Social support is an essential component of emotional and physical well-being and has been implicated in cardiovascular disease risk as well as the experience of daily stress. This study primarily seeks to understand potential differences in receiving versus giving social support and their relationships with cardiovascular disease (CVD), along with an auxiliary focus on the relationship between daily stress and CVD. Through a secondary analysis of the Midlife in the United States study (Wave II), we examined the relationship between daily stress and CVD, the relationship between receiving versus giving social support and CVD, and how these two forms of social support interact in their links to CVD. We found that daily stress does not robustly predict cardiovascular disease, but both receiving and giving social support are associated with a reduced cardiovascular disease risk. However, giving social support ceases to confer protective cardiovascular health benefits on the giver when they receive high levels of social support. Moreover, receiving social support was consistently associated with a lower CVD risk, but the effect was greater when participants were giving a low level of support. These results illustrate that the effects of receiving and giving social support are not necessarily equivalent and should be considered distinctly and simultaneously, rather than in aggregate, in efforts to mitigate cardiovascular disease risk.

Working memory (WM) plays a critical role in maintaining and manipulating visual information in the absence of sensory input. While attractor dynamics, where memory representations stabilize around specific locations in memory space, have been observed in simpler visual domains like color or orientation, it remains unclear whether similar mechanisms apply to complex stimuli such as natural faces. The present study aims to explore whether repeated exposure to specific faces can induce attractor dynamics in working memory for natural images. Using a continuous report paradigm with VAE-generated face stimuli, participants were shown target faces at varying frequencies and later asked to recall the target face from a set of images. Although some participants showed memory biases and attractor-like structures near the target face, these effects were not robust across the group. A statistical learning phase, where participants were passively exposed to a target face, did not induce a consistent shift in memory responses. These results suggest that while attractor dynamics may generalize to natural stimuli, they are resistant to passive statistical learning manipulations, highlighting the need for stronger or behaviorally relevant interventions to modulate attractor dynamics. Future research should investigate the impact of more active learning strategies, cognitive load, and long-term memory tasks on attractor stability and flexibility.

Linguistic differences are pervasive among many neurodivergent populations. Autistic individuals, for example, commonly engage with and use language rigidly, as is exemplified by their echolalia, pronoun reversals, and reliance on fixed phrases. Some of their linguistic differences may be explained by the fact that much of language use and comprehension necessitate flexibility–namely, generalizing learned forms and functions by extending them to new contexts. The Flexible Language and Meaning Extension (FLAME) hypothesis, developed in the Princeton Psychology of Language Lab, postulates that autistic individuals exhibit language differences due to the challenges they experience with linguistic tasks that necessitate FLAME as compared to linguistic tasks that do not require such flexibility and extension of meaning. Building on experimental research that supports this hypothesis, this thesis examines whether other neurodivergent populations, including a subpopulation of autistic people who exhibit remarkable strengths in languages, also experience challenges with FLAME. While pursuing this question, I provide a review of literature on four neurodivergent populations: autistic linguistic savants, other autistic people, people with Fragile X syndrome, and people with Down syndrome. Particular attention is paid to the rigid versus flexible aspects of each group’s language. In addition to synthesizing the literature in this area, evidence is provided that all four of these populations exhibit linguistic rigidity and possible challenges with flexible language use. Further research, however, is necessary to more thoroughly understand neurodivergent language, particularly whether language differences are generally due to difficulties with FLAME. Keywords: language, linguistic flexibility, linguistic rigidity, neurodivergence

As language policies and ideologies change within the United States, researchers have sought out to investigate deeper relationships between the general U.S. population and their perspectives on bilingualism. Previous research has suggested that bilingualism can provide the individual with various cognitive and social benefits, but this insight does not always align with what the average American parent believes about the use of more than one language in the home or schooling. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the relationships between parental attitudes and identities in relation to bilingualism and their children’s own language uses and experiences–particularly the enrollment of children in bilingual education and their children’s bilingual ability. Through a survey asking about parent demographics, child demographics, and parental attitudes, the data supported the hypotheses that parents who did not identify with or expressed negative attitudes about speaking more than one language were associated with lower enrollment of their children in bilingual education programs and lower bilingual fluency levels than children of parents who identified with multiple language identities or felt that bilingualism was more valuable for their children. The results of this study suggest that parental perspectives of the value of bilingualism can drive particular decision-making and behaviors that can influence how their children acquire language and interact with the use of more than one language in their daily life.

