Tag Archives: translational research

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.

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.

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MULTIMEDIA

John Eckenrode - What is translational research?

John Eckenrode

John Eckenrode and Karl Pillemer discuss the origins of translational research, and how it differs from "basic" and "applied" research. There are some examples of translational research projects and throughout the conversation they touch on why this research method is so effective and more and more in-demand by funders, policymakers and practitioners.


STUDENTS IN THE NEWS

The Human Development Graduate Program - an interview with Tamar Kushnir's students

Three of Tamar Kushnir's graduate students--Teresa Flanagan, Alyssa Varhol, and Alice Xin Zhao--reflect on what led them to work with Dr. Kushnir and enroll in the Department of Human Development Graduate Program.


 

Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research's podcast series, "Doing Translational Research," May 2, 2018

It's our 20th episode! This seemed like a good moment to address a question we often hear: What is translational research?

To tackle this important question Karl is joined by BCTR associate director John Eckenrode. They cover the origins of translational research, and how it differs from "basic" and "applied" research. There are some examples of translational research projects and throughout the conversation they touch on why this research method is so effective and more and more in-demand by funders, policymakers and practitioners.

John Eckenrode is a social psychologist and professor of human development and associate director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. He is also founder and co-director of the National Data Archive of Child Abuse and Neglect. His research concerns child abuse and neglect, the effects of preventive interventions, translational research, and stress and coping processes.

Research for the Public Good: Applying Methods of Translational Research to Improve Human Health and Well-being (Bronfenbrenner Series on the Ecology of Human Development)

Edited by Elaine Wethington and Rachel Dunifon

Translational research links scientific findings with programs and policies that improve human health and well-being. It includes research that evaluates interventions or policies for efficacy and effectiveness, as well as research that applies field experience to future development of basic theory and its applications.

Although translational research has traditionally emphasized biomedical studies with one type of application (i.e., individual-level intervention to treat disease), the concept has expanded to include various sciences and many types of applications.

Social and behavioral sciences now often contribute to public- and individual-level interventions that promote education, disease prevention, health care delivery, health care access, and more. This broader, more inclusive approach to translational research has gained popularity and been promoted by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, medical centers, and university programs.

This book demonstrates how emerging methods of translational research can be applied to important topics of interest to social and behavioral scientists. Accessible models and real-world case studies are provided to help bridge the gaps among research, policy, and practice.

cancerBy H. Roger Segelken
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, March 25, 2015

The doctor says: “We offer two kinds of surgery for your cancer. Both procedures have 80 percent cure rates. After the first kind, 4 percent of patients have serious complications. In the second type, 20 percent simply die. No pressure to decide, but the sooner we start …”

Wishing you hadn’t slept through statistics class – trying to remember what went wrong with Uncle Joe’s surgery, and longing for the days when doctors knew best – you seek counsel in a decision-support tool, online or at the nearest cancer resource center.

“In fact, there are more than 40 tools to help people make informed decisions in cancer prevention, screening and treatment,” says Valerie F. Reyna, professor of human development in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. “The more effective decision-support aids help with the numeracy problem – is a 10 percent chance riskier than one in a thousand? But not all tools help patients use their values, emotions and life experience to make decisions that affect their lives and their families’ future.”

Writing in the February-March 2015 special issue of American Psychologist, in an article titled “Decision Making and Cancer,” Reyna and her research colleagues want support tools to accommodate what they call “bottom-line gist options” that swirl though a patient’s mind – along with “verbatim” details about probable risk and whatever else the doctor said.

Gist is at the core of Fuzzy Trace Theory (which Reyna applied most recently to patients’ decisions to take antibiotics even though the misery is probably caused by viruses, not bacteria), and there’s nothing wrong with listening to one’s heart, Reyna says.

Reyna and her co-authors explain that “gist involves understanding meaning (insight in the gestalt sense) – integrating dimensions of information to distill its essence, not just processing fewer dimensions of information that are ‘good enough.’” Although people incorporate both verbatim details and gist in decision making, “they generally have a fuzzy processing (gist) preference” for information, the authors report.

The researchers offer this prescription for a Fuzzy Trace Theory-based cancer-decision tool: Ensure that patients understand the essential gist meaning of information; remind patients of an array of simple social and moral values that are important to them and that have relevance to the decision at hand; and assist patients in applying their values throughout the decision process.

“Every phase of the cancer continuum – from prevention, screening and diagnosis to treatment, survivorship and end of life – is fraught with challenges to our abilities to make informed decisions,” says Reyna. “People are not optimal decision makers. We struggle with complex information about benefits and risks, tradeoffs and uncertainties in cancer treatment.”

An impassionate computer could make optimal decisions on our behalf – disregarding the gist of what we think is best for us, Reyna adds. But the computer is too literal to make the best decisions for people, Reyna says: “Decision support should strive to capture the gist, the essential bottom line, of patients’ options.”

Reyna, director of the Human Neuroscience Institute in the College of Human Ecology, is the first author on the paper along with Wendy L. Nelson, National Cancer Institute; Paul K. Han, Maine Medical Center, Scarborough, Maine; and Michael P. Pignone, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Preparation of the American Psychologist report was supported, in part, by awards from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Reyna_Valerie_web

Reprinted from the Association for Psychological Science's Journal, Observer, Feb., 2015

A high-quality journal of juried review articles on issues of broad social importance is needed now more than ever. Psychological science is directly relevant to the most pressing social, economic, and health problems of our day, yet is vastly underutilized. To be sure, PSPI has increased the uptake of behavioral research in policy and practice, but so much more potential exists. Building on the success of prior editors, I want to propel the scientific and practical influence of behavioral research forward.

This journal should influence — and be influenced by — the latest scientific theories as well as speak to the mysteries of human conflict, motivation, achievement, learning, feelings, disorders, and decision making.

Why theory? We need evidence-based theory in order to understand how to apply what we learn about human behavior. Theory explains and predicts behavior, so that it is possible to know what the “active ingredient” is when interventions change behavior. Theory also explains and predicts who will benefit from specific practices and policies. Therefore, I will emphasize causal mechanisms when appropriate, with a view to understanding how to generalize results of research to policy and practice. There is no reason why PSPI cannot be a cutting-edge theoretical and translational journal, and its audience should encompass scientists, practitioners, and policy makers.

Another important role of PSPI is to reconcile different viewpoints from researchers across disciplines.Scholarship means taking account of all of the relevant prior evidence, not just evidence produced by those with similar worldviews. Psychology as a cumulative science, in which current work builds on prior findings and ideas, is crucial for scientific and social progress. I have had the opportunity to interact with scholars from many different disciplines, and I will draw on those experiences to build bridges between psychology and other disciplines.

PSPI connects members of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) to members of the public — including policy makers. It should also serve as the go-to source for behavioral scientists from different disciplines because it provides the most rigorous evidence and the most exciting ideas about the most important issues.

About Valerie F. Reyna

Incoming PSPI Editor Valerie F. Reyna is a professor of human development at Cornell University, where she is also director of the Human Neuroscience Institute, codirector of the Cornell University Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility, and codirector of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research. Her research integrates brain and behavioral approaches to understand and improve judgment, decision making, and memory across the lifespan. Her recent work has focused on the neuroscience of risky decision making and its implications for health and well-being, especially in adolescents; applications of cognitive models and artificial intelligence for improving understanding of genetics (e.g., in breast cancer); and medical and legal decision making (e.g., about jury awards, medication decisions, and adolescent culpability).

In addition to being an APS Fellow, Reyna is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and several divisions of the American Psychological Association, including the Divisions of Experimental Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Health Psychology. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Mayo Clinic, a permanent member of study sections of the National Institutes of Health, and a member of advisory panels for the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences. She has also served as president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

Reyna helped create a new research agency in the US Department of Education, where she oversaw grant policies and programs. Her service also has included leadership positions in organizations dedicated to creating equal opportunities for minorities and women, and on national executive and advisory boards of centers and grants with similar goals, such as the Arizona Hispanic Center of Excellence, National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and Women in Cognitive Science.

