Author: Haadiya Muhammad | Major: Psychology | Semester: Spring 2024
My name is Haadiya Muhammad and I just graduated from the University of Arkansas Fulbright College with a degree in Psychology. As an Honors College student, I did my honors thesis in the psychology department in Dr. Anastasia Makhanova’s Spark Lab. In our lab, we have a study called the Transition to Parenthood study where we are looking at couples’ hormonal changes during the transition to parenthood and how it might affect their social perception of their partner. In this 2024 Spring semester, I continued my work on my honors thesis in this study where I specifically focused on the effects of stress on partner support during pregnancy. When I first started my thesis research, I noticed there were a lot of studies about the importance of giving and receiving partner support after giving birth and how it can help with stress during this difficult period. However, I noticed that there was not a lot of research done about stress and the importance of partner support before giving birth. My thesis topic eventually came to life after noticing this research gap.
The Transition to Parenthood study is extensive and has a lot of steps, which were designed by Dr. Makhanova. For my thesis, though, I mainly focused on two parts of the study. The first part was the baseline questionnaire, which is the first survey that we email to the couple in the study. This survey is where I measured both partners’ stress during pregnancy. This is the first variable I looked at for my thesis.
The other part was the 2 hour in-person lab session, which happens when the couple is around 27-32 weeks pregnant. This lab session consisted of multiple things, but my thesis focused on the support discussions that the couples had together. These support discussions were recorded with the consent of the participants. In these support discussions, the pregnant person would think of a goal that they have, and they would discuss with their partner and get their support on it for 7 minutes. Then, they would switch roles and have another discussion. I had around 250 videos that I coded, which gave me the data for support provision for my thesis.
This semester, my goal was to analyze my data, get the results, finish my thesis paper, and defend my thesis. Before looking at my data, I reviewed and continued to polish my introduction section of my paper. My mentor, Dr. Makhanova, and one of the PhD students in our lab, Ari, helped me a lot during this process with their advice and suggestions. I’m extremely grateful for all the help I’ve gotten from them, especially when I was struggling to write. Then, Dr. Makhanova and I analyzed my data on support provision and stress together. This was the final piece that I needed for my thesis. After data analyses, I was able to finish writing my thesis and I created a presentation for my thesis defense. At the end of April, I successfully defended my thesis in front of my committee. I am thankful for all the help I have gotten from my mentor and my lab peers during this time.
Additionally, my thesis could not have been completed without the help of the Honors College. This Honors College Research Grant has helped me run sessions with pregnant couples and gather data. It also allowed me to code all the support videos from the lab sessions, which was essential for my thesis data, results, and findings. I feel like I have grown as a student and researcher this semester, and I’m thankful for the Honors College for giving me this opportunity.