Paul A Staples

University of Derby · Department of Psychology

Adults with chronic pain interpret ambiguous information in a pain and illness related fashion. However, limitations have been highlighted with traditional experimental paradigms used to measure interpretation biases. Whilst ambiguous scenarios have been developed to measure interpretation biases in adolescents with pain, no scenario sets exist for...

Children's packed lunches contain more sugar than school-provided meals. Interventions to improve the provision of healthier packed lunches have modest effects on lunch contents. This cluster randomised controlled trial tested an intervention to encourage healthier provision of packed lunches by parents of primary school children in Derby. Schools...

The development of math anxiety is thought to originate at a young age, as a form of number anxiety, but has not been investigated extensively. Research has shown greater levels of EEG gamma-band activity are experienced during threat perception and attentional bias. This has been identified in high math anxious individuals when confronted with mat...

This study aimed to create and test a new model of supernatural belief based on cognition and personality. Two theories of belief in the paranormal were evaluated in two studies: the Cognitive Deficits Hypothesis and the Psychodynamics Functions Hypothesis. The first study examined the relationship between cognition, supernatural belief, critical t...

The present paper presents an overview of contemporary reasoning research to examine the evidence for and implications of the Dual Strategy Model of Reasoning. The Dual Strategy Model of Reasoning proposes that there are two types of reasoning strategy applied in deductive reasoning - counterexample and statistical. The paper considers Mental Model...

Previous research has outlined high anxiety in connection with gamma modulation, identifying that gamma-band activity (40–100 Hz) correlates with processing of threat perception, attention and anxiety. Maths anxiety research has also noted the involvement of these aspects, yet this has not been investigated from a neurophysiological standpoint. Ele...

There are currently many mathematics anxiety rating scales designed typically for adult and older children populations, yet there remains a lack of assessment tools for younger children (< 7 years of age) despite a recent focus on this age range. Following previous testing and validation, the 26-item iteration of the Children’s Mathematics Anxiety...

This study aimed to create arid validate a new scale, the "Belief in the Supernatural Scale." Study one used an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to reduce an initial item pool of 71 items to 44 and to identify a factor structure with 382 participants. A five factor structure was proposed: "mental and psychic phenomena," "religious belief," "psycho...

Background. The origins of mathematics anxiety have, until recently, received limited attention and research has not explored the associated factors in the first years of schooling. Aims. (1) To gain an understanding of the factors that children perceive as influencing attitudes towards numeracy (2) to explore the primary care providers’ observat...

Background. The origins of mathematics anxiety have, until recently, received limited attention and an assessment measure has not yet been developed specifically for children aged 4-7 years in the U.K. Aims. To develop the numeracy apprehension scale (NAS) for the assessment of numeracy apprehension in children between the ages of 4-7 years. Samp...

The aim of the study was to establish a new typology of belief in the supernatural; categorising people, based on their levels of religiosity, spirituality and paranormal belief. Examining how the various beliefs are defined was a further objective. The reasons for people having different levels of these beliefs were discussed, highlighting ‘Metaph...

Familiarity of food stimuli is one factor that has been proposed to explain food preferences and food neophobia in children, with some research suggesting that food neophobia (and familiarity) is at first a predominant of the visual domain. Considering visual attentional biases are a key factor implicated in a majority of fear-related phobias/anxie...

This research compared sensory processing and personality traits involved in deciding to try a novel fruit (guava) in adults and children. The research employed an age, sex, and food neophobia matched between-participant design to examine sensory decision making in choosing to eat a novel fruit. Forty-four adults (Study 1) and 68 children (Study 2)...

Two factors have been shown to contribute to rejection or acceptance of fruits and vegetables: food neophobia and 'picky/fussy' eating. Food neophobia is generally regarded as the reluctance to eat, or the avoidance of, new foods. In contrast, 'picky/fussy' eaters are usually defined as children who consume an inadequate variety of foods through re...