Previous work has demonstrated the importance of social support and the deleterious effects of peer victimization on mental health in LGBTQ+ youth. However, most studies on this topic to date have focused on samples with few trans youth. In this study, we assess the relations between social support, peer victimization, and mental health (anxiety, depression, and positive affect) in a sample of LGBTQ+ youth ages 12-17 (N = 351; M=14.4, SD=1.6) that includes an especially large sample of transgender youth (N=283), allowing us to assess the degree to which these relations hold in that sample. A subset of these youth completed the same measures twice (N = 142; years between responses: M=1.5, SD=0.5), allowing us to assess these relations longitudinally, as well. Consistent with our pre-registered hypotheses, cross-sectional analyses showed social support predicted better mental health, and victimization predicted worse mental health. Unexpectedly, we did not observe a buffering effect: having social support did not reduce the association between victimization and poor mental health. We then explored if changes in social support and victimization over time predicted changes in mental health, with mixed findings. Overall, our findings are consistent with prior research in suggesting that identity-related support and identity-related victimization are associated with LGBTQ+ youth’s well-being.

Previous studies have brought awareness to the factors that perpetuate the Black-White achievement gap including a lack of self-efficacy and sense of belonging in Black students in the school system. This experiment focuses in on these factors and aims to find a solution to improve them in Black students through randomly placing Black college-aged participants into 5 conditional groups. These conditions included graphs that represent the perception of diversity norms or trends operationalized, showing the percentage of Black faculty members in a hypothetical university over 5 years reflecting increase or progression, a consistently high percentage or high stability, a consistently low percentage or low stability, or a decrease or regression, and lastly the control condition presented only one year in the graph. After viewing the graphs, the participants were asked to answer questions based on sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and the measure of how much an individual believes their identity aligns to another’s identity (perceived identity compatibility). The results showed the participants having most significant increase in sense of belonging when in the progression condition followed by the high stability condition and with the low stability and regression conditions producing the least sense of belonging in participants compared to the other conditions. However, there were no significant differences for the self-efficacy questions and the perceived identity compatibility questions between each condition which followed the same trend. The sense of belonging results suggest that universities may benefit from improving upon the number of minorities in their faculty but also making students aware of the diversity in the faculty over time.

How do people decide when and how to collaborate during cognitively demanding tasks? This thesis investigates the dynamics of joint visual working memory, focusing on the mechanisms by which individuals coordinate attention and form collaborative strategies under varying task constraints. Utilizing a novel spatial working memory task in which pairs of participants viewed a grid of images, we examined when participants chose to collaborate, whether they adopted spatial specialization strategies, and how these behaviors differed according to changes in task complexity. Participants completed a series of trials in both solo and dyadic conditions, each involving 10 seconds to encode images hidden under tiles across one of five grid sizes (4, 8, 16, 24, or 36 images). Results showed that participants performed better in dyads than alone, most notably within mid-sized grid conditions. Dyads who adopted collaborative strategies – such as dividing the grid into regions – tended to form these conventions early, even without verbal communication. However, not all participants collaborated effectively, as some displayed no significant behavioral differences between solo and dyadic task performance. Together, these results suggest that humans can tacitly arrive at collaborative conventions to split up cognitively demanding tasks, and can moderately calibrate their strategies based on the potential benefits of collaboration on memory performance.

