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Vania Rolón

I am an international student born and raised in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I received my B.S. in Psychology from SUNY Plattsburgh and my MA from SUNY New Paltz. As an MA student, I worked as a teaching assistant overseeing two lab sections in psychological statistics and as part of both the Evolutionary Psychology Lab and the Positive Play Lab. My research interests are in evolutionary psychology, particularly with regards to sexual selection and sex differences. While most of my research is focused on evolutionary psychology, I enjoy research in general so long as I learn something new about what it means to be human.

My Latest Research

Research for my Master's thesis looked at the suppression of female sexuality and how people may choose to turn to religion to control female sexuality when it is in their advantage. Evolutionarily speaking, males and females can benefit from stifling the sexuality of other females, albeit these benefits come in different ways.

My Labs

Research in the Evolutionary Psychology Lab is varied. I am currently the second author on an article in the making about the evolutionary psychology of estrangement, also defined as fully cutting off ties with somone you had previously been close to.

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Other studies I contributed on include looking at neanderthal genome to assess if higher percentages of "neanderthalness" are associated with less sociability; evaluating how political orientation impacts how academics in educational institutions prioritize academic rigor versus social justice; and comparing personality traits in religious versus non religious individuals.

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Research in the Positive Play Lab studies play, playfulness, and gaming in adults, and explores the emotional experiences involved in cooperative board game play. We are currently gathering data for a study using a game called Rhino Hero. That's all we can say until the data are collected, but preliminary anaylses are looking good!

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