The Abstracts of the Joint Conference of the Australian Psychological Society and the New Zealand Psychological Society

We are pleased to present the abstracts from the Joint Conference of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and the New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS). The Conference theme is Psychology Bridging the Tasman – Science, Culture and Practice. In combination with the Special Issue of Australian Psychologist (Volume 41 No. 2, 2006), the Conference programme, in all its variety, richly illustrates the Conference theme. This year’s abstracts provide information about individual presentations, symposia and rapid communication posters. All submissions were subject to blind peer review by at least two reviewers. The abstracts are listed in alphabetical order of the first author’s family name. We are extremely fortunate to have attracted four diverse, exciting, and challenging keynote speakers, all eminent leaders and scientists from Australia and New Zealand – the recipient of the NZPsS Hunter Award, the APS President’s Award winner, and two prominent indigenous speakers from Australia and New Zealand. Further, the APS Early Career Research Award winners, the APS Excellence in Teaching Award winner and the Pearson Education and APS Early Career Teaching Award winner from 2005, are invited speakers at the Conference. In addition to helping you choose which sessions to attend during the conference, we are confident that this set of abstracts will be a valuable reference source in the future, providing a snapshot of current research and practice in psychology on both sides of the Tasman and in the wider world.