ANETT GYURAK
[pronounced DYU-rak]

agyurak at berkeley dot edu
Lab phone: 510.643.4840
Office: 4112, Tolman Hall
anett_gyurak

Research Interests
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Emotions take center stage in our lives through the ways they influence how we think, feel and behave. Yet, emotions are not simply deterministic; just as much as they influence us, we have the ability to regulate and change the way emotions impact us. The ability to regulate our emotions is especially critical when dealing with strong, negative affect that can cloud our judgement, break social bonds and undermine our well-being. My overarching research goal is to understand the cognitive and physiological strategies that enable successful emotion regulation and underlie people’s ability to influence their emotion. In this vein, my research theoretically and methodologically is situated in the domain of affective science, and interfaces cognitive neuroscience, social and personality psychology.

Within the broad question of emotion regulation, my program of research have thus far largely focused on mapping the specific cognitive and physiological processes involved in emotion regulation in the context of social rejection. I chose social rejection as my content domain because interpersonal rejection is a ubiquitous and potent emotional challenge across all interpersonal contexts. Furthermore, research has thus far offered few evidence that negative reactions to rejection can be mitigated. Uncovering emotion regulatory processes that buffer these powerful negative reactions is important, especially because these general processes appear to be generalizable across different emotion challenges.
In addition to my work on emotion regulation, I have also conducted several collaborative projects with other researchers addressing applied and basic theoretical questions in affective science. Some of my work includes age differences in prosocial-responding and empathy, cross-cultural similarities in occupational stress, and the neural bases of personality.
 
Current CV

 Awards and Grant Support
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2009: Fellow at the Cognitive Neuroscience Summer Institute -  UC Santa Barbara

2008: Hornaday Graduate Fellow, Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley (1 year research support for $12000 and recipient of the special research award for a second project $2500)

2006 – 2009: NIMH Training Consortium in Affective Science, Institutional Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Research Training Grant (3-year tuition and stipend)

2007: Research Fellow at the Mind and Life Summer Institute

2004 – 2005: University of California Graduate Student Fellowship (1 year tuition)

2002: San Jose State University, Professional Development Grant (amount awarded: $1250)


Publications
1. Hooker, C., Gyurak, A., Verosky, S., Miyawaka, A., & Ayduk, O. (in press) Neural activity to a partner’s facial expression predicts self-regulation after conflict, Biological Psychiatry.
2. Goodkind, M., Gyurak, A., McCarthy, M., Miller, B., & Levenson, R. W. (in press). Emotion regulation deficits in frontotemporal lobar degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease, Psychology andAging.
3. Berenson, K., Gyurak, A., Ayduk, O, Downey, G, Garner, M. J., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., & Pine, D. S., (in press). Rejection sensitivity and disruption of attention by social threat cues, Journal of Personality,
4.
 Sollberger, M., Stanley, C. M., Wilson, S. M., Gyurak, A., Beckman, V., Growdon, M., et al. (2009). Neural basis of interpersonal traits in neurodegenerative diseases. Neuropsychologia, 47(13), 2812-2827.
5.
 Ayduk, O., Gyurak, A., & Luerssen, A. (2009). Rejection Sensitivity Moderates the Impact of Rejection on Self-Concept Clarity. Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 35(11), 1467-1478.
6.
 Gyurak, A., Goodkind, M. S., Madan, A., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L. & Levenson, R. W. (2009). Do tests of executive functioning predict ability to down-regulate emotions spontaneously and when instructed to suppress?, Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, 144-152.
7. Ayduk, O. & Gyurak, A. (2008). Conceptualizing rejection sensitivity as a cognitive-affective processing disposition, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2/5, 2016-2033.
8. Gyurak, A. & Ayduk, O (2008). Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia buffers against rejection sensitivity via emotion control, Emotion, 8, 458-467.
9. Ayduk, O., Gyurak, A., & Luerssen A. (2008). Individual differences in the rejection–aggression link in the hot sauce paradigm: The case of rejection sensitivity, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 775-782.
10. Ayduk, O. & Gyurak, A. (2008). Cognitive inhibitory control as a buffer against Rejection Sensitivity, Proceedings volume of the1st International Congress on Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection
11. Glazer, S. & Gyurak, A. (2008) A Qualitative Assessment of Sources of Occupational Stress among Nurses in Five Countries, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32, 49-66.
12. Gyurak, A. & Ayduk, O. (2007). Defensive physiological reactions to rejection: The effect of self-esteem and attentional control, Psychological Science, 10, 886-892.

Selected presentations

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Gyurak, A., Hooker, C. & Ayduk, O. (2010, February). Individual differences in regulation of ruminative responses to rejection – a joint fMRI and daily-diary investigation – Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), Las Vegas, NV, USA.

 Gyurak, A., Hooker, C. & Ayduk, O. (2009, May). Attenuating Reactivity to Rejection Among Low Self-Esteem Individuals: The Role of Attentional Control – Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), San Francisco, CA, USA.

Symposium Co-Chair with Christine Hooker, Harvard University. Symposium Title: Neural Underpinnings of Emotion Regulation and the Implications for Social Relationships, The annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), San Francisco, CA, USA.

 Gyurak, A., & Ayduk, O. (2008, May). Defensive physiological responses in low self-esteem – the joint effect of self-esteem and attentional control – Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), Chicago, IL, USA.

Gyurak, A., & Levenson, R. W. (2007, July). Do test of executive control relate to the ability regulate emotion? – Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the NIMH Training Consortium in Affective Science, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Gyurak, A., & Ayduk, O. (2007, January). Startle responses to social rejection: The joint effect of self-esteem and attentional control, Poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, TN, USA.

Sze, J., Yuan, J., Gyurak, A., & Levenson, R. W. (2007, January). Coherence between emotion systems in Vipassana meditators, dancers and normal controls., Poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of Society for Personality and Social Psychology Emotion Pre-conference, Memphis, TN, USA.

Gyurak, A., Goodkind, M. S., & Levenson, R. W. (2006, October). Executive control and regulation of defensive emotional responses, Poster presentation at the Annual Conference of Association for Physiological Research, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Gyurak, A., & Ayduk, O., (2006, May). Protective role of attention control in automatic emotional reactions. Paper presentation at the Berkeley – Stanford Student Conference, Stanford, CA, USA.

Ayduk, O., Gyurak, A., & Castriotta, N. (2006, January). The effect of cognitive control on automatic emotion regulation in highly rejection sensitive individuals. Paper presentation at the Annual Meeting of Society for Personality and Social Psychology Palm Springs, CA, USA.

Selected media mention of work

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1. UC Berkeley News: Rejection sets off alarms for folks with low self-esteem

2. Science Daily

3. The Money Times 

4. SF Examiner 

Last updated: September,  2009