With an ever diversifying student body, standardized approaches to teaching are failing to meet the needs of all students, leading to persistent achievement gaps across the socioeconomic status (SES) spectrum. Lower-SES students face more barriers to success than higher-SES peers across subject areas, including math. Research on these disparities has highlighted the role of cultural mismatch in formal education, or a gap in the way educational content is engaged with at home versus at school. In some research, home math engagement patterns have been explored in regard to abstract versus practical orientations. This cultural mismatch is thought to present challenges to lower-SES students’ understanding that are unrelated to differences in knowledge. Culturally relevant pedagogy has arisen as a potential solution to this by promoting teaching that leverages students’ home cultures. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of student motivation and perception of relevance for math achievement outcomes. In a study with N = 93 6- and 7-year-olds, we investigated (1) whether aligning formal math instruction with the manner of home math engagement positively impacts learning and motivation, (2) whether home math engagement differs across SES, and (3) what the overall impacts of practical versus abstract math orientations are on student outcomes. Using a parental questionnaire and an instructional math intervention with second graders, we examined patterns of home math engagement and assessed participant outcomes under different instructional conditions. Results revealed that (1) alignment between formal learning and home math engagement did not significantly impact learning or motivation, (2) home math engagement was systematically linked with the nature of parents’ jobs, and (3) there was no significant advantage to practical versus abstract math orientations for learning or motivation. This study offers insight into equitable education practices.

Prior socio-psychological research has found that a belief in social progress motivates prosocial behaviors and emotional and behavioral well-being in individuals (Rutjens et al., 2010). However, identity-related adversities may lead some populations in the U.S., namely South Asian Americans, to have more negative beliefs about social progress, compared to many other U.S. adults (Chandrasekhar, 2003; Hur & Ruttan, 2023; Verma, 2019). Moreover, because pessimism is a key trait of depression (Roepke & Seligman, 2016), depressed populations may believe in social regress. It is thus crucial to study South Asian Americans with depressive traits who may believe in social regress and consequently experience decreased well-being. This thesis explains how South Asian Americans with varying depressive levels may perceive social progress. A study with 335 participants finds support for the hypotheses that 1) there is a relationship between participants’ depressive levels and their social progress beliefs but not their technological/scientific progress beliefs, and 2) pessimism mediates the relationship between depressive levels and social progress beliefs. This study finds neither a relationship between participants’ ethnic background and their technological/scientific progress beliefs nor support for the hypothesis that South Asian Americans with higher depressive levels are more pessimistic about social progress than their European American counterparts. This paper seeks to enhance culturally relevant interventions that may promote the belief in social progress and thus greater well-being in South Asian Americans. Keywords: social progress, depression, pessimism, South Asian Americans

Since the publication of Katherine Phillips’ landmark 2000 guide for dermatologists and cosmetic surgeons, the clinical understanding of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) has undergone significant transformation. This thesis revisits and expands Phillips’ foundational work, offering novel insights that address the dramatic sociocultural shifts of the past two decades—most notably, the meteoric rise of social media, the growing prevalence of BDD in adolescents and young adults, and the increasing normalization of cosmetic enhancement. These contemporary forces have reshaped how BDD manifests, is perceived, and is (often inadequately) treated. By synthesizing current psychiatric, dermatologic, and psychological literature, this thesis highlights the limitations of aesthetic interventions in treating BDD and reinforces the importance of early psychiatric recognition. It introduces new data on neurobiological correlates of the disorder, demographic shifts in onset and severity, and emerging digital treatment modalities such as app-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The work uniquely contextualizes BDD within a modern ecosystem of algorithmically curated beauty ideals, digital avoidance behaviors, and growing mental health stigma, particularly among younger, gender-diverse, and neurodivergent populations. Crucially, this thesis offers a novel framework for integrating psychiatric screening tools and interdisciplinary collaboration into dermatologic and cosmetic care. It provides practical clinical recommendations, an updated ethical lens for aesthetic practitioners, and a forward-looking call to action for systemic reform. In doing so, it advances the field beyond Phillips’ original scope—bridging psychological and aesthetic medicine to more effectively recognize, prevent, and treat BDD in the 21st century.