2015 Psychological Science in the Public Interest Editorial/Advisory Board

 

APS Past President Mahzarin R. Banaji, Harvard University
Past APS Board Member Stephen J. Ceci, Cornell University
APS William James Fellow Uta Frith, University College London, United Kingdom
APS Past President Morton Ann Gernsbacher, University of Wisconsin–Madison
APS Fellow John B. Jemmott, III, University of Pennsylvania
APS William James Fellow Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University
APS Past President Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of California, Irvine
APS Fellow Marcus E. Raichle, Washington University in St. Louis
APS Past President Henry L. Roediger, III, Washington University in St. Louis
APS Fellow Daniel L. Schacter, Harvard University
APS William James Fellow Richard M. Shiffrin, Indiana University
APS Fellow Keith E. Stanovich, University of Toronto, Canada
APS Fellow Laurence Steinberg, Temple University
Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University
APS Fellow Wendy M. Williams, Cornell University
APS Fellow Christopher Wolfe, Miami University

Valerie Reyna can be contacted at ReynaPSPI@cornell.edu.

By Ted Boscia
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, Jan. 12, 2015

By H. Roger Segelken
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, December 16, 2014

When the doctor says, “I could prescribe antibiotics for your sniffles, but it’s probably a virus – not bacterial,” do you decline? Many patients expect antibiotics, although overprescription is a major factor driving one of the biggest public health concerns today: antibiotic resistance.

Now researchers at Cornell, George Washington and Johns Hopkins universities have figured out why: “Patients choose antibiotics because there’s a chance [prescription medications] will make them better, and they perceive the risks of taking antibiotics as negligible,” says Cornell psychologist Valerie Reyna.

With her co-authors, the professor of human development has published new research with important implications for communicating about antibiotics: “Germs Are Germs, and Why Not Take a Risk? Patients’ Expectations for Prescribing Antibiotics in an Inner-City Emergency Department,” in the journal Medical Decision Making.

That’s encouraging news for health educators, Reyna says, noting: “Patients might expect doctors to prescribe antibiotics because patients confuse viruses and bacteria – and think antibiotics will be effective for either. Most educational campaigns attempt to educate patients about this misconception. However, we found fewer than half of patients in an urban ER agreeing with the message, ‘germs are germs.’”

Patients who understand the difference between viruses and bacteria – and take antibiotics anyway – are making a strategic risk assessment, Reyna says: “Our research suggests that antibiotic use boils down essentially to a choice between a negative status quo – sick for sure – versus taking antibiotics and maybe getting better. This risk strategy promotes antibiotic use, particularly when taking antibiotics is perceived as basically harmless.”

Fuzzy-trace theory

The Broniatowski-Klein-Reyna study is the first to apply “fuzzy-trace” theory to how people think about antibiotics. The theory predicts that patients make decisions based on the gist (or simple bottom line) of information.

As Reyna explains: “The goal is to make better decisions, getting antibiotics to patients who need them but not overusing them so the rest of the public is safe. Understanding how patients think is crucial because their expectations influence doctors’ decisions.”

Adds David Broniatowski, assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering at GWU, and the report’s first author: “We need to fight fire with fire. If patients think that antibiotics can’t hurt, we can’t just focus on telling them that they probably have a virus. We need to let them know that antibiotics can have some pretty bad side effects, and that they will definitely not help cure a viral infection.”

The third author is Dr. Eili Klein, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University and a fellow at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy.

Reyna is the director of the Human Neuroscience Institute, co-director of the Cornell University Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility, and a co-director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research, all in the College of Human Ecology. She is a developer of “fuzzy-trace theory,” a model of the relation between mental representations and decision making that has been widely applied in law, medicine and public health.

The study was supported, in part, by funds from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.