The Social Development Lab

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON

Supervisor: Dr. Heather Henderson, PhD.

With the Social Development lab, under the supervision of Dr. Heather Henderson, I have conducted a series of studies that examine the interplay between children's temperament and their theory of mind tendencies.

In Study 1, I created a novel theory of mind reasoning task that assessed the depth of children's reasoning about the emotional displays of others. Children were asked to identify an emotion displayed by another and their reasoning about the other person's emotions were recorded. Reasoning responses were coded based on the depth of analysis and interpretation.

In Study 2, I examined children's perceptions of others' evaluations. Children were asked to imagine how other's would perceive them, in response to a hypothetical social scenario. Responses were recorded and coded based on the depth of analysis/interpretation and well as the valence of the response (negative, neutral, positive).

In Study 3, I am currently investigating how children's theory of mind tendencies - both towards others and in their evaluations of other's perceptions - affect their social behaviours with a novel social peer. Specifically, I am interested in how children's internal reasoning may affect their outward ability to engage with a social peer in a fluid and reciprocal manner. This may have implications for how children are perceived as successful social partners.

Child Development Lab

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

Supervisors: Dr. Heather Henderson, PhD. & Dr. Nathan Fox, PhD.

The Temperament Over Time study (TOTs) is now in its eighteenth year of data collection, with the purpose of examining how children's temperament shapes their outcomes across development.

I created a coding scheme to evaluate adolescents' anxiety-related behaviours and coded these behaviours during a speech-based social stress task. I am interested in how others' perceive individuals' anxious behaviours, as well as what information adolescents share about themselves while in socially-stressful situations.

Face Processing Lab (in collaboration with the Social Development Lab)

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON

Supervisors: Dr. Heather Henderson, PhD. & Dr. Roxane Itier, PhD.

Our collaborative team examined the effect of the self-positivity bias at both the behavioural and neural level in a series of studies. Behaviourally, we investigated whether indviduals identify with and remember more positively-valence, self-referent descriptive adjectives. At the neural level, through the use of electroencephalogry (EEG), we identified the locations of the brain that are involved in the processing of both self- and other-referential information.

Study 1 (complete) was conducted using undergraduate, adult participants. Study 2 (ongoing) is now investigating the self-positivity bias in children (9-11) to determine the developmental trajectory of these effects.