Achievements

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson, Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department, recently joined the editorial advisory board of Meta-Psychology. Meta-Psychology is an open access outlet focused on meta science and quantitative methodology. Dr. Aberson is presently the editor-in-chief of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy as well as an associate editor at Collabra Psychology. He also serves on the editorial boards of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, and Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Amber Gaffney

Psychology

Dr. Amber Gaffney, Associate Professor of Psychology, along with colleague Michael Hogg from The Claremont Graduate University, recently published a chapter in the book The Psychology of Sociability (2022, Routledge). The chapter, titled A Social Identity Analysis of Sociability, focuses on how needs for affiliation with groups and examines both positive (e.g., better mental and physical health) and negative aspects (e.g., polarization, authoritarianism) of group identification and sociability.

Humnath Panta

Business

Dr. Panta presented a paper entitled "Political Favoritism and Value of Corporate Cash Holdings " at the Southwestern Finance Association Annual conference held in New Orleans on March 3rd, 2022. This paper examines the impact of political favoritism on the value of corporate cash holdings and finds cash holding, on average, is less valuable for politically favored firms than their counterparts. In other words, this study shows that political favoritism is associated with a decrease of $0.44 in value for a $1.00 in cash holding. The authors define the stock ownership by the member of the US Congress as a measure of political favoritism to a firm.

Chris Walmsley

Psychology

Chris Walmsley, Assistant Professor of Psychology, recently gave an invited talk titled “Points of Contact and Departure Between Behavioral Gerontology and ABA With Younger Populations” at the annual California Association of Applied Behavior Analysis (CalABA). CalABA’s mission is to promote the science and theory of behavior analysis through the support of research, education, and practice. Their convention is the top regional conference on behavior analysis in the United States and regularly features well-known researchers and clinicians from throughout the United States.

Chris Aberson

Psychology

Chris Aberson, Professor and of the Chair Department of Psychology, recently published an R package called "BetterReg for Calculation of Useful Statistics for Linear and Logistic regression.” The package was accepted to the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), the primary repository for R packages. Previously Dr. Aberson published several versions of a package called pwr2ppl that provides numerous functions for statistical power analysis. pwr2ppl has been downloaded nearly 15,000 times since it’s initial publication in 2019 and is widely recognized as having one of the most clever R package names.

Amber Gaffney and Academic Research M.A. Graduate Students

Psychology

Cal Poly Humboldt Psychology faculty and numerous students presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Convention in San Francisco this last weekend. Lead presenters included Academic Research M.A. students Matthew Burt, Crane Cosno, Jacob Crocker, Jeff Frederick, Samantha Gardener, Jordan McDowell, and Joseph Pang. Amber Gaffney co-chaired the Group Processes and Intergroup Relations Pre-Conference. Chris Aberson also presented. Demonstrating the Psychology department’s commitment to hands-on learning, 12 graduate students and alum were authors on presentations. SPSP is the world’s largest organization of social and personality psychologists with over 7500 members.

Sara L. Chase Merrick

Child Development

Dr. Sara L. Chase Merrick, in collaboration with the Hoopa Tribal Education Association (HTEA), received a $49,000 grant from the Administration for Native Americans: Promote the Survival and Continuing Vitality of Native American Languages program. This grant will allow them to expand ongoing Hupa language immersion efforts. Dr. Merrick will be an Emerging Hupa Language Speaker-Teacher Fellow, which will enable her to further her language learning, speaking, and teaching work with expert speaker Verdena Parker and HTEA Hupa Language Teachers.

Meenal Rana

Child Development

In Feb 2022, Dr. Meenal Rana's research has received the spotlight in the" Researcher's Window" section of the Society for Study of Human Development (SSHD). Her work is shared on the link that follows:

https://sshdonline.org/february-2022-researchers-window-dr-meenal-rana/

Humnath Panta

Business

Published an article entitled "Exports and Imports-Led Growth: Evidence from a Small Developing Economy" on Journal of Risk and Financial Management 2022, 15(1), 11.

Panta, Humnath, Mitra L. Devkota, and Dhruba Banjade. 2022. "Exports and Imports-Led Growth: Evidence from a Small Developing Economy" Journal of Risk and Financial Management 15, no. 1: 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm15010011

Meenal Rana & Kishan Lara-Cooper

Child Development

Dr. Meenal Rana and Dr. Kishan Lara-Cooper, faculty Child Development, have recently published the article, "Identity, Relationships, and Community as Antidotes for Historic and Race-Based Trauma" in Adversity and Resilience Science.

They will present the article in the Diversity Science Initiative panel, at the Society of Study in Human Development Conference (Feb 7th-8th, 2022). Additionally, they will present two different papers at the Symposium, "Family Cultural Values and Practices: Reflecting on Religious and Spiritual Influences in Sikh, Muslim, and Indigenous Communities".

Yolexiz Camacho and Taylor Jones, two undergraduate students, are co-authors of the symposium.