All Abstracts

Within the field of social justice, the levels of social support and discrimination perceived by marginalized groups is often highlighted. Typically, marginalized populations are less supported and subjected to more discrimination in society. As a result, their experiences can translate into outcome...

    Feelings of exclusion and maternal closeness are large determinants of wellbeing in humans, yet few people take the time to understand why these aspects of life affect people so deeply. This study surveys 4,882 young people between the ages of 18 and 26 to determine whether or not maternal clo...

Previous findings have shown that socioeconomic status and parental education has been associated with the behaviors children display in classroom settings. Further research explores the relationship between the behaviors African-American students display in the classroom and their socioeconomic sta...

  Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major health and safety concern in the United States (U.S.). On average, more than 10 million women and men per year are physically abused by an intimate partner in the U.S.. Additionally, Black and Hispanic couples are two to three times more likely to report...

    Alcohol abuse and intimate partner violence (IPV) are major public health concerns. When assessed simultaneously, alcohol abuse has been significantly correlated to IPV victimization and perpetration across various samples. However, this link has been seldom analyzed among African American wom...

Teachers’ use of effective classroom management practices (e.g., effective use of rules) is critical to student success (McLeod et al., 2017; Simonson et al., 2009). One practice associated with low rates of disruptive behavior is teacher’s appropriate response to rule violations (Owen et al...

Youth violence has become a serious public health issue over the past several decades. Research continues to identify violent-related behavior risk factors linked to many physical and emotional outcomes among youth in diverse communities across local, national and international communities. Some of ...

Previous research links poor mental health status with increased levels of alcohol use. Social and environmental factors have also been cited as contributors to increased alcohol use. As alcohol use is preventable, the current study sought to understand the moderating role of neighborhood disorder o...

Secondary data analyses were conducted using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to determine if there were gender differences in job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and depressive symptoms. The sample was comprised of 4,482 men and women, ages 18-26. The majority of the p...

Little research has considered the unique factors Black women face that may affect their binge eating disorder (BED) symptomatology. The purpose of the present study is to investigate group differences in income and racial makeup of neighborhood on BED symptoms among Black women. In addition, the cu...

  Few research has examined identity as a scientist among Black college women attending HBCUs. Thus, there is a need to further investigate how HBCUs’ strengths in establishing an institutional sense of belonging relates to Black female students’ science identity in majority White, male-dominat...

The data that were used in the present study were obtained from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The Add Health study followed adolescents’ transition into adulthood. Wave III, for which participants were interviewed in 2001, consisted of 4,88...

    Colorism, the attribution of privilege or advantage based on the lightness or darkness of one’s skin, is a form of discrimination that negatively impacts the lives of Black men and women. Few researchers have explored the relationship between skin color satisfaction (SCS) and colorism, and t...

Suicide is a growing public health concern and the 10th leading cause of death in the United States (U.S.) Although African American women generally have the lowest suicide rates, studies have shown that these rates have rise for African American women. Further, African American women have the high...

The current study seeks to examine the link between self-perceived popularity as a predictor variable for self-concept in college students. Most research involving this relationship has been conducted on children and adolescents (Boivin & Begin, 1989; Keefe & Berndt, 1996). Studies involving col...

Compared to European American women, African American women report more common depressive symptoms, such as sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness. Emerging research suggests that African American women’s health outcomes, like depression, may be partially explained by women’s stress-coping beh...

Self-compassion is defined as offering a nonjudgmental understanding to oneself. Agency refers to the sense of control individuals feel they have over their actions and the consequences of those actions. We hypothesized that some sense of control is required to exhibit self-compassion, yielding a po...

Data suggest that the United States has experienced a lack of diversity in STEM fields, and it seems that underrepresented minorities are more likely than any other group to change to non-science majors (Tsui, 2007). Clark Atlanta University (CAU) is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU...

Research on primates, both human and non-human, indicates that social systems are structured by a hierarchal model. This means that the members of each system are assigned a social rank that determines their level of opportunity in terms of benefits such as food and mating for non-human primates and...

Suicide is a major concern in the United States (U.S.), and is currently the 10th leading cause of death in U.S. and African Americans account for 5.5% of suicides. Historically, African American women have had some of the lowest suicide rates compared to African American men and women from other et...

  Parenting styles can often be distinguished by the behavioral variability used by parents, such as their use of disciplining, monitoring, and psychological control strategies. Findings suggest significant consistency between negative controlling behaviors and positive guiding behaviors and infant...

   The insula is a brain region that has been linked to a range of functions, including emotional responsnes. Work done by our lab found that insula activaion during viewing of contaminated food was positively correlated with a disgust sensitivity score. While the insula has a broad role in the di...