Dr. Loraine Lavallee

I received my Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of British Columbia in May 2000 and started on faculty at UNBC in June 2000.

Invited Presentations

Lavallee, L. F. (June 2006) Invited discussant for a symposium entitled: Education and environmental sustainability: The interface between educational and environmental psychology. Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Lavallee, L. F. (2001, Oct). The BC Forest Values Study. The Sustainable Forest Management Network workshop: Improving practice in public participation in sustainable forest management, Halifax, NS.

Publications

Michalos, A. C., Hatch, P. M., Hemingway, D., Lavallee, L. Fl., Hogan, A., & Christensen, B. (in press). Health and quality of life of older people, a replication after six years. Social Indictors Research.

Lestideau, O. T., & Lavallee, L. F. (2007). Structured writing about current stressors: The benefits of developing plans. Psychology & Health, 22 (6), 659-676.

Lavallee, L. F., Hatch, P. M., Michalos, A. C., & McKinley, T. (2006). Development of the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS): Using daily life experiences to verify levels of self-reported life satisfaction. Social Indictors Research, 83, 201-244.

Suedfeld, P., Lavallee, L. F., & Brough, J. (1998). Political language in an environmental controversy: Integrative complexity and motive imagery in advocacy propaganda and the press. In O. Feldman and C. De Landtsheer, (Eds.), Politically speaking: A worldwide examination of language used in the public sphere, (pp. 290-316). Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Lavallee, L. F. & Suedfeld, P. (1997). Conflict in Clayoquot Sound: Using thematic content analysis to understand psychological aspects of environmental controversy. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 29, 194-209.

Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F. & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Self-concept clarity: Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 141-156.

Lavallee, L. F. & Campbell, J. D. (1995). The impact of personal goals on self-regulation processes elicited by daily negative events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 341-352.

Campbell, J. D., and Lavallee, L. F. (1993). Who am I? The role of self-concept confusion in understanding the behavior of people with low self-esteem. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Self-esteem: The puzzle of low self-regard, (pp. 1 – 20). NY: Plenum.

Work Submitted

Lavallee, L. F. (submitted). Human values associated with forests. Forests and Forestry in the Americas: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

Recent Conference presentations

Lavallee, L. F. (June 2006). Values aren’t the problem: Value similarity among stakeholders involved in environmental disputes. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Society of Conservation Biology in the conservation psychology session.

Lestideau, O. & Lavallee, L. F. (June 2006). Structured writing about current stressors: The benefits of developing plans. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Seaton, C., Lavallee, L. F., & Burnett, A. N. (June 2006). Is there more to self-esteem than just positive self-views? Development of a measure of secure self-esteem. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Hatch, P. M. & Lavallee, L. F. (June 2006). Using daily life experiences to verify levels of self-reported life satisfaction: Development of the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS). Paper presented at the Social-Personality Psychology Pre-conference of the Annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Michalos, A., C., Hemingway, D., Lavallee, L. F., Hatch, P. M., Hogan, A., Christensen, B. (July 2006). Health and quality of life of older people, A replication after six years. Paper presented at the XVI ISA World Congress of Sociology, Durban, South Africa.

Michalos, A., C., Zumbo, B., D., Hatch, P. M., & Lavallee, L. F. (July, 2006). A longitudinal study of the relative explanatory power of multiple discrepancies, income and age. Paper presented at the XVI ISA World Congress of Sociology, Durban, South Africa.

Hatch, P. M. & Lavallee, L. F. (November 2004). Contentment and fulfillment in the measurement of life satisfaction. Paper presented at the 6th International Conference of the International Society for Quality of Life Studies, Philadelphia, PA.

Works in Progress

Lavallee, L. F. & Seaton, C. (in preparation). Unstable self-esteem and egotism, defensiveness and emotional distress. University of Northern British Columbia.

Lavallee, L. F., Booth A., & Rapaport, E. (in preparation). Motivational barriers to on-the-ground conservation. University of Northern British Columbia.

Lavallee, L. F. (in preparation). The untold story: British Columbian’s Shared Forest Values. University of Northern British Columbia.

Lavallee, L. F., Campbell, J. C., & Nezlek, J (in preparation). Strategies that distinguish problem rumination from normal self-regulatory rumination. University of Northern British Columbia.

