Dr. Stephanie Travers

Dr. Stephanie Travers has initiated a translational research program directed at applying the basic cognitive science of memory to healthy functioning and attention, memory, and cognitive aging in the elderly.  Translational science takes the best of what a field knows from laboratory studies and “translates” that information into useful interventions and approaches in patient care. Dr. Travers has developed a unique translational approach that uses gardening and other activities, sometimes referred to as horticulture therapy, to help elderly persons in nursing homes retain functional ability and improve cognitive performance.

Over the summer of 2010, Dr. Travers developed a horticulture therapy program and implemented it at Aase Haugen nursing home in Decorah, Iowa. This program consisted of several gardening sessions with the residents over the course of the good growing months, mainly June and July. Residents also participated in a pilot assessment program where Dr. Travers was able to collect initial data examining the relevance of horticulture therapy to cognitive functioning.

The results of this initial pilot horticulture intervention will be presented at the National Wellness Conference in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Dr. Travers will lead a 1-hour symposium explaining the planning, logistics, intervention, assessment, and relationship-building aspects of this project. As one of the first students to participate in this program, Mitchell Demers (11) will present a summary of this work at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Dr. Travers continues to build relationships in the community in hopes of growing this program and offering it more widely in other nursing homes in Decorah and throughout the region.

Dr. David Njus

One of Dr. Njus’ areas of research involves the relationship between psychological attachment—both to one’s parents and to a romantic partner—and mate-seeking preferences. 

Previous research (e.g., Buss & Schmitt, 1993) proposed evolutionary-based differences in male/female mating preferences.  Historically, women’s reproductive successes have been a function of the amount/quality of external resources available for them and men’s reproductive successes have been a function of how many fertile women they could impregnate.  Consistent with this line of reasoning, Buss and Schmitt found that more males were upset by their partner’s hypothetical sexual infidelity as opposed to their partner’s emotional infidelity, while for females the jealousy patterns were reversed.  They also found that men were more likely than women to be seeking short-term relationships and women were more likely to be seeking a long-term relationship.  Dr. Njus and the students on his research team are studying whether the sex differences described above are moderated in any way by the attachment patterns people have.

Dr. Njus’ research team collected data from 232 college students.  These subjects completed a measure of parental attachment, a measure of romantic attachment, and a questionnaire asking the degree to which they were currently seeking a short-term relationship (a 1-night stand, etc.) and a long-term relationship (a marriage partner). 

Results from this study tentatively suggest that romantic attachment and attachment to parents (especially mothers) leads to less interest in short-term mating—though interestingly this relationship seems especially to be the case for male subjects and less so for female subjects.  These data were presented at the 2011 annual convention of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago (Njus, Tjossem, McKee, and Godar, 2011).  Dr. Njus’ research team is continuing to collect data in the area of attachment and mate-seeking preferences.