Dr. Christopher Abeare

170 CHS

ext. 2231

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2 – 3

Research Interests:

  • how the right and left hemispheres of the brain process language differently
  • how different people’s brains are organized differently with respect to lateralized cognitive functions

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • none

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • no specific guidelines

Dr. Kimberley Babb

279 CHS

ext. 2221

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1 or 2

Research Interests:

  • how children cope with everyday stressful situations
  • the coping abilities and social abilities of children with special needs (e.g., Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)
  • how parents socialize emotions in their children
  • how specific emotions can affect the way we think

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • gender differences in social self-handicapping
  • adult attachment and social anxiety

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Data sets:
  • the effects of emotion on time estimation
  • coping flexibility in children with and without ADHD

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I prefer students to do preliminary work on their thesis (e.g., literature searches, project development meetings) during the summer before their fourth year, especially if they plan to do a completely independent study.

Dr. Anne Baird

280-1 CHS

ext. 2234

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1 – 2

Research Interests:

  • older adults, decision-making, and reading
  • older adults and risk factors for memory problems
  • reading and study strategies for undergraduates

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • working memory and daily stresses
  • orientation in space
  • procrastination and reading

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • I have no large data sets available. My research concerns older adults in the community, and these data sets are not usually available to honours thesis students.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • Students and supervisor sign a written contract indicating responsibilities to one another.

Dr. Lori Buchanan

67 CHS

ext. 2246

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:

Research Interests:

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

Dr. Joseph Casey

187A CHS

ext. 2220

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:

Research Interests:

  • classification and outcomes of childhood disorders
  • neuropsychological and psychosocial features of high functioning autism, Asperger syndrome, and nonverbal learning disabilities
  • attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
  • empirically-supported neuropsychological interventions
  • traumatic brain injury
  • adult literacy

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

Dr. Jerome Cohen

186 CHS

ext. 2236

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:0 (already full up)

Research Interests:

  • animal cognition

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I take honours thesis students from those who volunteer as assistants at the beginning of their 3rd year, who then take part in research teams and help current 4th year students in their projects. I do not take 4th year students who have not been part of this process.
  • This is consistent with the BCN program, and the majority of my current students are BCN students.

Dr. Ken Cramer

183A CHS

ext. 2239


Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2 – 3

Research Interests:

  • personality (self-silencing, reversal theory, gender perception)
  • social psychology (law, relationships, counterfactuals, attributions errors)
  • clinical psychology (depression, suicide, loneliness, exercise dependence)
  • educational psychology (Maclean’s rankings, clickers in the classroom)

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • suicide ideation and depression
  • gender stereotypes of musicians
  • exercise dependence and body esteem
  • sexual harassment in an academic setting
  • counterfactual thinking and legal compensation
  • risky sexual behaviours and self-silencing
  • student perceptions of Maclean’s rankings
  • loneliness and affiliation in an exercise context
  • students report of cheating in a hypothetical context
  • gender stereotypes in a game show context
  • name commonness and desirability on signature recruitment

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I prefer to meet with students weekly or biweekly, as necessary.
  • To me, the honours thesis project is more than just a thesis, since for most of my students, their thesis gets published.

Dr. Patti Fritz

273-2 CHS

ext. 3707


Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1 – 2

Research Interests:

  • dating aggression:
  • adolescents’ and university students’ perceptions about why they engage in aggression against their partners
  • contexts in which dating aggression occurs
  • prevention of dating aggression/building healthy relationships
  • risk factors for dating aggression

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • none

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • possibly

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • no specific guidelines

Dr. Marcia Gragg

172 CHS

ext. 2227

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1

Research Interests:

  • diagnosis and assessment in autism and related disorders
  • behavioural interventions in autism and related disorders
  • dissemination of “best practices” in autism diagnosis and intervention in the community

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • The effect of ‘behaviour-jargon’ on student perceptions of Applied Behaviour Analysis
  • The Autism Survey: An update of a test of knowledge about autism
  • Teaching students about autism: The effectiveness of lecture, text, and video on learning

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Possibly, although most students collect their own data.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • The student and I sign a Research Supervision Agreement.
  • I expect the student to collaborate on writing an article from the honours thesis during the summer.
  • I am only at the U of W half-time.
  • I expect students to participate in my Autism Research Group.
  • I prefer to work with students who are motivated to get involved in our local autism community.
  • My purpose is to make autism research more believable, accessible, and helpful to families of children with autism.
  • I strongly believe in writing research in plain language that can be understood by an educated layperson.

Dr. Julie Hakim-Larson

277 CHS

ext. 2241

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1 or 2

Research Interests:

  • mental health and culture
  • emotional development in families
  • parent-child interaction

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • emotional intelligence and self-talk
  • aggression in families and attachment
  • the socialization of emotion in children by parents

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Yes, we have an ongoing project involving parents’ use of stories to socialize emotion in their children

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I prefer that students stay in regular, close contact.
  • Students should e-mail or visit me at minimum once per week before their data collection, and more than once a week after data collection.
  • It’s best if students begin their literature review the summer before they expect to work on their research proposal.

Dr. Ken Hart

191-2 CHS

ext. 2225

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2

Research Interests:

  • addictive behaviour change
  • health psychology/behavioural medicine
  • positive psychology/positive adjustment

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • social support aids reduced alcohol consumption
  • expectation of negative consequences and desire to cut back on excessive drinking

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I will ask to see a student’s transcript and will ask for a screening interview to talk about their research interests.