Professional Associations

2006 Society for Conservation Biology, member

2005 – present Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (NRES) Research Institute, UNBC

2003 - present NRES, Graduate Program

2002 - present Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)

o Social / Personality Psychology section

o Environmental Psychology section

o Health Psychology section

2006 - 2007 CPA: Social / Personality section:

- award / fellowship coordinator

2004 - present International Society for Quality of Life Studies

2001 - 2005 American Psychological Association (APA).

o Division 34: Population and Environmental Psychology

o Division 8: Personality and Social Psychology

2000 - 2004 Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

2000 - 2003 International Association for Society and Natural Resources

Social and Environmental Psychology Research Lab

Current Research projects:

Research Lab: 960-6060

Email: lavallel@unbc.ca

Conservation Psychology Research

Research Problem:

Environmental problems are often cast as value problems in that it is generally assumed that the public does not engage in conservation behaviours because people lack strongly-held environmental values.

Focus of research:

In contrast to the above assumption, in my research I have found that evidence of very strong public endorsement of environmental values..

Study 1 involved face-to-face interviews (semi-structured) conducted with 300 people from 20 communities in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. Participants were selected from 15 different stakeholder groups (e.g., trappers, community leaders, forest company executives). From these interviews, a questionnaire of 64 values was developed and administered to the sample. Quantitative analyses (N = 173) demonstrated universal endorsement of environmental values such as “maintaining healthy populations of wildlife and fish” and ensuring the “continued existence of ecosystems”; social values such as ensuring the “continued existence of smaller cities / towns around the province”, and maintaining “provincial economic stability”: and personal values such as the importance of “being able to provide for yourself / your family”, and “spending time outdoors”. Thus in addition to endorsing values associated with personal and social security, British Columbians also strongly endorsed values associated with environmental security. These findings provide evidence against the assumption that the public does not value the environment.

To explore the gap between values and conservation behaviours, in Study 2 residents of the city of Prince George (N = 518) completed a questionnaire investigating their environmental values, their views on sustainable landscaping practices, and their priorities with respect to landscaping on their own yards. Again, demonstrating wide-spread pubic endorsement of environmental values, respondents strongly endorsed the value of environmental conservation. On their own yards, however, city residents’ ranked environmental conservation as their lowest priority after (1) creating an attractive yard, (2) decreasing environmental health risks, (3) decreasing yard maintenance time, (4) doing their share for the community, (5) decreasing costs, and (6) enhancing recreational use. Thus, although the public generally strongly endorses environmental values, these values appear to be very distantly linked to behavioural decisions.

Life Satisfaction Research:

Research Problem:

Population estimates of life satisfaction are being used to evaluate public policy. Consequently, it is important that indices of life satisfaction reflect genuine levels of satisfaction in the population. Currently, there exists a discrepancy between relatively high levels of self-reported life satisfaction among North Americans and more objective indicators of well-being such as rates of depression, stress and personal debt.

Focus of research:

Maurine Hatch and I conducted a series of eight studies to develop a self-report measure of life satisfaction that corresponds more closely than do existing measures to experiences in daily life such as levels of daily stress, stress-related physical symptoms, and escapism (e.g., TV watching). The measure is called the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS). On the CLAS, people report significantly lower levels of life satisfaction than they report with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen and Griffen, 1985) and with popular single-item measures.

I am continuing to investigate the validity of life satisfaction measures in collaboration with two undergraduate students: Hoda Samadi and Jesse Haber.

Reactions to Daily Stress: Rumination

Research problem:

Rumination, the tendency to worry about negative circumstances in life, has been linked to depression, but it also is a typical response to negative life events.

Focus of research:

I have been interested in distinguishing the circumstances under which rumination is harmful versus when it is normal. In collaboration with my thesis supervisor, I found that people typically ruminate following goal-setback in daily life; demonstrating that rumination is not exclusively a maladaptive coping response nor is it a coping style unique to certain people (see Lavallee & Campbell, 1995). I found that it was people who had difficulty containing their rumination to important goal-related events (i.e., indiscriminate ruminators) who were more vulnerable to developing symptoms of depression. Indiscriminate rumination was highly associated with emotional reactivity to daily negative events and to self-esteem instability (Lavallee & Campbell, under revision).

Student Research Collaborators

Life Satisfaction Research: Maurine Hatch, MSc

Coping with stressful events: Olivia Lestideau

Lestideau, O. T., & Lavallee, L. F. (2007). Structured writing about current stressors: The benefits of developing plans. Psychology & Health, 22 (6), 659-676.

Self-esteem Research: Cherisse Seaton

Lavallee, L. F. & Seaton, C. (in preparation). Unstable self-esteem and egotism, defensiveness and emotional distress. University of Northern British Columbia.