U.S. Public and Private Higher Education
News releases, reports, statements and associated documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
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University of California-Riverside: Chemical Discovery Gets Reluctant Seeds to Sprout
RIVERSIDE, California, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- The University of California Riverside campus issued the following news:
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New tool could help increase food supply
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Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with the aid of a new chemical discovered by a UC Riverside-led team.
Plants have the ability to perceive drought. When they do, they emit a hormone that helps them hold on to water. This same hormone, ABA, sends a message to seeds that it isn't a good time to germinate, leading to lower crop yields and less food in places where it's hot -- an increasingly long list
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RIVERSIDE, California, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- The University of California Riverside campus issued the following news:
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New tool could help increase food supply
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Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with the aid of a new chemical discovered by a UC Riverside-led team.
Plants have the ability to perceive drought. When they do, they emit a hormone that helps them hold on to water. This same hormone, ABA, sends a message to seeds that it isn't a good time to germinate, leading to lower crop yields and less food in places where it's hot -- an increasingly long listas a result of climate change.
"If you block ABA, you mess with the chemical pathway that plants use to prevent seed germination," said Aditya Vaidya, UCR project scientist and study author. "Our new chemical, Antabactin, does exactly this. If we apply it, we have shown that dormant seeds will sprout."
Demonstrations of Antabactin's effectiveness are described in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This work builds on the same team's creation of a chemical that mimics the effects of the ABA hormone, produced by plants in response to drought stress. That chemical, Opabactin, slows a plant's growth so it conserves water and doesn't wilt. It works by inducing plants to close tiny pores in their leaves and stems, which prevents water from escaping.
Next, the team wanted to find a molecule that would have the opposite effect, opening the pores, encouraging germination and increasing plant growth. Though seed dormancy has largely been removed through breeding, it is still a problem in some crops like lettuce.
Sean Cutler, a UCR plant cell biology professor and study co-author, said accelerating and slowing plant growth are important tools for farmers. "Our research is all about managing both of these needs," he said.
To find Opabactin's opposite, Vaidya quickly made 4,000 derivatives of it. "He found a needle in the chemical haystack," Cutler said, "The compound he created blocks receptors to ABA, and is unusually potent."
In their paper, the team members showed that applying Antabactin to barley and tomato seeds accelerated germination. Conceivably, both Antabactin and Opabactin could work together to help crops flourish in a world becoming drier and hotter.
Once Antabactin has helped seeds sprout into healthy plants, a farmer might start saving water early in the growing season by spraying Opabactin. This way, enough water is "banked" for when the plants start flowering.
"Just like a woman requires higher levels of nutrition during pregnancy, plants require more water and nutrition when they're flowering and about to bear fruits," Vaidya said. "This is true for most crops, especially for economically relevant crops like corn and wheat."
The research team continues to investigate variations in seed dormancy induced by ABA in a variety of other plant species. They also want to examine Antabactin's use as a chemical tool to increase plant growth in greenhouse settings where water isn't limited.
"We hope to identify key molecular players that govern seed dormancy, ultimately reducing the impact of lost crop yields due to unfortunately timed plantings or poor seed germination," Vaidya said.
Queen Mary's People's Palace Projects Research Sheds Light on Violence and Mental Health in Brazilian Favelas
LONDON, England, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Queen Mary University of London issued the following news:
Favela residents with more personal experience and fear of violence have higher levels of mental distress and poorer quality of life, according to the main finding of the international research Building the Barricades.
Published in the Lancet Regional Health - Americas, it is one of the first studies in the world to explore the relationship between experiences of neighbourhood violence and mental distress in the context of informal urban settlements. The research investigated the impact of armed violence
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LONDON, England, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Queen Mary University of London issued the following news:
Favela residents with more personal experience and fear of violence have higher levels of mental distress and poorer quality of life, according to the main finding of the international research Building the Barricades.
Published in the Lancet Regional Health - Americas, it is one of the first studies in the world to explore the relationship between experiences of neighbourhood violence and mental distress in the context of informal urban settlements. The research investigated the impact of armed violenceon the mental health and wellbeing of 1,400 people living in 16 communities in Mare, the largest favela complex in Rio de Janeiro.
The territory is controlled by different armed drug gangs and local militias, imposing their rules and impeding any normal police access. The police force enters the favelas only in heavily armed groups and run war-like operations marked by intense clashes with the different drug gangs and militia groups. In 2019 alone, 39 police operations occurred, during which 34 residents were killed.
