Wednesday 4 May 2016

Equity and Diversity Series event: Social Class, Sleep, and Health

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.