Tag Archives: bronfenbrenner center for translational research

FEATURES


New HD faculty explore the power of identity and positive youth development

Human Development has added two new faculty members this year, Misha Inniss-Thompson and Adam Hoffman. Click here to read more.


Connecting communities with brain science

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) is launching a new project – the Community Neuroscience Initiative, (CNI) headed by four Human Development faculty, Anthony Burrow, Marlen Gonzalez, Eve De Rosa, and Adam Anderson. All have been engaged in STEM outreach and engagement and envision CNI as a way to build connections between neuroscience research, STEM education, and community empowerment. Click here to read more.


The risk of silence and the underreporting of concussions

Peter Ajayi

Concussion injuries among high school and college athletes have become a central concern in youth sports. Prompt self-reporting of a concussion immediately improves brain recovery and is necessary to reduce second-impact syndrome, rapid swelling of the brain after a person receives a second concussion before symptoms of the first concussion have subsided. Unfortunately, repetitive head injuries in adolescents and young adults are often underreported. Peter Ajayi, HD’19, David Garavito, JD/PhD ’21, and Valerie Reyna, professor of human development, are the first to detail an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and concussion reporting intentions among adolescents and young adults. Click here to read more.


HD students achieve during the COVID-19 pandemic

Despite the restrictions on campus to prevent the spread of COVID-19, graduate and undergraduate students in Human Development persisted and excelled in their research and outreach activities. Click here to read more.


Anthony Burrow

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) is launching a new project – the Community Neuroscience Initiative, (CNI) headed by four Human Development faculty, Anthony Burrow, Marlen Gonzalez, Eve De Rosa, and Adam Anderson. All have been engaged in STEM outreach and engagement and envision CNI as a way to build connections between neuroscience research, STEM education, and community empowerment. They are excited by community partnerships with scientists that lead to the inception of a project, in contrast to research that typically begins within the university and then involves a community.

Marlen Gonzalez, assistant professor of human development, received a 2021 Cornell Center for Social Sciences fellowship for her project, “The Neuroecology of Space Use, Belonging and Underrepresented Minority experience in Higher Education.” Although most colleges have offices for diversity and inclusion and have used

Marlen Gonzalez

strategies to create a "sense of belonging" to improve racial disparities in graduation rates, they lack ways to implement neurological moderators. Dr. Gonzalez proposes a neuroecological model to facilitate students’ context-based memory and enhance connectivity between memory and motivational neural systems. This approach would study, for example, the ways in which the social and physical interactions of students in a college environment could impact the neurochemistry of the brain involved in memory and motivation. Dr. Gonzalez wants science about the brain easily understood by all people, not just scientists, and this knowledge can empower communities.

Adam Anderson and Eve De Rosa

Eve De Rosa, Adam Anderson, and Anthony Burrow co-founded and co-direct, "The Brain Days Program." Dr. De Rosa has been a leader in the CHE community as Dean of Students and a Pathways to Social Justice fellow. She made headlines as the first woman, person of color, and professor from the College of Human Ecology (CHE) to be elected to Cornell's Dean of Faculty. She and Dr. Anderson co-direct the Affect and Cognition Lab (ACLAB). Dr. Burrow directs the BCTR and the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE).

As part of The Brain Days Program, once a month, a team of undergraduates travels from Cornell to the Syracuse Academy of Sciences charter school to deliver hands-on, interactive lessons to elementary students on topics such as parts of the brain, the way neurons in the brain connect to each other, and how the brain is involved in emotions and self-control. At the same time, the Cornell students work with Syracuse Academy of Sciences high school student interns who assist with the lessons. The lab has been collecting scientific data on the program, to assess, for example, whether the children enjoy the lessons, and if their academic performance is influenced by the Brain Days program.

FEATURES


Medical decision making and COVID-19 risks

Valerie Reyna leads discussions about communicating the risks of COVID-19 to the public.


COVID-19 pandemic spurs family reconciliation

Karl Pillemer of the Cornell Reconciliation Project writes about how the COVID-19 crisis has led some people to reconcile with their families.


From cultural differences to human universals

Qi Wang articulates the role of cultural psychology in bridging cultural gaps in psychological research and in society.


Spatial language and play are key to developing spatial skills

Marianella Casasola shows how multisensory play in naturalistic settings is fundamental to the early development of visual-spatial abilities.


Smoothing career paths for women in science

Wendy Williams and Jane Mendle contribute to our understanding of the career challenges women in academic sciences face and the way forward.


Below is one of Psychology Today's top blog posts of 2020 by Karl Pillemer, Hazel E. Reed Professor in the Department of Human Development, Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and author of Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them.