The study showed that over one third of residents surveyed between 2018-2020 suffered with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, stress post-traumatic and suicidal thoughts, or attempts. 78 per cent feared getting hit by a stray bullet; 83 per cent worried that someone close to them would get hit by a stray bullet; and 50.4 per cent had suffered physical or verbal aggression.
A substantial number of interviewees have experienced different types of violence at least once: 33 per cent were caught in crossfire; 21 per cent experienced someone close being shot or killed; 14 per cent saw someone being shot or killed, and 20 per cent saw someone being beaten or assaulted.
In addition to surveying residents, the research team conducted in-depth interviews, organised focus groups and mapped health and social service support, as well as cultural activities available to the communities that provide support to improve their wellbeing. From June to October 2020, the research team also conducted three sub-studies to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on residents' mental health, wellbeing, cultural activities and income generation.
The findings of Building the Barricades were presented in a webinar in Brazil and have been widely covered by the Brazilian national press. People's Palace Projects and partner civil society organisation Redes da Mare also launched a mental health awareness week in Mare, Rio de Janeiro. The programme included distributing an education guide about mental health, promoting debates with policy makers and social workers, and holding a live show with young poets from the territory - Becos, an immersive performance in 10 parts.
"Mental health is not something you can simply take a pill for, like a headache. We must talk about it and provide care to those in need. During our arts interventions we asked if we should be dealing with mental health individually or collectively. How can I look after my mental health and support the wellbeing of people around me?", asked Paul Heritage, Director of People's Palace Projects, Professor of English and Drama at Queen Mary, and the principle investigator of Building the Barricades.
"Completing a large population-based survey in the challenging context of a favela is an extraordinary achievement. The study provides good evidence that even within the adverse living conditions of a favela, many people are resilient and do not suffer from mental distress. However, more experiences of violence and fear and extreme poverty are all associated with higher levels of distress" said Professor Stefan Priebe , co-investigator and Professor for Social and Community Psychiatry at Queen Mary.
The research was funded by The Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Global Challenges Research Fund, and Arts Council England. It will be presented at Queen Mary University of London in November 2021.
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JOURNAL: Lancet Regional Health - Americas https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667193X21000636
FIU: Could a Little Tough Love Help Corals Adapt to Climate Change?
MIAMI, Florida, Sept. 18 (TNSGra) -- Florida International University, a component of the public university system in Florida, issued the following news on Sept. 17, 2021:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded FIU's Institute of Environment a $273,491 grant to research innovative ways to make corals more resilient to the changing climate.
FIU marine biologists Jose Eirin-Lopez and Serena Hackerott will lead the project, along with co-principal investigator Harmony Martell from the University of British Columbia. The grant, funded through NOAA's Ruth Gates Coral
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MIAMI, Florida, Sept. 18 (TNSGra) -- Florida International University, a component of the public university system in Florida, issued the following news on Sept. 17, 2021:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded FIU's Institute of Environment a $273,491 grant to research innovative ways to make corals more resilient to the changing climate.
FIU marine biologists Jose Eirin-Lopez and Serena Hackerott will lead the project, along with co-principal investigator Harmony Martell from the University of British Columbia. The grant, funded through NOAA's Ruth Gates CoralRestoration Innovation Grant, supports projects researching techniques and methods that could improve the effectiveness of coral restoration and conservation.
The research team will apply stress hardening techniques to the corals in a lab and then return them to the ocean. This tough-love method is often used in agriculture to make seeds hardier. By pre-exposing the corals to stress, including higher temperatures, the researchers hope to make the corals more resilient.
"Our goal is to improve coral restoration strategies by investigating and applying stress hardening techniques, identifying genetic and epigenetic markers of hardening, and then selecting those corals displaying the strongest signals of hardening to repopulate reefs," Eirin-Lopez said. "Our hypothesis is that hardened corals will be better at surviving in current and future climate conditions."
Serena Hackerott -- a FIU Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Eirin-Lopez's Environmental Epigenetics Lab and research assistant with the CREST Center for Aquatic Chemistry and the Environment -- will lead the field research at Carysfort Reef in the Florida Keys. Hackerott's doctoral research is focused on environmental memory and stress hardening in corals.
