In her speech, Dr. T talks about her pride in all the graduates, how her parents met as students at UCLA, her research in comfort eating, and her sorrow about the Black lives lost. Also, there is a surprise guest appearance by the UCLA Scattertones. Click here to see it as well as all the commencement addressed for the UCLA Department of Psychology.
In a highly powered (N = 579) study, Daniel identified barriers that uniquely predict openness to going vegetarian, and focused on anticipated vegetarian stigma. Daniel designed this study with a strong theoretical foundation based on his published theory, the Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity (Rosenfeld & Burrows, 2017). In his empirical study, he found that younger age, more politically conservative attitudes, White identity, and residing in a rural community predicted greater anticipated vegetarian stigma among meat-eaters. In addition, the strongest predictors of openness to vegetarian diet were perceived tastiness and perceived healthfulness which accounted for half of the variance in people’s openness to giving up meat. Of further interest, he found that perceived tastiness of vegetarian dieting and perceived healthfulness mediated the effects on openness to vegetarianism. These findings provide concrete starting points for future intervention work aiming to increase fruit and vegetable intake for health and environmental purposes.
Congratulations to Daniel on his prize-winning paper!
We are having a new graduate student, Jordan Parker, join us here at the DiSH Lab this year! Jordan graduated from Stanford University with a major in Psychology and worked at the School of Medicine where she studied Parkinson’s disease for 2 years. She is broadly interested in the intersections between race and physical and emotional health and hopes to study how race affects lifetime health trajectories. In her free time, Jordan enjoys experimenting with vegetarian recipes, practicing yoga, and re-watching Grey’s Anatomy. Welcome Jordan!
Dr. Angela Rodriguez shares her perspective on balancing work and life stress as a mother and professor. She gives insight into her way of juggling obligations in her home life and career and shares everyday examples of what balance means to her. Check out the full article here.
Grad students Daniel, Kristen, and Lauren have been selected for the Graduate Student Research Mentorship Program. A specific objective of the program is to promote opportunities for students to work closely with a faculty mentor in developing a paper for presentation at an academic conference and/or for publication. General goals are to facilitate close working relationships between faculty and students during the early stages of graduate education, to promote timely degree progress, and to encourage creative scholarship and research productivity.
Daniel looks forward to using this funding to conduct research on the relationship between race and vegetarianism. Through the GSRM fellowship, Kristen will complete a manuscript examining the relationship between weight stigma and disordered eating. On this fellowship, Lauren will be preparing a manuscript looking at the effects of food insecurity and stress-mediated comfort eating.
Congratulations again Daniel, Kristen, and Lauren!
Grad student Lauren has been awarded the Dean’s Excellence Award! On the basis of her outstanding contributions to the teaching mission, the Department nominated her for the prestigious Dean’s Excellence Award, and she have been selected as an awardee by the Dean’s office. The award will provide a $21,000 stipend and cover her tuition and fees for the 2020-2021 academic year (Sept 2020 – June 2021).
Congratulations again Lauren!
Grounded Grub is a young organization that works to promote sustainable eating practices through recipes and informative articles. Here is what Daniel had to say about it: “I am honored by their interest in my research and enjoyed chatting with them!” Check out the full article here.
DiSH grad student Daniel has been awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Here is what he had to say about it: “The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is awarded to a pool of graduate students in STEM who are pursuing research-based degrees in the United States. I am incredibly honored by and appreciative for this opportunity and the support it provides for my research.” Click here to learn more about this fellowship.
Congratulations again Daniel!
Assistant professor of psychology and DiSH alum, Dr. Angela Incollingo Rodriguez, gives an overview of how weight stigma, or fat-shaming, has negative effects on the mental and physical health of pregnant women, and women in the postpartum period. You can watch the video here and learn more about the study here!
DiSH Lab RA David Figueroa has been accepted into UCSF’s Summer Program! Here is what he had to say about it: “The internship is at UCSF’s Emotion, Health, and Psychophysiology Lab. The lab is DiSH’s Bay Area cousin, with them also focusing on research at the intersection of health and social psychology. It’s an intensive 8-week program where I’ll have the chance to be trained in protocols of up to 5 or 6 studies that are running out of the lab. I’ll also be trained to collect autonomic and neuroendocrine physiological responses as well as input and management of the data that is collected.”
Congratulations again David!