Dr. Stephen Hibbard

285 CHS

ext. 2248

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:0 (sabbatical for 06/07)

Research Interests:

  • assessment
  • health and personality (including substance abuse)
  • conscious and unconscious processes

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • how unconsciously perceived things influence people
  • how positive and negative emotions influence thinking, even though you’re not aware of it
  • how attachment styles are different for people whose parents were alcoholic

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Yes, this is a condition of my supervising: Undergraduate students have to participate in the data collection or data mining of a research group, but then do their own thesis out of it.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • The students need to operate relatively independently, although, of course, not as independently as a graduate student.

Dr. Dennis Jackson

282-1 CHS

ext. 2229

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1

Research Interests:

  • issues with questionnaire development and analysis (effects of how questions are asked on how people answer them)
  • use of statistics: are statistical procedures correctly applied and reported on?
  • organizational commitment and employee turnover

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • Opinion versus evaluation: Do instructions and response choice anchors influence students’ ratings?
  • Editorial policy practices in reporting structural equation modeling

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • no specific guidelines

Dr. Josee Jarry

281 CHS

ext. 2237

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2, providing they can work on ongoing projects that I have

Research Interests:

  • what factors make appearance centrally important to some people?

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • effect of exposure to thin media images on the eating behaviour of binge eaters
  • effect of anxiety on binge eating behaviour
  • effect of obsessive-compulsive symptoms on eating disorder symptoms

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Yes. I would like a student who would be willing to run a study that is already designed, enter and analyse the data. Ideally, the student would be willing to start in the summer.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I will produce an outline with all expectations such as timely completion of work clearly stated.

Dr. Ben Kuo

261-1 CHS

ext. 2238

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1

Research Interests:

  • cultural influences and differences in how people cope with life and psychological stress
  • cultural influences and differences in people’s beliefs and attitudes toward psychological problems and seeking mental health services for these problems
  • the adjustment and acculturating experiences of immigrants and international students in Canada
  • multicultural training in Psychology

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • An investigation of help-seeking behaviours in relation to belief system
  • Self-construals, coping, and stress among Caucasian Canadian university students, East Asian university students, and East Asian international students
  • Measuring ethnic identity and cross-cultural coping in a multicultural campus: A comparative study of Black Canadian and East Asian university students

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Yes, this can be explored.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I encourage prospective students to start discussions with me and planning their honours thesis early on, such as during the summer or intersession semesters before the honours thesis year.

Dr. Catherine Kwantes

257-3 CHS

ext. 2242

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2 (already filled up)

Research Interests:

  • employee motivation
  • how social culture affects work behaviour

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • The “glass escalator” effect – how males move up very quickly in organizations compared to females
  • demographic factors and how they relate to students’ culturally learned social beliefs
  • effect of organizational support on the organizational commitment of part-time workers who are full-time students
  • an examination of attitudes toward the environment based on the degree of experience an individual has with environmentally friendly activities

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • Honours thesis students are expected to attend research group meetings twice per month.

Dr. Kathryn Lafreniere

185A CHS

ext. 2233

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1 or 2

Research Interests:

  • health risks and why people engage in risky behaviour
  • personality influences on health and health behaviour
  • stress and its effects

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • how stress and satisfaction change across the undergraduate years
  • students’ attitudes toward overweight individuals
  • place of residence, student stress and adjustment to university
  • personality predictors of attitudes toward alternative therapies
  • effect of exercise on self-efficacy and depression

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Possibly, but I prefer students to design and conduct their own independent studies.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • Student enthusiasm and motivation to conduct quality research are the most important predictors of a successful thesis experience with me.
  • I expect students to meet with me on a weekly basis, to at least touch bases on their recent progress.

Dr. Rosanne Menna

189-1 CHS

ext. 2230

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:1

Research Interests:

  • the development of competence and coping in young children, teenagers and parents
  • how to enhance coping in young children and their parents
  • how to encourage help seeking and healthy coping behaviours among teenagers and their parents

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • the role of attachment in stress and coping

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • yes

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • no specific guidelines

Dr. Robert Orr

189 CHS

ext. 2222

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year: 1

Research Interests:

  • the role of forgiveness in everyday life
  • the implications of parent involvement in university students’ education

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • the role of parent involvement in adaptation to university

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • No

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • I expect students to prepare their completed thesis for publication.

Dr. Stewart Page

261-2 CHS

ext. 2243

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year: 5

Research Interests:

  • correlates and analysis of university rankings and evaluation; other issues in higher education and student welfare at university
  • reactions to stigmatized individuals
  • media coverage and content analysis of media reporting
  • reactions/effects of media violence
  • race and gender effects in coverage of kidnappings and other crime
  • relationship between student personality/attitudes and academic success/performance

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • have supervised in areas listed above
  • gender/depression issues

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • no specific guidelines

Dr. Sandra Paivio

174 Sunset Ave.

ext. 2223

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:

Research Interests:

  • psychotherapy process and outcome
  • emotion in psychotherapy
  • posttraumatic stress
  • psychotherapy integration

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

Dr. Antonio Pascual-Leone

257 CHS

ext. 4702

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:2

Research Interests:

  • emotion – how do people work through difficult emotions?
  • psychotherapy – What makes psychotherapy work? What predicts good outcomes?
  • individual differences – How do different people process emotions differently (risk/preventative factors)?

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised:

  • gambling, risk attitudes, and emotional awareness

Do you have data sets or research programs that are available to honours thesis students to take part in?

  • Yes, I have data sets available for study and an active research program that students can take part in toward their thesis.

Honours Thesis Supervision Policies and Guidelines:

  • Students are encouraged to work on independent projects that are often (but not always) part of a larger study.
  • Supervision involves both individual and research team meetings with other undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. James Porter

336 Sunset Ave.

ext. 7012

Number of Honours Thesis Students for Next Year:

Research Interests:

  • psychotherapy process, outcome, and self-report measures
  • the therapeutic relationship

Some Past Honours Thesis Topics Supervised: