Research

The ASPL, under Dr. Marc Karver, focuses on the evaluation/improvement of mental health services/systems. The lab collaborates with the University of Central Florida on two state-wide suicide prevention grants, each with several aims. Projects include developing, improving, and evaluating suicide prevention trainings for laypeople and mental health professionals. To learn more about the lab and apply, email the ASPL!

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The Center for Justice Research & Policy conducts research that spans across three major areas of the criminal justice system: policing, corrections, and courts -- and with a focus on prevention, intervention, risk and protective factors, systems change, and public safety. By applying rigorous methods and evaluations, and collaborating with practitioners and community partners, research findings will be used to guide and inform policy change.

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The DEXTER laboratory uses quantitative methods to study the structural, longitudinal, mechanistic, and dynamic processes underlying pathological personality traits (e.g., borderline personality disorder features), disinhibited behaviors (e.g., substance use, non-suicidal self-injury, sexual risk behaviors), and their comorbidity. We also investigate the broader taxonomy and comorbidity of psychopathology across time and development.

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The DEPTH Lab investigates psychosocial correlates, predictors, and moderators of disordered eating behaviors and outcomes (e.g., dieting behavior, overeating behavior, problematic exercise, weight status) among adolescents and young adults. We are interested in these processes among healthy, pediatric populations (e.g., type 1 diabetes, bariatric surgery patients), and athlete. Moderators of interest include gender, age, athletic identity.

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We use experimental methods to research social psychological questions of an existential nature. Some problems of interest to our lab are how people manage concerns associated with mortality and how and why people objectify women. We are also conducting research examining health applications associated with these directions.

The EMaC lab investigates human perception and cognition (e.g., language comprehension and decision-making) using eye tracking software. Our research focuses on the reading process and how eye movements index comprehension. As people move their eyes through the text, they gather information about the current and upcoming word (even before they look at it) and integrate this into their understanding of the sentence as it unfolds in real time.

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Basic and applied research studies concerned with understanding, supporting, and advocating for families with young children

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We conduct research on student learning, and our studies take place in both the laboratory and local classrooms.

How expectations, motivations, and individual differences can influence sensory input and selective attention

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We mainly study the dark side of the workplace, that is, the bad things that happen to people at work and the bad things people do at work. The bad things that happen include accidents/injuries, mistreatment (e.g., abusive supervision or sexual harassment), physical violence, and stress. The bad things people do includes being abusive to others, avoiding working, sabotaging the work and the workplace, and theft.

The mission of the REACH Youth Center is to conduct and disseminate research designed to improve outcomes for youth living with or at risk for HIV.

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Adolescents’ and early adults’ relationships with their parents, perceptions of parenting, and the broader family and cultural dynamics contributing to these processes.

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Dr. Christine Ruva studies legal decision making with a focus on jury decisions. Research Assistants perform various tasks including designing studies, creating measures and stimuli, designing experiments, collecting data, analyzing data, and summarize results. Students have the opportunity to present their work at undergraduate research conferences and national/international conferences. Exceptional students can earn authorship on a publication.

Guided by a dynamic systems theoretical foundation, Dr. Michaels’ key idea is that people’s unique characteristics and adaptive cognitive processes continually evolve as situations change. The goal with the Social Dynamic Lab’s research is to understand how individual differences and cognitive mechanisms contribute to how people react to situations and how these carry consequences for favorable versus unfavorable outcomes.

In the S.P.A.R.K Lab, we are interested in studying how different externalizing behavior disorders (such as ODD and CD) and neurodevelopmental disorders (emphasis on ADHD) impact children in their daily lives — at school, at home, and in their interpersonal relationships. Additionally, we work to develop and test the effectiveness of treatments that might better serve these populations and to figure out how best to disseminate those interventions to the individuals who need them most.

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Moffitt’s Tobacco Research & Intervention Program (TRIP) is directed by Thomas Brandon, a clinical psychologist with an appointment in USF’s Psychology Department. TRIP also includes several other faculty members, as well as staff, postdocs, clinical psychology graduate students, and undergraduate research interns. Research ranges from basic behavioral studies through national clinical trials of smoking cessation interventions.

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I-O Psychologist Dr. Claire Smith directs the Work Stress Lab. Research areas of our lab include the work-life interference and occupational health, with foci on health behaviors, leisure time, and lifelong approaches to well-being. Our goal is to promote real-world impacts on work and health lifestyles. Research assistants gain valuable experience contributing to ongoing projects. See our website to learn more, participate, or join the lab. 

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