As digital environments continue to become a central part of our social interaction, the ways individuals construct their virtual identities have become an increasingly important subject of research, offering unique insights into psychological functioning. This study explores how mental health symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other related symptoms influence how we create and use avatars. The sample included 154 undergraduate students at Princeton University completing the study in exchange for course credit. Participants completed demographic questions, avatar-specific questions, and validated psychological measures assessing depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), social anxiety (SIAS), self-esteem (RSES), body image (BISS), and fear of negative evaluation (BFNE). Results indicated that fear of negative evaluation was the most robust predictor of avatar idealization, suggesting that those with this fear may create idealized avatars as a way of online social protection. Depression showed modest associations with idealization, with elevated symptoms being significantly related to anxiety over avatar perception. Interestingly, socioeconomic status emerged as a significant predictor of both avatar idealization and consistency across platforms, with participants from lower-income households reporting higher levels of both of these behaviors. Additional exploratory analyses were also conducted, although results were largely insignificant. Combined, these findings highlight the psychological nature of avatar creation, and how the digital representations we create can serve as both a mirror of how we’re feeling internally and a tool for online social navigation.

Keywords: Avatar Design, Digital self-perception, Depression, Anxiety, Virtual Identity

This paper aims to understand the material consequences of anti-trans laws, specifically those restricting access to gender-affirming care. In this review, framed by the psychological theories of Structural Stigma and Minority Stress, I examine the worry level and discussions about anti-trans laws of transgender youth and their parents (Goldenberg et al., 2020a; Meyer, 1995). I studied 2023 survey responses from 324 families of transgender youth from across the U.S. to understand how families are responding to anti-transgender laws and whether the laws are driving families to relocate (Gülgöz et al., 2019). Overall, worry about the laws for participants personally, for others they know, and for the transgender community in general was higher for those more at risk of losing access to gender-affirming care. Income was not a significant predictor of interest in moving, rather worry about the anti-trans laws was. Qualitative data showed high distress among families relating to these laws, a strong desire for parents to ensure their youth’s safety, and families reported discussing moving depending on if their current circumstances would continue to be safe. The data indicated palpable fear among the community. Further work should be conducted to include more of the at-risk population as well as the long-term consequences of the laws as they go into effect across the United States.

The goal of this thesis was to look at how sleep, caffeine intake, mood, and academic performance are connected among undergraduate students at Princeton University. College students often struggle to get enough sleep and use caffeine to stay awake and focused. The goal of this study was to see if caffeine could help reduce the negative effects of not getting enough sleep on mood and grades. 253 students filled out a survey about their usual sleep patterns, caffeine consumption, mood (using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule—PANAS), and academic performance (self-reported GPA). Results showed that students who slept more tended to have higher GPAs, supporting the idea that good sleep helps academic performance. On the other hand, students who consumed more caffeine generally had lower GPAs, challenging the idea that caffeine improves academic success. Overall, sleep and caffeine did not show strong connections to general mood scores. However, looking more closely, students who got a moderate amount of sleep (6–8 hours per night) and drank moderate amounts of caffeine felt more alert and determined. Students with less sleep or high caffeine intake felt more irritable, nervous, and jittery. Contrary to predictions, caffeine didn't help make up for the negative effects of short sleep on GPA. While caffeine might help with short-term alertness, it doesn't fully replace the cognitive benefits of proper sleep. This study highlights the importance of regular sleep and careful caffeine use for better academic results and emotional well-being.

Narrative research has emerged as a promising methodology to better understand the human experience. Narratives have become an especially apt tool for researching meaning-making, as they offer a unique window into how individuals interpret and articulate their experiences. The present study compares participant data from a narrative-based meaning-making measure with the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), examining to what extent narrative meaning-making and meaning scores on the MLQ predict various measures of mental health. Neither the MLQ nor narrative meaning significantly predicted symptoms of depression or anxiety. The narrative methodology, though, allowed for a richer investigation into the impacts of meaning-making through the framework of Narrative Identity. Participants’ narrative meaning significantly correlated at an item level, but not at a composite level with the MLQ. The present study ultimately highlights the complexity of meaning-making as a construct and also illustrates why narratives are an effective methodological tool for handling such complexity.