"Coral stress hardening has the potential to enhance coral resilience and increase the success of coral restoration outcomes," Hackerott said. "However, there are a lot of aspects about this process that we still need to understand before being able to effectively and efficiently implement these methods into restoration practices. I am excited for the opportunity to explore these questions in collaboration with the Coral Restoration Foundation on one of the Florida Keys' 'Iconic Reefs.'"
The Coral Restoration Foundation is providing support through the donation of 900 fragments of coral from Tavernier Nursery for lab and field work, as well as 6 days of boat trips to harvest, outplant and monitor the coral fragments.
"The information gleaned from this work will identify and explain some of the mechanisms underpinning thermal stress tolerance in corals and will fill knowledge gaps critical for determining the applicability of coral stress hardening interventions to coral restoration practices," Amelia Moura, the Science Program Manager for the Coral Restoration Foundation, said in a letter to NOAA in support of the project.
Eirin-Lopez oversees the Environmental Epigenetics Lab, which conducts some of the most groundbreaking epigenetic research on corals.
In 2021, FIU was ranked No. 9 in the world for positive impact on life below water by The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings and as one of the top universities in the United States for climate action. College Magazine also ranked FIU as the No. 1 university where students can make a difference in the climate crisis. FIU has been designated as a university of distinction for environmental resilience by the State University System of Florida Board of Governors.
Bristol Composite Institute Welcomes New Co-Directors
BRISTOL, England, Sept. 18 -- The University of Bristol issued the following news release on Sept. 16, 2021:
Bristol Composites Institute at the University of Bristol has appointed two new co-directors, Professor Ole Thomsen and Professor Stephen Hallett, to succeed founding director, Professor Michael Wisnom.
The transition will mark a significant change for the Bristol Composites Institute which launched under Professor Wisnom's leadership as Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (known as ACCIS) in 2007. The new co-directors will be building on a strong legacy of global research
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BRISTOL, England, Sept. 18 -- The University of Bristol issued the following news release on Sept. 16, 2021:
Bristol Composites Institute at the University of Bristol has appointed two new co-directors, Professor Ole Thomsen and Professor Stephen Hallett, to succeed founding director, Professor Michael Wisnom.
The transition will mark a significant change for the Bristol Composites Institute which launched under Professor Wisnom's leadership as Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (known as ACCIS) in 2007. The new co-directors will be building on a strong legacy of global researchand innovation. Research from Bristol Composites Institute is informed by the needs of our industrial partners and our changing world. For example, weight and cost saving technology from BCI research has been incorporated into Rolls Royce's composite fan blade development programme, and award winning spin-outs like iCOMAT are innovating processes and bringing down the cost of lighter, stronger carbon fibre composites.
From renewable energy, to green aviation and medical devices, the applications of composite materials are endless. Recent research successes include; working with the international space station, a pound sterling1.5million grant from EPSRC for investigating cellulose based materials, and a pound sterling2million grant from the European Research Council to investigate natural neuroactive mechanical metamaterials.
As co-directors Professors Thomsen and Hallett will lead the BCI forwards into a world where the value of composites research and their potential to solve global challenges is becoming increasingly understood.
"We are delighted and honoured to be appointed jointly as directors of BCI. Professor Michael Wisnom has done a truly outstanding job in founding BCI and developing it to its status as a world leading institute for composites research. We wish to thank Michael for his unprecedented devotion and great service in the success story of BCI. We look forward to developing BCI even further, in close collaboration with BCI staff and students, the Faculty and University, and not least our colleagues at the NCC and our industrial partners."
Professor Ole Thomsen is the NCC Chair in Composites Design and Manufacture at the Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol and the National Composites Centre. Professor Thomsen's main research interests are: design, experimental and computational characterisation of lightweight composite structures.
He has previously held senior positions at the University of Southampton, UK; Aalborg University, Denmark; European Space Agency, European Space Research and Technology Centre, the Netherlands; the University of Delaware, Center for Composite Materials, USA; Technion, Israel. He has been European editor, Composites Part B: Engineering since 2018; and was previously Chairman, Innovation Fund Denmark, Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences 2012-2014 (equivalent to EPSRC). He was made a Fellow of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (equivalent to FREng) 2007 and awarded a Knighthood by Her Royal Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2012.
Professor Stephen Hallett is Professor in Composite Structures at the University of Bristol where he is currently Deputy Director of the Bristol Composites Institute and Director of the Rolls-Royce supported Composites University Technology Centre (UTC). His principal research interests are: Composite failure mechanisms, Computational model for composites mechanical performance and manufacturing processes, Textile Composites, Impact and high rate effects.
