Deshawn Sambrano

GRADUATE STUDENT
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
COGNITION, BRAIN & BEHAVIOR

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON
BA IN PSYCHOLOGY, MINOR IN PHILOSOPHY (SUMMA CUM LAUDE) 2017

EMAIL: DSAMBRANO@G.HARVARD.EDU
WEBSITE: HTTP://DSAMBRANO.COM

Research

My research explores how affect, like fear and motivation, influences how we make decisions, especially decisions that contain uncertainty. We often have to make decisions when we have limited or ambiguous information. All the while, our emotions continuously fluctiuate throughout our daily lives; and these emotional states can affect how we make decisions. I am interested in exploring how our decision making processes are affected by environmental and psychological contexts, such as having ambiguous stimuli or depleted working memory capactiy, and how our emotions can both facilitate and hinder those processes.

Publications

Browning, E. D., Sambrano, D., Meyer, C., & Peissig, J. (in prep). Exploring Genuine and Posed Emotion Recognition. Planned to be submitted to Visual Cognition. 

Fey, T., Blandón-Gitlin, I., Sambrano, D., & Masip, J. (in prep). Does manipulation of context suspicion influence older adults’ lie detection accuracy? Planned to be submitted to Psychology and Aging. 

Preston, K. S. J. & Sambrano, D. (in prep). PsyTools: A Toolkit for Common Statistical Analyses in Psychology [Computer software]. Planned to be submitted to R Foundation for Statistical Computing. 

Leong, Y. C.*, Sambrano, D.*, & Zaki, J. (in prep). Motivational influences on perceptual judgments: How what we want changes what we see. 

Talks

Sambrano, D., Leong, Y. C., & Zaki, J. (2016, July). Motivational influences on perceptual judgments: How what we want changes what we see. Oral presentation at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium. Stamford, CT. 

Sambrano, D. & Blandón-Gitlin, I. (2016, April). The beneficial effects of sadness on decision-making. Oral presentation at the Humanities and Social Sciences Symposium. CSUF Fullerton, CA. 

Fey, T., Blandón-Gitlin, I., & Sambrano, D. (2016, March). Would context manipulation influence older adults’ ability to detect deception? Oral presentation at the American Psychology-Law Society. Atlanta, GA. 

Sambrano, D. & Peissig, J. J. (2015, November). Exploring differences between emotional experience and perceived facial expression. Oral presentation at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research. Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA. 

Sambrano, D. & Peissig, J. J. (2015, July). Exploring differences between posed and genuine expressions. Oral presentation at the Annual Ronald E. McNair Scholar’s Symposium. Berkeley, CA. 

Sambrano, D. (2015, March). Do we select our political party based on emotional attachment or political ideology? Oral presentation at Why We Argue & How We Should: Reason & Deliberation in Public Debate Philosophy Symposium. CSUF Fullerton, CA. 

Garcia, M., Medina, N., & Sambrano, D. (2014, March). Reinventing a summer research program for students of color: An undergraduate and graduate student partnership. Oral presentation at the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Conference, Costa Mesa, CA. 

Posters

Sambrano, D., Leong, Y. C., & Zaki, J. (2017, March). Motivational influences on perceptual judgments: How what we want changes what we see. Poster presented at the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Conference. Los Angeles, CA. 

Sambrano, D., Blandón-Gitlin, I., & Masip, J. (2016, October). The beneficial effects of sadness on decision-making. Poster presented at the Society for Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science Conference. Long Beach, CA. 

Sambrano, D., Leong, Y. C., & Zaki, J. (2016, July). Do our desires shape what we see? Poster presentation at Stanford’s Summer Research Early Identification Symposium. Stanford, CA. 

Park, J., Preston, K. S. J., Manapat, P. D., Sambrano, D., & Pizano, N. (2016, May). Consequences of negatively worded items on the predictive capabilities of the NEO-PI-3 using the Nominal Response Model. Poster presentation at the Association for Psychological Science. Chicago, Il. 

Sambrano, D., Preston, K. S. J., Park, J., Manapat, P. D., & Pizano, N. (2016, May). Decreasing participants’ cognitive load while taking surveys under IRT. Poster presentation at the Western Psychology Association Conference. Long Beach, CA. 

Sambrano, D., Preston, K. S. J., Park, J., Manapat, P. D., & Pizano, N. (2016, April). Emotion regulation and well-being: A structural equation model. Poster presentation at the Western Psychology Association Conference. Long Beach, CA. 

Park, J., Preston, K. S. J., Manapat, P. D., Sambrano, D., & Pizano, N (2016, April). Identifying consequences of negatively worded items with the nominal response model. Poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association. Long Beach, CA. 

Espinoza, R. K. E., Sambrano, D. Hunter, B., & Peterson, H. (2015, May). Influence of jurors’ views of mentally ill defendants and level of RWA for racially diverse defendants. Poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Las Vegas, NV. 

Person, D., Oganesian, K., & Sambrano, D. (2015, May). Arts integration predicting creativity and motivation in elementary students. Poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Las Vegas, NV. 

Person, D., Oganesian, K., & Sambrano, D. (2015, May). Professional development influencing art integration and teacher confidence. Poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Las Vegas, NV. 

Sambrano, D., Hunter, B., & Peterson, H. (2014, November). The effects of mental illness attitudes and political ideology on juror decisions. Poster presentation at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research. CSUF Fullerton, CA. 

Person, D., Oganesian, K., & Sambrano, D. (2014, April). The influence of teacher development on arts integration in elementary schools. Poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association Conference. Portland, OR. 

Person, D., Cuellar, M., Barnett, C., Sambrano, D., Fisk, R., & Arauz, K. (2014, February). Reinventing a summer research program: A graduate and undergraduate student partnership. Poster presented at California State University, Fullerton’s Research Symposium: Pursuing Excellence in Educational Practice. CSUF Fullerton, CA