For many decades there has been research done on the concept of memory, and how humans recall memories. Most important to the present study is the field vs. observer framework of memory recollection that has been discovered. In which, field perspective memories are ones that are remembered as if the person, themself, is reliving a memory through their own eyes. Observer memories are ones that are remembered through a more removed visual perspective of watching one’s past self in the memory. The current study uses that scaffolding and applies it to a new context: photo taking and viewing. The study employs two conditions: a selfie condition and a non-selfie condition, for a total of 83 participants across both. It also utilizes a two part design. For Part 1, which was completed in person at emotion provoking events, both conditions got their picture taken, either by themselves if they were in the selfie condition, or by the researcher if they were in the non-selfie condition. After their picture was taken, all participants took an affect questionnaire (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, or “PANAS”) to evaluate their momentary emotional state. Part 2, which was an online survey, was sent to participants via email eight days after their completion of Part 1. In this survey, participants viewed their image from Part 1, then completed the PANAS questionnaire again, to see if viewing their image re-evoked the same emotions they experienced when their image was taken. Viewing the selfie condition image is meant to simulate a field perspective, and viewing the non-selfie condition image is meant to simulate an observer perspective. Then, they completed a color/memory task. This task used three items, a frog plushie, a pompom, and a mug, all of which were present in the background of all the participant images from Part 1. In the Part 2 survey, grayscale pictures of those three items were shown to participants and they were asked to indicate what color they remembered each being. There were two hypotheses of the study: 1) the non-selfie condition would more accurately emotionally reexperience the event the photo was taken at when participants looked at their image on a later date, 2) the selfie condition would better remember the event their photo was taken at when looking at their image on a later date. The results of the affect questionnaires were used to evaluate the first hypothesis, and although the data showed support in favor of the hypothesis, these results were not statistically significant. On the other hand, the color/ memory task was used to evaluate the second hypothesis, and the results were also in support of the hypothesis. For the frog plushie and the pompom, the results were just about (frog plushie), or were (pompom), statistically significant, however results for the mug were not statistically significant. This inconsistency highlighted some of the limitations of the study’s design. But, overall, this study can still be used in a general sense to explore how photo taking and subsequent photo viewing, which is ever present in today’s world, impacts our emotional states and our memory.

This study examined how racial identity and ingroup social networks influence friendship formation decisions. Building on theories of racial homophily and social learning, the research hypothesized that individuals with stronger racial identification would be more influenced by the racial makeup of their same-race peers' social networks when selecting friends. It was also hypothesized that individuals with strong racial identities would be less likely to befriend a same-race peer with more cross-race friends than same-race. Participants were shown a simulated same-race friend with varying social network compositions and asked to indicate their likelihood of sitting with targets of different races in a lunchroom. Results indicated that higher racial identity predicted a stronger preference for same-race friendship choices. White participants were more likely to sit with Black targets when their ingroup friend had a predominantly Black network. Black participants with weak racial identification were more likely to befriend ingroup peers with predominantly White social networks.These findings highlight the interplay between racial identity, peer influence, and friendship decisions, and suggest important implications for understanding social belonging, diversity efforts, and inclusion practices.

Rates of mental health concerns among college students in the United States are rising, often exceeding the capacity of traditional campus resources. This study investigates the impact of structured, repeated therapy dog interactions, as an innovative and accessible mental health intervention for undergraduates. Using a within-subjects design, 21 Princeton University students participated in four independent study sessions: two with a certified therapy dog present and two without, over a two-week period. Participants completed surveys evaluating depression, anxiety, and stress at the beginning and end of the study, along with surveys assessing stress, anxiety, and productivity for each study session. Results showed statistically significant reductions in depression, anxiety, and stress over the two-week study period. While therapy dog presence did not produce statistically significant short-term effects, observed trends and subjective feedback suggest a potential pattern worth further investigation. Additionally, students who perceived the therapy dog’s presence as helpful reported higher productivity scores, suggesting the potential influence of subjective experience on academic engagement. These findings support the potential of repeated, structured therapy dog interventions, which remain largely unexplored in existing research, as a valuable complement to existing campus mental health resources. Future research should employ larger, more diverse samples and incorporate more objective outcome measures to further understand therapy dogs’ potential in supporting student well-being and academic performance.