He has worked at the University of Bristol since 2000, before which he worked in the automotive industry. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IMechE) and was awarded their Kenneth Harris James Prize, for best paper on an aerospace subject in 2016. He is Composites Topic editor for Composites and Advanced Materials (since 2019) and on the editorial board for Materials and Design.
Professor Ian Bond, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering said: "As a member of the Bristol Composites Institute myself I am profoundly aware of the huge impact Michael's leadership has had on the field, and the positioning of the UK at the forefront of advanced materials science and technology. Our strong and close relationships with our many partners, but especially with the National Composites Centre and Rolls Royce via the UTC were established under Michael's stewardship and his legacy in the field of composites and across the wider research domain cannot be overstated."
Professor Michael Wisnom joined the University of Bristol in 1987 after an already distinguished career in industry, reaching the level of Technical Director, Europe, for SDRC Engineering Services. Over his time at Bristol he has grown the research group in Composites from just 4 faculty members in 1999 to its current 30 academic staff and 200+ research staff and postgraduate students. His work and leadership have placed the University of Bristol at the forefront of international composites research. He continues his role in the Institute as Professor of Aerospace Structures on a part-time basis.
Adelphi University: Treating Depression in the Era of Precision Medicine
GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
Jacques Barber, PhD, dean of Adelphi's Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, joined a research team to explore whether psychotherapy or medication is a better way to treat depression. Meta-analysis of decades of work offers clues.
Major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability for Americans ages 15 to 44, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. While depression can be effectively treated by psychotherapy, medication or a combination of both, patients must often cycle
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GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
Jacques Barber, PhD, dean of Adelphi's Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, joined a research team to explore whether psychotherapy or medication is a better way to treat depression. Meta-analysis of decades of work offers clues.
Major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability for Americans ages 15 to 44, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. While depression can be effectively treated by psychotherapy, medication or a combination of both, patients must often cyclethrough a variety of treatments to find the one that works best. Could there be a way to sidestep this frustrating process by creating personalized plans that match specific symptoms to specific treatments?
Jacques Barber, PhD, dean of Adelphi's Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, joined a team of 21 researchers--including some of the best-known names in psychology and psychiatry today--to find out. "Psychotherapy or medication for depression? Using individual symptom meta-analyses to derive a Symptom-Oriented Therapy (SOrT) metric for a personalised psychiatry," published last year in BMC Medicine, contains a meta-analysis of 38 randomized clinical trials conducted over the last several decades. Dr. Barber and his colleagues combed through a treasure trove of data to discover which therapies yielded the best results for key symptoms of depression, such as lack of appetite and difficulty sleeping.
The researchers first examined the data using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Beck Depression Inventory. Then they used the Symptom Oriented Therapy (SOrT) metric, which combines meta-analytic effect sizes with patients' symptom profiles to quantify potential preference for either psychotherapy or medication. Although the paper "did not find robust indications for symptom-specific effectiveness differences between treatments," nevertheless, there are other promising research directions, including evidence that some patients with a certain genotype respond better to certain types of treatment or medication.
"You personalize the treatment, just like you do with precision medicine," Dr. Barber said. "'Precision psychotherapy' is a term that people are going to hear a lot more going forward."
The paper's results directly build on studies Dr. Barber has conducted in the past--notably, a groundbreaking 2012 article, "Short-term dynamic psychotherapy versus pharmacotherapy for major depressive disorder: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial," published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Additionally, it is an extension of a 2016 study he and several colleagues contributed to that journal, "Reducing dropout in treatment for depression." To date, Dr. Barber has published more than 196 refereed journal articles, 80 chapters and eight books in the field of psychotherapy and personality.
The recent paper "Psychotherapy or medication for depression?" reaffirms Dr. Barber's earlier conclusions. When comparing the different types of treatments for depression in general, the team could see no major difference between the treatment options. Nevertheless, they found that psychotherapy is often the better choice because it has a lower dropout rate, as Dr. Barber asserted in 2016. "Psychotherapy is more acceptable to many people than medication." Furthermore, there is growing evidence that psychotherapy prevents relapse (perhaps because of skills acquired) while medication does not.