Karl Pillemer

In the very dark cloud of the coronavirus pandemic, it is hard to find a silver lining. One positive glimmer, however, has recently come to my attention.

Over the past five years, I have conducted a series of studies to shed light on the problem of estrangement in families, focusing in particular on the experience of people who have reconciled successfully. Friends and colleagues who know of my interests have contacted me with interesting news: They reconciled because of the crisis.

For these individuals, the pandemic brought about renewed contact with a relative after years, and sometimes decades, of estrangement.

I heard from a daughter whose rift was caused by bitter arguments over the Trump presidency. She was the lone progressive in a family of Trump supporters. Even if she tried to avoid political debates, her family provoked her until she took the bait. Unable to avoid arguments with her father in particular, she cut him off and stopped visiting. “We had a pretty good relationship until 2016,” she told me.

Her concern about her parents prodded her to reach out when the crisis began: “I called them and told them I was worried about them. We had the first good talk in a couple of years. I just said to my dad: ‘Let’s help each other now. How about if we stop talking about abortion or immigration?’ To my surprise, he agreed.”

Siblings, too, have been pulled back into family networks. I learned of a brother who was cut off by the family after traumatic events two decades ago. He was included on the family email round-robin about coping with the pandemic and, to everyone’s surprise, joined in. Similarly, two sisters who had grown apart since leaving the parental home called one another and compared their experiences—and made plans to get together.

I was not surprised, having surveyed more than 1,700 people about their experiences of estrangement and reconciliation (the findings will appear in a forthcoming book). I learned that one of the major reasons for bridging a family rift was a nagging sense of anticipated regret.

Usually, we think of regret as believing that our current situation would have been better if only we had made a different decision. Research shows, however, that anticipating regret can be a powerful motivation for action. When people are faced with difficult decisions, a critical factor for many is the regret they think they may feel in the future for an action taken or not taken now.

There’s another factor that promotes the urge to reconcile during this crisis. The extensive research on the concept of “socioemotional selectivity” suggests that when people perceive the time horizon as short, they place a higher value on interpersonal relationships, including those with family members.

This pattern is precisely what I found in my research on people who reconciled. Many were prompted by a revelation that “life is short.” Often, they could point to a particular moment when that sentiment hit home. A common impetus was a serious health problem—their own or their relative’s. When illness struck, they realized it would soon be forever too late to apologize, to forgive, to pick up the phone, or to send the conciliatory letter that’s been sitting on the hard-drive for years. They reached out, and many times they bridged the rift.

Therefore, a powerful motivation for taking the first, tentative step is a small, recurring voice murmuring, “Will I be consumed with regret if I wait until it’s too late to reconcile?” Based on the admittedly small sample from my own social network, precisely this motivation is activating family members to ask: “Are the old grievances and grudges really worth it? If I don’t reach out now, will COVID-19 make it too late?”

A psalm has this famous request: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” An unexpected result of the pandemic can be families coming together who have suffered through painful rifts. My reconciled respondents would endorse taking advantage of such a golden opportunity to heal a fractured family.

Anthony Burrow

Anthony Burrow, associate professor of human development and associate dean for extension and outreach in the College of Human Ecology, has been appointed Director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

A central focus of Dr. Burrow's research is the impact of purpose on one's identity and sense of self. In a recent Scientific American op-ed he co-wrote with Patrick Hill, they raise concerns about the unsettling effect COVID-19 has had on people's lives, leading to what they describe as "feelings of derailment – an individual's sense of disconnection from their past selves, life directions, and motivations." As we determine what the new "normal" looks like during a pandemic, the uncertainties have increased stress and depression among those struggling to get their lives back on track. Dr. Burrow draws attention to the need for adequate mental health resources in response to this crisis.

Drs. Burrow and Hill also propose ways to help members of retirement communities feel a sense of purpose during the pandemic. 

  • Technology is needed to maintain social connections that provide social support and sense of purpose. This is a challenge for communities given limitations of staff and accessible technology. They believe that creating schedules will allow members to plan their days around meeting friends and family.
  • Connections between members of the community need to be maintained being mindful of social distancing guidelines. Community engagement can be fostered through joint activities between members in their individual living spaces. Also, correspondence between members, written or electronic, should be encouraged.
  • It is important to encourage community members to think about how their generation overcame past challenges. Asking members to reflect on how they navigated the obstacles has the added benefit of informing people outside of their community ways to cope with the pandemic.

