My name is Sam Greenhut, and I am a junior at Florida State University. I am 20 years old and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. College has been a time where I have been able to explore both academic interests and hobbies that I care about, and a surprising amount of those hobbies involve animals that most people would probably not keep in their bedrooms.
I spend a lot of my free time keeping aquariums and caring for exotic animals. In my room I currently maintain three different setups. The first is a small freshwater aquarium that houses rice fish and neocaridina shrimp. It is a peaceful little tank that mostly runs itself once everything is balanced, although there is always some trimming of plants or checking water parameters to do. My second setup is a saltwater aquarium that contains a peacock mantis shrimp. Mantis shrimp are fascinating animals. They are incredibly intelligent for an invertebrate and famous for the power of their striking appendages. Watching one explore its tank or carefully inspect new objects that I place inside never really gets old. The third setup is a terrarium that houses an Arizona blonde tarantula. Tarantulas are often misunderstood, but they are actually very calm animals when kept properly. They spend most of their time sitting quietly or slowly exploring their enclosure at night. Caring for these animals probably takes up more of my time than I would like to admit, but it has also become one of the ways I unwind after long days of classes and lab work.
Alongside these hobbies, I have been fortunate to become involved in research during my time at Florida State. I currently work as a research assistant in both the Joiner Lab and the ASPIRE Lab. Both groups focus on suicide prevention and on understanding the psychological processes that contribute to suicide risk. Working in these labs has been one of the most meaningful parts of my undergraduate experience so far. It has allowed me to see how research questions are developed, how studies are run, and how careful data collection can contribute to better understanding serious mental health problems.
Because of this involvement, I became interested in developing my own research project. I am extremely grateful to be participating in the IDEA Grant program at Florida State University, which provides funding and support for undergraduate research projects. This program has given me the opportunity to pursue a question that connects closely with the work being done in the labs where I assist.
My project focuses on suicide prevention and is inspired by a very recent theoretical paper from the Joiner Lab. This work proposes that decayed agency may play a central role in the development of suicide risk. In simple terms, agency refers to the feeling that our actions have effects in the world and that we have some level of control over what happens to us. When people lose that sense of control, they may begin to feel trapped or powerless, which can contribute to suicidal thoughts or behaviors.
The study I am developing aims to examine one specific part of agency called implicit agency. Implicit agency refers to a basic, automatic sense that our actions cause certain outcomes. To measure this, I will be using a behavioral task known as the Libet clock paradigm. In this task, participants perform simple actions while observing a rapidly moving clock and then report when they believe certain events occurred. Researchers can use these responses to measure something called intentional binding, which reflects how strongly a person perceives their action and its outcome as connected in time.
Participants in the study will complete this behavioral task and also fill out several questionnaires related to suicide risk as well as depression, anxiety, and stress. By comparing the behavioral measure of implicit agency with these self report measures, the study aims to explore whether individuals who show reduced implicit agency also report higher levels of suicide risk or emotional distress.
The long term goal of work like this is to improve our understanding of the psychological processes that contribute to suicide risk. Suicide prevention remains a major public health challenge, and many questions about why people develop suicidal thoughts are still being investigated. If researchers can better understand how feelings of control and agency relate to suicide risk, it may eventually help inform new approaches to assessment or intervention.
Being able to pursue this project as an undergraduate is an opportunity that I do not take lightly. The IDEA Grant program has made it possible for me to design and run a study that contributes, even in a small way, to a field that I care deeply about. It has also strengthened my interest in pursuing graduate study in clinical psychology after I complete my undergraduate degree. My hope is that the skills and experience I gain from this project will be an important step toward a career focused on research and improving mental health outcomes.
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