Dr. Barber's most recent work, "Processes of therapeutic change: Results from the Cornell-Penn Study of Psychotherapies for Panic Disorder," published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology in March 2020, also compares two different types of therapy: cognitive behavioral therapy and panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy. The study's results show that patients' ability to understand their symptoms can lead to better outcomes for both types of treatment.
Dr. Barber's research is also informing the way he trains future psychologists and researchers at Adelphi. In his lab, undergraduate students are learning interview skills by transcribing therapy sessions conducted for the study, and doctoral candidates are using the same interviews to rate a number of variables, including the coping mechanisms and the therapeutic interventions used by the study participants.
Dr. Barber is gratified that the work he and his colleagues did more than a decade ago is still being used today--and pointing the way toward the future. He is also delighted that some of his students are developing their own way of answering research questions using more sophisticated methods than the ones he has learned. "This is definitely the direction that science is moving: from individual studies toward collective studies like this one," he said.
Adelphi University: Sheltering Black Boys Against the Storm
GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
How traditional psychotherapy misses the impact of structural racism on Black boys' psyches--and what to do about it.
The typical psychotherapeutic model employs a highly individualized lens: a patient sits down with a therapist and discusses their life, exploring the depths of their unconscious mind to work toward self-discovery. While this approach has helped many people lead happier, more fulfilling lives, Kirkland Vaughans, PhD '85, senior adjunct faculty member in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology,
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GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSJou) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
How traditional psychotherapy misses the impact of structural racism on Black boys' psyches--and what to do about it.
The typical psychotherapeutic model employs a highly individualized lens: a patient sits down with a therapist and discusses their life, exploring the depths of their unconscious mind to work toward self-discovery. While this approach has helped many people lead happier, more fulfilling lives, Kirkland Vaughans, PhD '85, senior adjunct faculty member in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology,argues that it has proved inadequate in meeting the needs of one of our country's most vulnerable populations: Black children, particularly Black boys. His latest article, "Black Boys in the Eye of the Storm," published in the April 2021 edition of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, issues a call to action to the American psychoanalytic and psychodynamic community: "Begin to pay attention to the crisis that Black boys face due to white racism."
According to Dr. Vaughans, psychotherapy lets Black boys down by failing to understand the broader context of their experiences as well as the role racism plays in the therapeutic process. "We need to look at our own personal attitudes, which have been honed culturally since birth, that cause us to perceive Black children as dangerous," he noted. "I also want clinicians to recognize that the Western model of boyhood tends to exclude Black boys."
In service of that goal, Dr. Vaughans uses the phrase "Black boy" deliberately. "It is rare in the media for such children to be addressed as Black boys," he said. "Instead, they are called Black males or Black men, which is a way of denying these youngsters a crucial developmental period called boyhood. If you're not a 'boy,' that means you're not in need of protection or guidance: You're seen as a guilty adult. But Black boys are at risk in their schools, in the streets, in the courts and in foster care."
To ensure that Black boys receive the "psycho-nourishment" they need, Dr. Vaughans prescribes the use of therapeutic treatments that confront intergenerational trauma, which occurs when a group of people are traumatized by a collective event, then deprived of the opportunity to resolve it. "For Black people, the catalytic trauma was enslavement, but that trauma is still perpetuated in part because our society continues to deny it," he said. "In child therapy, we have to work closely with parents to help the family understand some of the stress they are accommodating. The therapist should try to bring awareness of past trauma--in other words, what frightened the parents' own parents and their grandparents."
Dr. Vaughans also urges clinicians to utilize a treatment called mentalization. This practice improves patients' ability to self-reflect by helping them understand that every person has a unique mind, with motives and thoughts separate from everyone else's. When successful, mentalization can cultivate a strong sense of self among Black boys.
"Mentalization forces us to reflect on why others do what they do instead of assigning labels to behavior," Dr. Vaughans explained. "That means we're able to think in terms of meaning. Mentalization-based treatment helps children become more in touch with their internal affective world and less dependent on impulsivity, which leads them to make healthy, positive decisions."
A noted expert in the psychology of Black boys and adolescents, Dr. Vaughans has presented at more than 125 conferences and panel discussions. He has treated Black youth in the East New York section of Brooklyn for 25 years, and spent 13 years treating mostly Black and Latino boys on Long Island in Hempstead, New York. For the past eight years--first as clinic director and then as clinical director, his current position--he has overseen the community-based psychotherapy program at the Derner Hempstead Child Clinic. In recognition of his important contributions, he earned the 2021 Diversity Award from Division 39 (Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology) of the American Psychological Association.