Journal articles referenced for this story:

Burrow, A. L., Hill, P. L., Ratner, K., & Fuller-Rowell, T. E. (2020). Derailment: Conceptualization, measurement, and adjustment correlates of perceived change in self and direction. Journal of personality and social psychology118(3), 584–601. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000209

Hill, P. L., & Burrow, A. L. (2020). Derailment as a risk factor for greater mental health issues following pandemic. Psychiatry Research, 289, 113093. https://doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113093

Hill, P. L., Lewis, N. A., & Burrow, A. L. (2020). Purpose after Retirement during COVID-19: Trying to Find Direction in Retirement Communities. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. https://doi:10.1016/j.jagp.2020.04.019

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John Eckenrode

John Eckenrode's achievements have left an indelible mark on the department of human development. He was founding Director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, He founded and co-directed the National Data Archive of Child Abuse and Neglect. He received the 2017 Nicholas Hobbs Award from Division 37 (Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice) of the American Psychological Association (APA) for his exemplary research on child advocacy and policy and is a fellow of APA's Division 7 (Developmental Psychology).

John Eckenrode has played a critical role in the development of the Nurse-Family Partnership Program (NFPP) which has been in existence for more than 40 years.

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Pairing specially-trained public health nurses with first-time, low-income mothers has led to significant outcomes in the health of mothers and children. According to an estimate in a 2015 review of the program, by 2031 the Nurse-Family Partnership Program will have prevented 500 infant deaths, 10,000 pre-term births, 4,700 abortions, 42,000 child maltreatment incidents, 36,000 intimate partner violence incidents, 36,000 youth arrests, and 41,000 person-years of youth substance abuse. In 2018, Eckenrode received the Outstanding Article of the Year award from the Child Maltreatment Journal for the paper he wrote with the NFPP research team about the most recent follow-up of the study.

To learn more about Eckenrode's research and a discussion of what is translational research, listen to his interview with Karl Pillemer.

Listen to the HD Today e-NEWS Listen Notes playlists of podcasts featuring HD faculty interviews.

 

 

 

HD TODAY e-NEWS: Insights from Human Development's Research & Outreach

HD TODAY e-NEWS is a quarterly digest of cutting-edge research from the Department of Human Development, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University. Explore the HD Today e-NEWS website at http://hdtoday.human.cornell.edu/ and discover a wide range of resources:

Anthony Burrow, Professor in the Department of Human Development and co-director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research’s Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE), was interviewed for the podcast "Extension Out Loud." The podcast, along with podcasts of other HD faculty, can be found on the HD Today e-NEWS Soundcloud webpage - click here. Read more below about how PRYDE supports 4-H programs and contributes to positive youth development.

Cornell Chronicle, March 14, 2019

by R.J. Anderson

How can exploring identity and sense of purpose help young people get more out of programs such as 4-H?

Anthony Burrow, associate professor of human development, center, joined “Extension Out Loud” podcast hosts Paul Treadwell and Katie Baildon for a conversation about self-purpose and how it can impact youth programming.

In the latest episode of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s “Extension Out Loud” podcast, Anthony Burrow, associate professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, shares his research on the benefits of helping youth think about long-term personal goals and self-identifying “their why” prior to introducing programming.

Burrow, co-director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research’s Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE), suggested that before program leaders kick off activities, they lead youth participants through a series of exercises designed to identify long-term goals and prompt them to examine their future selves. Tapping into this perspective can give programming more meaning and help youth stay focused.

A sense of purpose can also be a weapon against negative or overreactions in their daily lives.

“We’ve often thought of purpose as a sort of protection against negative experiences or stressors,” said Burrow, recipient of the 2019 Engaged Scholar Prize administered by the Office of Engagement Initiatives. “So on days when challenges happen or negative events or negative experiences happen, might having a sense of purpose help people react less negatively to those experiences?”

During the 33-minute episode, co-hosted by CCE staff members Katie Baildon and Paul Treadwell, Burrow covers an array of topics, including:

  • The need to provide youth and adults with safe spaces where they can experiment with different identities to develop purpose, for which 4-H is a great vehicle, Burrow said.
  • How Burrow’s lab has observed the benefits of social media and exploring how it can be a place where youth are exposed to ideas and experiences and can make observations that could not otherwise happen. In his research, Burrow finds having a sense of purpose in life can stave off heightened affective or emotional reactivity to something as simple receiving (or not receiving) a thumbs-up on a social media selfie.
  • How while there is a lot of wonderful development happening through programs and clubs, particularly 4‑H, delivery of those programs and the impacts they are having often go understudied or unexamined. “There’s this gap between the research that’s relevant to youth and the good work that’s happening in communities,” he said. “PRYDE was born out of an attempt to create some infrastructure to bring these two crowds together.”

Full episodes of “Extension Out Loud,” including descriptions and transcripts of each episode, can be found online. Episodes can also be streamed on iTunes and SoundCloud.

R.J. Anderson is a writer/communications specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension.