Publications
Prof. Matt Wice published a new article in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology with the title “Depictions of prosocial behavior in U.S. and Japanese children’s picture books.” The study was conducted in collaboration with students Kamil Hankour (BA ’21; MS, ’22), now a doctoral student in the educational psychology program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Aaron John (BA ’21; MS ‘23), along with developmental psychologist Dr. Yoko Takagi (SUNY Oneonta).
Prof. Corwin Senko and one of our former students, Ryan Meurlin (BA, ’21), now in the School Psychology Psy.D. program at Adelphi University, published the paper “Whom are you trying to impress? Pursuing performance goals for parents, teachers, or classmates” in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
Prof. Glenn Geher and his students published the following papers:
- “Political polarization, ingroup bias, and helping behavior: Do we help others who are “on the other political team?”, which appeared in Psychological Issues. It was co-authored with Brianna Fitapelli (first author, now a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Adelphi University), Samantha Hewett, Briana McQuade, Emma Berg, Dalia Thaler, Lauren Gay, Tiana Rodriguez, Dayna T. Thomas, and Ferdaus Akhmadi. The paper was the outcome of a class project conducted in Prof. Geher’s Honors Seminar, The Human Condition.
- “Stakeholders’ roles in evolutionizing education: An evolutionary-based toolkit surrounding elementary education”, which appeared in Behavioral Sciences. It was co-authored with Kathryne Gruskin (first author), Mariah Griffin, Sonakshi Bansal, Stephanie Dickinson-Frevola, S., Ashlee Dykeman, Desiree Groce-Volinski, Keydy Henriquez, Maya Kardas, Aileen McCarthy, Aman Shetty, Brandon Staccio, and Ethan Eisenberg.
Awards
At the most recent NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS) conference, held in Atlantic City this past June, two students on Prof. Geher’ team won highly competitive presentations awards:
- Katheryne Gruskin won the best Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society Oral Presentation Award. This talk included many New Paltz psychology students and alumni as co-authors:
* Gruskin, K., Bansal, S., Dickinson-Frevola, S., Eisenberg, E., Dykeman, A., Geher, G., Griffin, M., Groce-Volinski, D., Henriquez, K., Kardas, M., McCarthy, A., Shetty., A., & Staccio, B. (2025, June 9-11). Stakeholders’ roles in evolutonizing education: An evolutionary-based toolkit surrounding elementary education. - Ethan Eisenberg, who just graduated with an MS in Psychological Science (May 2025), won the award for the Best Data Blitz for his presentation on the evolutionary underpinnings of emotional intelligence:
* Eisenberg, E., Geher, G., Lombard, J., McCarthy, A., Picciocchi, G., & Thach, S. (2025, June 9-11). Assessing the construct validity of emotional intelligence using evolutionary psychology.
Presentations
Prof. Geher and the students in his EVOS lab presented several papers at the NEEPS conference. For more information, click here.
Our developmental faculty and students presented their work at Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood Conference in Charleston, co-organized by Dr. Vermeulen:
- Prof. Tabitha Holmes, along with students Paige Kessler and Adrianna Eddy, presented a paper called “‘Everyone does it and professors don’t care!’ – How emerging adults make sense of academic dishonesty.”
- Prof. Wice, supported by students Natalia Turkiewicz and Keydy Henriquez, presented a poster featuring data from the quantitative portion of the same project: “Ethical values and academic dishonesty among emerging adults: A cross-cultural investigation.”
- Emmajean Taylor, a recent graduate from our Psychological Science Graduate Program (May 2025), presented her thesis ““I wanted to be an Olsen Twin”: Exploring sister-sister relationships.”
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Prof. Vermeulen gave an invited talk on “Climate change, eco-anxiety, and activism among emerging adults” which included a combination of her research from her book, Generation Disaster: Coming of Age Post-9/11 (2021, Oxford University Press) and more recent findings on the mental health implications of climate change.
