Post-doctoral position at Université de Montréal (UdeM)

Psychology and Sport Sciences

 

Actual research

In coming

Ego-depletion

My previous research focused on the necessary conditions for observing the phenomenon of ego-depletion. Many studies in the literature have shown that after a mentally demanding task requiring self-control, participants had poorer performance in a subsequent task also requiring self-control. However, this phenomenon is heavily debated, both in terms of explanatory models and in terms of replicating the effect. My previous work has shown that certain conditions, such as duration, difficulty, but also the characteristics of the tasks, are necessary to control for observing the effect. In these studies, I was able to show that boredom is an important component of the decrease in performance and at least a partial explanation for the replication problems in this research field. I was able to show that after a mental task requiring control, the effort invested in the following task was increased in order to achieve equal performance. I was also able to show a link between the time-on-task effect (i.e., decrease in performance with time spent on a task) and the ego-depletion effect (i.e., decrease in performance in the subsequent task). This small effect size observed in the correlation indicates that other mechanisms are at work in reducing performance that can be observed in the literature on ego-depletion.

Cognitive Dissonance

Common sense suggests that preference is the source of choice, while the theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that choice can also create preference. The free choice paradigm indicates that after a difficult choice between two objects, we re-evaluate and modify the preference we have towards these items. The first part of this research will have been to apply statistical treatments adapted to a field with methodological and statistical gaps. A second part will have been to determine the moment when the change of preference occurs as well as the evaluation of its long-term maintenance. The results showed that for the chosen objects, the change occurs at the time of the choice. The results also indicate that the maintenance of the change in preference is only valid for the non-chosen objects.

To Psychology students

Social Psychology:

• • • • « Perceiving and explaining behaviors » ​​(BSc 2)
      • « Social influence » (BSc 1)

Cognitive Psychology:        ​

• • • • « Psychology and Games » (BSc 1)

Statistics:

• • • • ​« Advanced statistics applied to psychology ​» (BSc 3)

To Sport Sciences Students 

Cognitive Psychology:

• • • • « Psychology of stress and motivation » (BSc 2)
      • « Psychological determinents of behavior » (BSc 2)
      • « Psychopathology : roles of Executive functions » (BSc 3)
      • « Cognitive and pathologic Aging » (BSc 3)
      • ​« Normal cognitive aging and physical activities » (professionnal Bachelor)

Methodology of research (BSc 1)

To Sport Sciences Students in Canada

Statistic: 

• • • • « Methodology of research » (MSc 1)

Aging: 

• • • • « Aging and physical activities » (BSc 3)