BACKGROUND Psychoeducation has the potential to support students experiencing distress and help m... more BACKGROUND Psychoeducation has the potential to support students experiencing distress and help meet the demand for support; however, there is a need to understand how these programs are experienced. Web-based diaries are a useful activity for psychoeducation because of their therapeutic benefits, ability to capture naturalistic data relevant to well-being, and appropriateness for text analysis methods. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine how university students use electronic diaries within a psychoeducation program designed to enhance mental well-being. METHODS The Science of Happiness course was administered to 154 undergraduate students in a university setting (the United Kingdom). Diaries were collected from the students for 9 weeks. Baseline well-being data were collected using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). The percentage of negative and positive emotion words used in diaries (emotional tone) and use of words from five life domains (social, wor...
This research seeks to explore whether individuals' level of resilience, optimism and depress... more This research seeks to explore whether individuals' level of resilience, optimism and depression affects their social evaluative learning of the self (the ability to learn whether another person likes or dislikes them). It examines whether these three characteristics moderate the effect social ostracism has on an individual's social evaluative learning. The research is being conducted by three researchers who are completing an MSc in Experimental Psychology at Bristol University. This will form the basis of their MSc dissertations. Each researcher will focus on one of the three traits (resilience, optimism and depression), and although they will collaboratively design the experiment and collect data, the analyses and write ups will be completed separately by each researcher. Details of each have been outlined using sub-headings below. The research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Bruce Hood and Catherine Hobbs.
Psychoeducational courses focused on positive psychology interventions have been shown to benefit... more Psychoeducational courses focused on positive psychology interventions have been shown to benefit student well-being. However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying social restrictions, many educators have had to deliver their courses online. Given that online teaching presents a very different university experience for students, do psychoeducational courses provide similar well-being benefits in an online format? In this pre-registered study (https://osf.io/3f89m), we demonstrate that despite the challenges of remote learning, first year university students (N = 166) taking an online “Science of Happiness” course during the first term experienced positive benefits to mental well-being in comparison to a wait-list control group (N = 198) registered to take the course in the second term. Specifically, university students currently taking the course maintained their mental well-being over the semester relative to the wait-list control who showed a significant decli...
We tested whether a psychoeducational course improved well-being in three cohorts. Study 1 found ... more We tested whether a psychoeducational course improved well-being in three cohorts. Study 1 found significantly higher mental well-being in first year undergraduates who took the course compared to a waiting-list control. Study 2 revealed that students taking the course when COVID-19 restrictions began did not experience increases in mental well-being but had significantly higher well-being than a third matched group. In Study 3, an online course increased mental well-being in University students and staff during a COVID-19 lockdown. These findings support the claim that psychoeducational courses are beneficial in both live and online formats and in times of collective uncertainty.
Sentimental object attachment is a phenomenon that begins early in childhood. It is widely theori... more Sentimental object attachment is a phenomenon that begins early in childhood. It is widely theorised that children develop emotional attachment to specific objects as a maternal substitute which varies across cultures and socioeconomic conditions. While the need for these objects should diminish as the child becomes more independent, there is a growing body of work showing that object attachment may persist into adulthood. The reasons for this sustainment are not known but childhood object attachment is associated with a bias for unique individuals which subsequently influences preferences for authentic objects in adulthood.
The reliance in psychology on verbal definitions means that psychological research is unusually m... more The reliance in psychology on verbal definitions means that psychological research is unusually moored to how humans think and communicate about categories. Psychological concepts (e.g., intelligence; attention) are easily assumed to represent objective, definable categories with an underlying essence. Like the 'vital forces' previously thought to animate life, these assumed essences can create an illusion of understanding. We describe a pervasive tendency across psychological science to assume that essences explain phenomena by synthesizing a wide range of research lines from cognitive, clinical, and biological psychology and neuroscience. Labeling a complex phenomenon can appear as theoretical progress before sufficient evidence that the described category has a definable essence or known boundary conditions. Category labels can further undermine progress by masking contingent and contextual relationships and obscuring the need to specify mechanisms. Finally, we highlight ...
We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This 'IKEA' effect leads u... more We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This 'IKEA' effect leads us to believe that our creations are more valuable than items that are identical, but constructed by another. This series of studies utilises a developmental perspective to explore why this bias exists. Study 1 elucidates the ontogeny of the IKEA effect, demonstrating an emerging bias at age 5, corresponding with key developmental milestones in self-concept formation. Study 2 assesses the role of effort, revealing that the IKEA effect is not moderated by the amount of effort invested in the task in 5-to-6-year olds. Finally, Study 3 examines whether feelings of ownership moderate the IKEA effect, finding that ownership alone cannot explain why children value their creations more. Altogether, results from this study series are incompatible with existing theories of the IKEA bias. Instead, we propose a new framework to examine biases in decision making. Perhaps the IKEA effect reflects a li...
