Browsing by Author "Meehan, Zachary M."

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    Evaluating the “visit day” tool for supporting underrepresented and/or marginalized students in applying to doctoral programs
    (Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 2023-02) Grassetti, Stevie N.; Meehan, Zachary M.; Beveridge, Ryan M.; Teachman, Bethany A.; Stanton, Alexis G.; Cooper, Phoenix Jazmine; Daniel, Katharine E.
    The Council of Chairs of Training Councils’ (CCTC) 2020 Social Responsiveness in HSP Education and Training Toolkit recommends that training programs host “open houses and information sessions” to recruit a more diverse group of trainees. Aligning with this recommendation, doctoral training programs across the country have been hosting program “visit days” that facilitate opportunities for underrepresented prospective students and HSP doctoral programs to connect. There are no published empirical studies to inform whether such visit days are associated with expected benefits for prospective and current students. Published studies could aid HSP training programs in considering this tool. The current study presents data from three surveys that evaluated visit days held across four clinical psychology doctoral training programs. Participants included two groups—38 underrepresented prospective students who had attended a visit day and 35 current graduate students who assisted with hosting a visit day at one of four clinical psychology doctoral training programs. Prospective students reported that visiting was a positive experience and identified talking with graduate students and faculty members as the most satisfying aspect of visit day. A 1 year follow up survey suggested that 78% of the visitors who applied to graduate school received an offer of admission. Current graduate students also reported benefits of participating in visit day that included enhanced knowledge of both the challenges experienced by and supports available for students from marginalized groups. We conclude by discussing study limitations, identifying visit day implementation challenges, and offering advice to HSP training programs that are considering implementing visit days. Public Significance Statement: This paper presents evaluation data from four doctoral programs that hosted program “visit days” to connect with underrepresented prospective trainees. Data suggest that prospective and current students view involvement in visit days as positive and beneficial.
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    Susceptibility to peer influence in adolescents: Associations between psychophysiology and behavior
    (Development and Psychopathology, 2022-09-23) Meehan, Zachary M.; Hubbard, Julie A.; Moore, Christina C.; Mlawer, Fanny
    The current study investigated in-the-moment links between adolescents’ autonomic nervous system activity and susceptibility to three types of peer influence (indirect, direct, continuing) on two types of behavior (antisocial, prosocial). The sample included 144 racially ethnically diverse adolescents (46% male, 53% female, 1% other; Mage = 16.02 years). We assessed susceptibility to peer influence behaviorally using the Public Goods Game (PGG) while measuring adolescents’ mean heart rate (MHR) and pre-ejection period (PEP). Three key findings emerged from bivariate dual latent change score modeling: (1) adolescents whose MHR increased more as they transitioned from playing the PGG alone (pre-influence) to playing while simply observed by peers (indirect influence) displayed more prosocial behavior; (2) adolescents whose PEP activity increased more (greater PEP activity = shorter PEP latency) as they transitioned from indirect influence to being encouraged by peers to engage in antisocial behavior (direct influence) engaged in more antisocial behavior; and (3) adolescents whose PEP activity decreased less as they transitioned from direct influence on prosocial behavior to playing the PGG alone again (continuing influence) displayed more continuing prosocial behavior (marginal effect). The discussion focuses on the role of psychophysiology in understanding adolescents’ susceptibility to peer influence.