Description: This poster discusses research on classical conditioning in everyday life. The author's research pertains to the positive and negative effects of classical conditioning on a person's psyche.

Description: This presentation discusses research on academic acculturation stress and first generation students. First generation undergraduates face greater challenges than do students from college educated families. The authors hypothesize that academic acculturation stress due to being a first generation college student is related to psychological well-being.

Description: This presentation discusses research on parental social support as a mediator of stress and quality of life in HIV+ individuals. Social support is associated with increased medical adherence (Gonzalez et al. 2004) and improved Quality of Life (QOL) (Scott-Sheldon et al. 2008) in individuals with HIV. Not explored thoroughly in the literature are the specific associations of parental social support for adults. Research has yet to specifically explore the relationship between Parental Social Support, Stress and QOL. Using the Buffering Hypothesis Theory (Cohen & McKay, 1984), the authors posit that Social Support and Stress will be predictors of QOL, and Social Support will mediate the relationship between Stress and QOL. The authors' results suggest a link between Perceived Stress, Parental Support and QOL. They indicate that although Perceived Stress and Parental Social Support predict QOL, Social Support may not significantly buffer the relationship between Stress and QOL. This research is important as it helps inform the development of effective interventions that target parental social support in HIV individuals. Future research should continue to examine outcomes associated with Parental Social Support in Adults.

Description: This poster discusses research on suicide across time and culture. People would rather avoid suicide as a possibility, but with mass media and networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, suicide is seen quite often as an escape from mean words or circumstances. Many scholars have tackled the histories of cultures, including how suicide was viewed. For example, in Greece, acts of suicide were a type of martyrdom (Minois, 1999). In England, bodies were desecrated, dragged through the streets, and hung from the gallows like the person had committed murder (Minois, 1999). Today, we have systems that tell exact numbers and statistics as to who is killing themselves and where (Congdon, 1996; Nikolaidis, Zavras, Bonikos, & Kyriopoulos, 2004). What has not been broached, however, is if there is a correlation between societal negative or positive connotations of suicide and suicide rates. This research analyzes historical data to compare to the rate of suicide in recent times to observe a possible correlation. Survey data will be collected as to how a person's thought of suicide will affect the likelihood of that person killing him or herself.

Description: This paper discusses research on denial, daily hassles, and health distress in HIV positive individuals. Health distress is associated with lower QOL in people living with HIV/AIDS (Rustøen, 2010) and is correlated with anxiety, depression, and general emotional distress (Rotheram-Borus, 2000). Therefore, factors that influence health distress are critical to identify. The authors hypothesize that as denial (a maladaptive form of coping) increases and hassles increases, health distress increase. The authors' study was approved by the IRB and participants were provided informed consent. The authors collected data from 287 HIV+ adults (female 48.6%; age M=41.7, SD=8.4: 54.2% African Americans, 29.5% European Americans, and 11.1% of Latino(a)). The authors conducted a regression analysis to examine the relationship between their independent variables, daily hassles intensity (±= .97; from the Daily Hassles Scale; Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, & Lazaurs, 1980) and denial coping (±= .89; From the Brief Cope Scale; Carver, 1997) with their dependent variable, health distress (±= .94; From MOS-HIV Scale; Wu, 1996). The authors' analysis revealed daily hassles (2= -.20, t= -6.18, p < .001), denial coping (2= .44, t= -7.18, p < .001), and African American ethnicity (2= -.20, t= -2.17, p < .05) were significant predictors of health distress ...