The next meeting of the Social and Organisational Psychology Research Group will be
held at 12.00pm on Tuesday May 10th in the Keats Reading Room,
Psychology/Aviation Building (AVLG17), with video link to the Science Offices
at Ourimbah.
We
will be listening to Romany McGuffog’s PhD Research Presentation titled “The
Relations Between Social Class, Sleep and Mental and Physical Health.” Romany’s
supervisors are myself and Stefania Paolini. Her abstract and bio are provided
below.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Abstract
Previous
research has found that a) social class is positively related to mental and
physical health (e.g., Foverskov & Holm, 2016), b) social class is
positively related to sleep quality (e.g., Mezick et al., 2008), and c) sleep
quantity and quality are related to mental and physical health (Furihata et
al., 2012). Some researchers have proposed that social class differences in
sleep could explain social class differences in mental and physical health
(e.g. Moore et al., 2002). An initial investigation has found that sleep
mediates the relationship between social class and some aspects of mental and
physical health in university students. However, further studies are needed to
explore this effect in the general population, whether the effect remains present
when controlling for prior health, and whether manipulating perceived social
class can affect self-reports of sleep and mental and physical health.
Biography
Romany
McGuffog is a PhD candidate in social psychology under the supervision of Dr
Mark Rubin and Dr Stefania Paolini. She completed her Bachelor of Psychology
(Honours) at the University of Newcastle in 2015 and received First Class
Honours, a Faculty Medal, and Best Presentation Award for the Fourth Year
Conference. Romany was also placed on the Faculty of Science and Information
Technology commendation list in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and was awarded a Summer
Vacation Scholarship. Romany has a passion for sleep health and social class,
and aims to work as an academic following graduation.
