Department of Psychology: Research Students

Ms. Ann-Marie Creaven

Office Rm. 453, NEB
E-mail Ann-Marie Creaven

Education

B.A. (Psych), NUI Galway, 2007; Dioplóma sa Ghaeilge, NUI Galway, 2007

Research

Ann-Marie’s research focuses on the effects of our social networks on health, particularly in relation to healthy responses to stress. This researchhas received funding from the Faculty of Arts at NUI Galway (Fellowship) and the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The research aims to examine the various aspects of socially supportive relationships in a laboratory setting, with a view to clarifying how social support exerts its reported beneficial effects on health, specifically, on cardiovascular reactivity.

Ann-Marie is currently recruiting parents and children to participate in a research project on campus. For more information, please consult the project website: http://www.CROLSfamilyproject.wordpress.com.

Several community groups have assisted with recruitment for this study for which we are very grateful; their websites are listed here:

• http://www.mummypages.ie
• http://galway.mykidstime.ie/d/

This research is supervised by Dr. Brian Hughes.

Publications and Conference Presentations

• Creaven, A-M., Howard, S., & Hughes, B.M. Personality and perceived social support: Overlap in measurement and associations with resting cardiovascular function. Paper presented at 32nd Stress and Anxiety Research Society Conference, Galway, Ireland, July 2011.
• Creaven, A-M., & Hughes, B.M. Influence of trait neuroticism on cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from a social interaction. Paper presented at Cardiovascular Stress Reactivity Conference, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, U.K., June 2011.
• Creaven, A-M., & Hughes, B.M. Individual differences in need for support and cardiovascular reactivity during support transactions. Paper presented at Conference on Social Psychology in Ireland, University of Limerick, Ireland, April 2011.
• Creaven, A-M., & Hughes, B.M. Blood pressure responses to internal representations of support provision. Paper presented at the Psychological Society of Ireland, Annual Conference of the Division of Health Psychology, Galway, Ireland, April 2011.
• Creaven, A-M., & Hughes, B.M. Socially relevant traits are more predictive of cardiovascular reactivity than perceived social support. Poster presented at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, March 2011.
• Creaven, A-M., Skowron, E., Howard, S., & Hughes, B.M. Patterns of physiological congruence between mothers and their pre-school children: Evidence for stress-contagion phenomenon among maltreating parents – a follow-up. Paper presented at the 31st Stress and Anxiety Research Society Conference, Galway, Ireland, August 2010.
• Creaven, A-M., & Hughes, B.M. Schema activation of social support: effects on cardiovascular response to stress for providers and recipients. Paper presented at the 31st Stress and Anxiety Research Society Conference, Galway, Ireland, August 2010.
• Creaven, A-M., Skowron, E., Howard, S., & Hughes, B.M. Patterns of physiological congruence between mothers and their pre-school children: Evidence for stress-contagion phenomenon among maltreating parents. Paper presented at the Psychological Society of Ireland, Annual Conference of the Division of Health Psychology, Dublin, Ireland, March 2010.
• Hughes, B.M., Skowron, E., Howard, S., & Creaven, A-M., Elevated heart rate and reduced respiratory sinus arrhythmia in socio-economically disadvantaged mothers: Implications for stress processes and physical health. Paper presented at the Psychological Society of Ireland, Annual Conference of the Division of Health Psychology, Dublin, Ireland, March 2010.
• Hughes, B.M., & Creaven, A-M. (2009). Achieving greater theoretical sophistication in research on socially supportive interactions and health. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Social interactions in the 21st century. New York: Nova Science.

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