As Dr. Vaughans looks toward the future, he expects the need for community-based mental health care to grow significantly--especially in the wake of COVID-19, which has taken a particularly severe toll on poor communities and communities of color while simultaneously robbing them of time and space to grieve. For therapists who serve these communities, far greater attention must be paid to "theorizing and understanding cultural attitudes on race." Without critical analysis of the "insidious effect of structural racism," he maintains, the therapeutic arena will remain inhospitable to Black boys.
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JOURNAL: The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00797308.2020.1859300
Adelphi University: How Are We Responding to Pandemic Stress?
GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSRes) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
Damian Stanley, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Adelphi, believes his large-scale, longitudinal study of the COVID-19 pandemic's unseen psychological effects can help us learn to mitigate its psychological impact, on both an individual and societal level.
When the coronavirus emerged at the end of 2019, the ensuing lockdown that began in March 2020 confined millions of people in the United States to their homes. For Damian Stanley, PhD, assistant professor of psychology, and his colleagues, the
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GARDEN CITY, New York, Sept. 18 (TNSRes) -- Adelphi University issued the following news:
Damian Stanley, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Adelphi, believes his large-scale, longitudinal study of the COVID-19 pandemic's unseen psychological effects can help us learn to mitigate its psychological impact, on both an individual and societal level.
When the coronavirus emerged at the end of 2019, the ensuing lockdown that began in March 2020 confined millions of people in the United States to their homes. For Damian Stanley, PhD, assistant professor of psychology, and his colleagues, thepandemic presented an unprecedented opportunity for action: investigating how large-scale collective trauma would impact our psychological well-being, our socio-emotional attitudes and our behaviors.
To obtain the requisite data, Dr. Stanley knew he had to move fast. In early March 2020, he worked with collaborators Ralph Adolphs, PhD, Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at the California Institute of Technology, and Uri Maoz, PhD, assistant professor of computational neuroscience at Chapman University, to launch a vast project: the COVID-Dynamic Longitudinal Study (coviddynamic.caltech.edu).
"From the very beginning, we thought this was going to be a critical moment in human history. We wanted to be able to characterize that moment psychologically," Dr. Stanley said. He and his colleagues had three primary goals: to capture a detailed psychological portrait of our society's journey through the pandemic, to probe implicit and explicit attitudes and emotions, and to do so with scientific rigor.
The investigators agreed that a longitudinal study would be ideal. Unlike cross-sectional studies, which provide only a snapshot of a population at one particular moment in time, a longitudinal study tracks the evolution of thoughts and attitudes in the same population over a given period. To make sure their findings were robust, they used the large-scale data collection platform Prolific to recruit a population that was diverse across numerous variables: race, geography, age, class and gender.
They also took care to design a survey that would be similarly diverse in its areas of study. "Because we assumed a lot would be changing during the pandemic," Dr. Stanley said, "we thought this was a good time to study a wide range of psychological variables." These included changes in racial attitude; basic psychological constructs such as fear and depression; substance use and abuse; changes in memory and how they correlate with trauma; the evolution of humanitarian and prosocial attitudes; and what personality traits correlate with mask wearing and other forms of compliance with public health directives.
But people are not always honest or aware of their own views, particularly around sensitive issues such as race. To reduce response bias, the team paired an investigation of people's explicit attitudes, which can be determined through questionnaires, with an examination of implicit attitudes through the performance of discrete tasks. "We measure implicit attitudes with the implicit association test," Dr. Stanley explained. "In the test, a participant sorts faces from different ethnic backgrounds alongside positive and negative words. Implicit attitudes can then be determined by how variations in people's error rates and reaction times correlate with the ethnicity of the faces."
When the COVID-Dynamic Longitudinal Study was first launched, the group of roughly 1,500 participants took the test once a week; after a few months, the research team reduced the test frequency to every few weeks. By the end of January 2021, the group had amassed an enormous trove of data. The group plans to submit an article describing the data for publication, followed by more articles based on analysis of the data. More than a dozen research projects are currently underway, as are follow-up studies with the participants.
Wherever the results land, Dr. Stanley believes the COVID-Dynamic project can help us learn to mitigate the psychological effects of a large-scale disaster. Understanding the psychological impact of COVID-19--on both an individual and societal level--is critical to developing strategies that will help people prepare for and adapt to the next crisis that comes our way.