This study investigates the impact of Ghana's language education policy on individuals’ academic performance, community connectedness, and language attitudes in the context marked by a historical shift from indigenous language to English. Drawing from a sample of Ghanaian participants recruited through snowball sampling, the research employed a mixed methods survey distributed through Qualtrics. Participants provided retrospective accounts regarding their transition from local languages to English during grades three to four, as well as their perception of language competence and cultural belonging. Quantitative analysis, including descriptive statistics, regression models, and correlation analysis, revealed significant relationships among variables. The findings indicated that participants who felt adequately prepared for the language switch reported higher academic performance and stronger community connectedness. In contrast, dependency on English as the exclusive medium of instruction was associated with diminished cultural ties. In addition, evaluations of language traits showed that while English is often linked to perceived competence in formal contexts, indigenous languages are favored for warmth and cultural identity. These results not only validate previous research on language attitudes in Ghana, but it also suggest the need for educational practices that balance academic rigor with cultural preservation.

This research critically examines mental well-being outcomes in a randomized sample of Princeton undergraduate students. By asking students to report retrospectively on their upbringing (first 18 years of life) and currently on several mental well-being measures, this study specifically explores the impact of adverse and benevolent childhood experiences on subjective well-being, sense of belonging, and self-esteem during the college years. The online survey study included six validated psychological scales: the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Scale, the Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs) Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the General Belongingness Scale (GBS) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). Participants were also asked three novel questions regarding conflict in the household, family engagement, and happiness in the home during their upbringing. Overall, a robust relationship was found between childhood experience and overall mental well-being in college. A one-way ANOVA demonstrated a significant effect of ACEs on positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction, sense of belonging, and self-esteem during the college years. Similarly, BCEs had a significant effect on all of the same measures, with the exception of negative affect. A two-way ANOVA found no interaction of ACEs and BCEs with any mental well-being component, suggesting BCEs operate through direct, promotive effects rather than as a buffer for early adversity. Three novel questions were explored for their predictive correlation with all scales, shedding light on brief, nuanced measures of assessing childhood experiences and predicting college mental well-being outcomes. Most notable was the significant, strong relationship between the presence of conflict with both higher adversity and lower promotive influences. Similarly, happiness in the home strongly predicted ACEs score, BCEs score, and sense of belonging during college.

Keywords: adverse childhood experiences, benevolent childhood experiences, subjective well-being, sense of belonging, self-esteem

Weight stigma remains a pervasive form of bias, even as explicit prejudice related to race and gender has declined. Ironically, healthcare providers are among the most frequent sources of weight-based discrimination, with consequences for patient trust, healthcare utilization, and treatment outcomes. To address this issue early in professional development, the present study tested a brief, theory-driven intervention targeting implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in premedical undergraduates. Grounded in cognitive dissonance theory and integrating elements of attribution theory, social identity, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the intervention included educational materials, a counterattitudinal essay, and a public pledge. Participants (n = 51) were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control condition and completed baseline and posttest measures of implicit bias (IAT), explicit attitudes (AFAT, BAOP), and internalized weight stigma (WBIS-M). Results revealed significant reductions in both implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in the intervention group compared to the control group, with medium-large effect sizes. These findings demonstrate that dissonance-based strategies, when supplemented with identity- and empathy-relevant content, can reduce bias even at the level of automatic associations. Keywords: cognitive dissonance, explicit attitudes, implicit bias, obesity, weight stigma