BACKGROUND Psychoeducation has the potential to support students experiencing distress and help m... more BACKGROUND Psychoeducation has the potential to support students experiencing distress and help meet the demand for support; however, there is a need to understand how these programs are experienced. Web-based diaries are a useful activity for psychoeducation because of their therapeutic benefits, ability to capture naturalistic data relevant to well-being, and appropriateness for text analysis methods. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine how university students use electronic diaries within a psychoeducation program designed to enhance mental well-being. METHODS The Science of Happiness course was administered to 154 undergraduate students in a university setting (the United Kingdom). Diaries were collected from the students for 9 weeks. Baseline well-being data were collected using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). The percentage of negative and positive emotion words used in diaries (emotional tone) and use of words from five life domains (social, wor...
This research seeks to explore whether individuals' level of resilience, optimism and depress... more This research seeks to explore whether individuals' level of resilience, optimism and depression affects their social evaluative learning of the self (the ability to learn whether another person likes or dislikes them). It examines whether these three characteristics moderate the effect social ostracism has on an individual's social evaluative learning. The research is being conducted by three researchers who are completing an MSc in Experimental Psychology at Bristol University. This will form the basis of their MSc dissertations. Each researcher will focus on one of the three traits (resilience, optimism and depression), and although they will collaboratively design the experiment and collect data, the analyses and write ups will be completed separately by each researcher. Details of each have been outlined using sub-headings below. The research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Bruce Hood and Catherine Hobbs.
Psychoeducational courses focused on positive psychology interventions have been shown to benefit... more Psychoeducational courses focused on positive psychology interventions have been shown to benefit student well-being. However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying social restrictions, many educators have had to deliver their courses online. Given that online teaching presents a very different university experience for students, do psychoeducational courses provide similar well-being benefits in an online format? In this pre-registered study (https://osf.io/3f89m), we demonstrate that despite the challenges of remote learning, first year university students (N = 166) taking an online “Science of Happiness” course during the first term experienced positive benefits to mental well-being in comparison to a wait-list control group (N = 198) registered to take the course in the second term. Specifically, university students currently taking the course maintained their mental well-being over the semester relative to the wait-list control who showed a significant decli...
We tested whether a psychoeducational course improved well-being in three cohorts. Study 1 found ... more We tested whether a psychoeducational course improved well-being in three cohorts. Study 1 found significantly higher mental well-being in first year undergraduates who took the course compared to a waiting-list control. Study 2 revealed that students taking the course when COVID-19 restrictions began did not experience increases in mental well-being but had significantly higher well-being than a third matched group. In Study 3, an online course increased mental well-being in University students and staff during a COVID-19 lockdown. These findings support the claim that psychoeducational courses are beneficial in both live and online formats and in times of collective uncertainty.
Sentimental object attachment is a phenomenon that begins early in childhood. It is widely theori... more Sentimental object attachment is a phenomenon that begins early in childhood. It is widely theorised that children develop emotional attachment to specific objects as a maternal substitute which varies across cultures and socioeconomic conditions. While the need for these objects should diminish as the child becomes more independent, there is a growing body of work showing that object attachment may persist into adulthood. The reasons for this sustainment are not known but childhood object attachment is associated with a bias for unique individuals which subsequently influences preferences for authentic objects in adulthood.
The reliance in psychology on verbal definitions means that psychological research is unusually m... more The reliance in psychology on verbal definitions means that psychological research is unusually moored to how humans think and communicate about categories. Psychological concepts (e.g., intelligence; attention) are easily assumed to represent objective, definable categories with an underlying essence. Like the 'vital forces' previously thought to animate life, these assumed essences can create an illusion of understanding. We describe a pervasive tendency across psychological science to assume that essences explain phenomena by synthesizing a wide range of research lines from cognitive, clinical, and biological psychology and neuroscience. Labeling a complex phenomenon can appear as theoretical progress before sufficient evidence that the described category has a definable essence or known boundary conditions. Category labels can further undermine progress by masking contingent and contextual relationships and obscuring the need to specify mechanisms. Finally, we highlight ...
We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This 'IKEA' effect leads u... more We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This 'IKEA' effect leads us to believe that our creations are more valuable than items that are identical, but constructed by another. This series of studies utilises a developmental perspective to explore why this bias exists. Study 1 elucidates the ontogeny of the IKEA effect, demonstrating an emerging bias at age 5, corresponding with key developmental milestones in self-concept formation. Study 2 assesses the role of effort, revealing that the IKEA effect is not moderated by the amount of effort invested in the task in 5-to-6-year olds. Finally, Study 3 examines whether feelings of ownership moderate the IKEA effect, finding that ownership alone cannot explain why children value their creations more. Altogether, results from this study series are incompatible with existing theories of the IKEA bias. Instead, we propose a new framework to examine biases in decision making. Perhaps the IKEA effect reflects a li...
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