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“The ability to discern whether other people are likely to be affiliated is crucial in everyday life,” said Ori Friedman, co-author and Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Waterloo. “When an adult joins a new workplace, or a child joins a new classroom, these judgments help them assess whether people are friends.”

Yesterday, Clinical psychology graduate students from the University of Waterloo Rebecca Trossman, Mahsa Sadeghi Janbahan, and Aleece Katan presented an engaging, informative, and interactive workshop on brain-based factors for health aging to a capacity crowd of 40 seniors at the Forest Height Public Library.  The presentation reviewed normative age-related changes in brain functioning, tips to promote brain health across the lifespan, and behavioral signs that additional assessment may be warranted.  Audience response was highly positive and lively, with many contributions,

To conduct the study, researchers asked 107 employees about their reasons for taking a break and not taking one. They then surveyed another 287 employees twice daily over five days about their sleep quality, fatigue, performance concerns, workload, and the number of breaks they take each day.

“The Lyle S. Hallman Foundation invests in initiatives that support children as they learn and grow,” says Laura Manning, executive director. “Daniela O’Neill’s board games project was a wonderful fit with our priorities, given its emphasis on early development and community engagement.”

Congratulations, Dr. O'Neill!

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This fall, the University of Waterloo’s Health Initiatives team launched the Graham Seed Fund (GSF) and invited researchers to submit their proposals for innovative health-care solutions. The GSF strengthens the University’s health system partnerships by providing resources for collaborating directly with a full range of health providers and clinicians.

As a Vanier scholar, Jackson plans to build on the skills and knowledge he has acquired to become a leader in the field of developmental trauma. “I hope my research will contribute to the growing understanding of the wide-spread consequences of developmental trauma, including and beyond individual symptoms, and will serve to increase awareness about what individuals, families, communities, service providers, and policy makers can do to bolster their own and others’ ability to overcome adversity.”

Psychologically speaking, the inability to grasp the scope of human suffering may be something that's ingrained.

"Humans are evolutionarily disposed to care about and look after both ourselves and those to whom we are related," Ellard explains.

"I think those kinds of kinship-related responses probably go some way to accounting for why we might have more difficulty responding to news of thousands of people, including hundreds of young children, who drowned in the floods in Pakistan than we do the 31 people who were killed by Hurricane Fiona."

Congrats to Prof. Abby Scholer and Prof. Igor Grossmann, who have been named Fellows of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This prestigious designation is conferred on individuals “who have made an extraordinary and distinctive contribution to the science of personality and social psychology.” Abby and Igor join 29 other international scholars on the list of 2022 Fellows, and are two of only 5 Canadians receiving the Fellow designation this year.

As lead author, Brady Roberts worked with his supervisors Myra Fernandes and Colin MacLeod, both UWaterloo professors in psychology, to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the past 60 years of research on the enactment effect. Meta-analyses chronicle what previous studies have shown and assess various factors in the studies including how study design influences the reliability of results.

The CACBT is a national organization by and for Canadian mental health practitioners involved in the practice and theory of cognitive behaviour therapy. The mandate includes: training, advancement of knowledge, advocacy, and accreditation in the practice of CBT. 

A well deserved congratulations to Dr. Purdon!