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Alison O'Connor

Assistant Professor
Phone

Publications

  1. O’Connor, A. M., Hall, W., & Campbell, K. L. (2023). Rating the honesty of White and Black children via implicit and explicit measures: Implications for child victims in the criminal justice system. Child Maltreatment. doi:10.1177/10775595231173363

  2. O’Connor, A. M., Cheung, D., Li, Q., Ding, X., & Evans, A. D. (2023). Older adults are more approving of blunt honesty than younger adults: A cross-cultural study. Current Psychology. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-03785-6

  3. O’Connor, A. M., & Evans, A. D. (2022). Dishonesty during a pandemic: The concealment of COVID-19 information. Journal of Health Psychology, 27, 236-245. doi: 10.1177/1359105320951603
  4. O’Connor, A. M., Judges, R. A., Lee, K., & Evans, A. D. (2022). Examining honesty-humility and cheating behaviors across younger and older adults. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46, 112-117. doi: 10.1177/01650254211039022
  5. O’Connor, A. M., Judges, R. A., Lee, K., & Evans, A. D. (2021). Can adults discriminate between fraudulent and legitimate emails? Examining the role of age and prior fraud experience. Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect, 33, 181-205. doi:10.1080/08946566.2021.1934767
  6. O’Connor, A. M., & Evans, A. D. (2020). Perceptions of older adult jurors: The influence of aging stereotypes and jury laws. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 26, 648-666. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2019.1708358
  7. O’Connor, A. M., Campbell, K. L., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2020). Younger and older adults’ prospective memory: The role of delay task difficulty. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 28, 184-200. doi:10.1080/13825585.2020.1724866
  8. O’Connor, A. M., Dykstra, V. W., & Evans, A. D. (2020). Executive functions and young children’s lie-telling and lie maintenance. Developmental Psychology, 56, 1278-1289. doi: 10.1037/dev0000955
  9. Evans, A. D., O’Connor, A. M., Bruer, K., & Price, H. L. (2019). Children who disclose a minor transgression often neglect disclosing secrecy and coaching. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 62, 199-204. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2019.03.002
  10. O’Connor, A. M., & Evans, A. D. (2019). The role of theory-of-mind and social skills in predicting children’s cheating. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 337-347. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.018
  11. O’Connor, A. M., Lyon, T. D., & Evans, A. D. (2019). Younger and older adults’ lie-detection and credibility judgments of children’s coached reports. Psychology, Crime & Law, 25, 925-944. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2019.1597092
  12. Ding, X., O’Connor, A. M., Weng, M., Tang, Q., Fu, G., & Evans, A. D. (2019). The effects of self- and other-awareness on Chinese children’s truth-telling. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 37, 323-335. doi:10.1111/bjdp.12275
  13. Bender, J., O’Connor, A. M., & Evans, A. D. (2018). Mirror, mirror on the wall: Increasing young children’s honesty through inducing self-awareness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 414-422. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.001

Education

BA- Psychology & Sociology, Brock University (2015)

MA- Psychology, Brock University (2018)

PhD-Psychology, Brock University (2022)

Teaching

PSYC 2011: Research Design & Analysis II

PSYC 2431: Child and Adolescent Development

PSYC 3421: Adulthood and Aging

Research

In my research, I study:

(1) the development of deceptive behaviours (e.g., what do we lie about and why? How does lying serve to help and to harm us? How does this differ with age?)

(2) how to promote honesty

(3) how individuals detect lies and fraud schemes/scams

(4) the social, legal, and health implications of lying

As a developmental psychologist, I am particularly interested in examining these patterns from a lifespan perspective with a specialization in aging. My research holds applied implications to legal and health contexts where it may be particularly important to be honest or to decipher between truthful and deceptive reports. I hope my research assists in breaking down psychological barriers (e.g., shame) that may prevent people from being honest and open with others.