilitate or inhibit affective influences on judgments and behaviour. The project will also develop and test an innovative information processing theory of affective influences, and develop new empirical methods for measuring the cognitive and behavioural consequences of affect. Studies will also investigate the influence of affect on clinical, organisational, educational and health outcomes, and on various real-life behaviours.
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Feeling, thinking and doing: Affective influences on social cognition and behaviour. Affect has a major influence on how people think and behave in social situations, yet the psychological mechanisms responsible for these effects remain incompletely understood. The proposed experiments will investigate the circumstances that facilitate or inhibit affect infusion into social thinking, judgments and behaviours and explore the real-life consequences of these effects. A comprehensive theoretical mod ....Feeling, thinking and doing: Affective influences on social cognition and behaviour. Affect has a major influence on how people think and behave in social situations, yet the psychological mechanisms responsible for these effects remain incompletely understood. The proposed experiments will investigate the circumstances that facilitate or inhibit affect infusion into social thinking, judgments and behaviours and explore the real-life consequences of these effects. A comprehensive theoretical model, the recently revised Affect Infusion Model will be tested as an integrative explanation for affect infusion phenomena.Read moreRead less
Attributions for food intake and the control of eating. When explaining why they ate as much as they did in a particular situation, people generally overestimate the role of their hunger or the taste of the food, and underestimate the impact of other factors such as how much food they are served or how much other people eat. This project will examine the motivation behind these mis-attributions, and will also examine the behavioural and emotional consequences of the attributions people make for ....Attributions for food intake and the control of eating. When explaining why they ate as much as they did in a particular situation, people generally overestimate the role of their hunger or the taste of the food, and underestimate the impact of other factors such as how much food they are served or how much other people eat. This project will examine the motivation behind these mis-attributions, and will also examine the behavioural and emotional consequences of the attributions people make for their food intake. By doing so, the proposed research will make a significant contribution to the theoretical understanding of people’s food intake, and can also have practical implications for helping people appropriately regulate their food intake.Read moreRead less
How do social and environmental cues influence food intake? This project will determine how social and environmental factors influence how much people eat. These insights will have theoretical implications for our understanding of what drives people's food intake, and will have practical implications for interventions aimed at curbing excess energy intake, weight gain, and obesity.
A mental model of remaining lifetime: motivating late-career adjustment and productivity. Motivating late-career workers to maintain employability and peak performance while simultaneously planning their transition to retirement has growing significance in the face of global workforce aging. This longitudinal research seeks to explain late-career motivation using an innovative theoretical framework that captures individuals’ future selves and their subjective life expectancy within a personal me ....A mental model of remaining lifetime: motivating late-career adjustment and productivity. Motivating late-career workers to maintain employability and peak performance while simultaneously planning their transition to retirement has growing significance in the face of global workforce aging. This longitudinal research seeks to explain late-career motivation using an innovative theoretical framework that captures individuals’ future selves and their subjective life expectancy within a personal mental model of remaining lifetime. The projects main focus is on Australia’s burgeoning cohort of older workers, but the framework is also assessed for its generalisability to couples’ decision-making and to the unique late-career context of elite athletes. Outcomes will promote adjustment during the late-career and retirement transition periods. Read moreRead less
Uncertainty and response control in the prefrontal cortex. This project will identify how complex behaviours come to be performed habitually. It is proposed that statistical certainty in the learning environment is a key determinant of automatic behaviour, that detection of uncertainty can restore voluntary control of behaviour and that this is an important function of the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
The emotional psychology of blood donors: understanding and using the affective key to donor return. Every week in Australia 27,000 blood donations are required to meet medical needs. Though donors are continually recruited, each year around 40per cent of Australian donors fail to re-donate. Why this occurs and how to prevent this is not well understood. Using an approach grounded in psychology and affective science, this project comprises a program of studies that aims to advance understanding ....The emotional psychology of blood donors: understanding and using the affective key to donor return. Every week in Australia 27,000 blood donations are required to meet medical needs. Though donors are continually recruited, each year around 40per cent of Australian donors fail to re-donate. Why this occurs and how to prevent this is not well understood. Using an approach grounded in psychology and affective science, this project comprises a program of studies that aims to advance understanding of the affective factors that contribute to blood donor return and translate that understanding into interventions to increase donor return. The project aims to advance the psychological conceptualisation of blood donation by integrating insight from affective science, while also enabling the Blood Service to meet the nation's demand for blood products.Read moreRead less
Regulating anger: Cognitive reappraisal, emotional suppression, and post-event rumination. Australians bear the substantial psychological, social, and economic costs associated with unrestrained anger. Anger problems are associated with school and work difficulties, poor social relationship quality, alcohol and drug use, financial and legal difficulties, premature cardiovascular mortality, and clinically significant mental health problems. Anger and aggression also cause much harm to society th ....Regulating anger: Cognitive reappraisal, emotional suppression, and post-event rumination. Australians bear the substantial psychological, social, and economic costs associated with unrestrained anger. Anger problems are associated with school and work difficulties, poor social relationship quality, alcohol and drug use, financial and legal difficulties, premature cardiovascular mortality, and clinically significant mental health problems. Anger and aggression also cause much harm to society through crime, domestic abuse, and workplace violence among others. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates the cost of assault, sexual assault, and homicide in Australia at over $2.5 billion per year. The insights gained from this research may help ameliorate these negative consequences of anger.Read moreRead less