Tag Archives: Karl Pillemer

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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.

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Reconciling a house divided

Karl PillemerLittle research has been conducted on understanding estrangement and reconciliation in families. Karl Pillemer's forthcoming book, Fault Lines:  Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, fills this void and is based on 10 years of his research from the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project.


Connecting Intelligence and Creativity to Improve Education

Robert Sternberg, professor of human development, discusses the intersection of his research on intelligence and creativity and its importance to education in an illuminating interview.


HD Honors the Academic Achievements of the 2020 Graduates

Although Commencement exercises for the Cornell Class of 2020 were canceled to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Department of Human Development honored the academic achievements of this year's outstanding students with its highest awards.


Zoom is a new tool in the researcher's toolkit

Deanna Kocher, a graduate student in Tamar Kushnir's Early Childhood Cognition Lab, explains in a Cornell Sun article how the lab has been using Zoom to study how children interact with virtual robots.


Aging Differences in Decision Making May Contribute to Health Vulnerabilities

Corinna Loeckenhoff's research on decision making and lifestyle in older adults point to additional factors that contribute to health disparities and economic vulnerabilities. She discusses these factors in an article that appeared in The New York Times.


Discover recently added resources, including podcasts of interviews with HD faculty from HD Today e-NEWS Listen Notes playlists


Karl Pillemer

Little research has been conducted on understanding estrangement and reconciliation in families. Karl Pillemer's forthcoming book, Fault Lines:  Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, fills this void and is based on 10 years of his research from the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project.

Recently, Dr. Pillemer, Hazel E. Reed Professor of Human Development, wrote an article, A Key to Harry and Meghan's Estrangement, for Psychology Today citing the topical case of the British royal family. Watch his interview on the University of the District of Columbia's program, Family Matters, for more context about estrangement in families and an overview of his book.

 

 

Through their research and outreach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Development faculty are fulfilling the College of Human Ecology's mission to advance and improve the human experience.

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Anthony Burrow - Getting back on track in the age of COVID-19

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. Anthony Burrow draws attention to the need for adequate mental health resources in response to this crisis.


Anthony Ong - Self Isolation and the potential for personal growth

Anthony Ong, professor of human development, has examined the emotional impacts of self isolation. He says while self isolation may intensify feelings of loneliness, it’s also an opportunity to connect virtually and learn from each other.


Karl Pillemer - Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on older adults

Karl PillemerKarl Pillemer addresses concerns facing older adults as a result of the spread of COVID-19 and predicts that the pandemic will radically alter the delivery of eldercare.


Valerie Reyna - Science and misinformation: Winning the battle for the gist

During the COVID-19 crisis, the public’s need for accurate scientific information is a matter of life and death.  Nevertheless, misinformation is plentiful and it competes with scientific information in what Valerie Reyna calls “a battle for the gist."


Qi Wang - Culture's role in the experience of social isolation during COVID-19

Qi Wang will lead a research team examining individual and cultural factors influencing the subjective experience of social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic and its relation to psychological well-being.


Discover recently added resources, including podcasts of interviews with HD faculty from HD Today e-NEWS Listen Notes playlists


 

Karl Pillemer is Hazel E. Reed Professor in the College of Human Ecology’s Department of Human Development and professor of gerontology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. In this video, Dr. Pillemer addresses concerns facing older adults as a result of the pandemic. In a recent New York Times article, he predicts that the pandemic will radically alter the delivery of eldercare. Dr. Pillemer expects older adults will increasingly choose to remain in their own homes, rather than receive care in nursing homes, which currently house more than 1.5 million Americans. The alarming and disproportionate rate of mortality in nursing homes due to COVID-19 reflects the ease with which the virus spreads between carers and residents in close proximity and older adults' vulnerability to infection. Dr. Pillemer calls for a change in the design of nursing homes in the U.S. with a particular focus on private rooms. He also believes that seniors in nursing homes need to be included in discussions about restrictions on visits from family members. In addition to addressing infection risk within nursing homes, Dr. Pillemer and colleagues have written an op-ed for the Journal of the American Medicine Association, urging the inclusion of long-term care facilities in models of COVID-19 spread.

Despite this seemingly dire moment in American history, Dr. Pillemer believes we can draw strength from the wisdom of older adults who have endured equally challenging events in the past. In this podcast, he provides insight from his interviews with seniors as part of his Legacy Project that can inspire us during the COVID pandemic.

Journal article referenced in this story:

Pillemer, K., Subramanian, L., & Hupert, N. (2020). The Importance of Long-term Care Populations in Models of COVID-19. Jama. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.9540

Discover recently added resources, including podcasts of interviews with HD faculty from HD Today e-NEWS Listen Notes playlists. Also, read the evidence-based review of the Nurse-Family Partnership Program, and watch Karl Pillemer's training webinar on elder-to-elder mistreatment research and interventions in our Resources section of the drop-down menu.

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:

Resident-to-Resident Elder Mistreatment in Nursing Homes: Findings from the First Prevalence Study

This webinar, hosted by Consumer Voice in collaboration with the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), discusses resident-to-resident mistreatment and how to prevent and respond to these incidents.

Dr. Karl Pillemer, Director, Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Hazel E. Reed Professor in the Department of Human Development, Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College, shared findings, recommendations, and best practices from his research regarding the prevalence of resident-to-resident elder mistreatment in nursing facilities. Consumer Voice staff shared information and resources to help increase awareness of these incidents and demonstrate how individualized care is critical in preventing and responding to resident-to-resident mistreatment.

The slides for this webinar can be downloaded as a PDF.

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Additional Resources

Brochure for Consumers on Resident Mistreatment

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This brochure (and large font fact sheet), a product produced by the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care in collaboration with the National Center on Elder Abuse, identifies mistreatment, shares information about an individual’s rights, and offers resources where they can seek help. The brochure and large font fact sheet can be purchased in bulk from the Consumer Voice store.

Long-Term Care Ombudsman Advocacy: Resident-to-Resident Aggression (Technical Assistance Brief)

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Resident-to-resident aggression is a serious issue that has a significant negative impact on all residents involved, but incidents are often not reported and investigated. The purpose of this brief is to provide an overview of resident-to-resident aggression in order to assist Long-Term Care Ombudsman (LTCO) programs in effectively responding to complaints involving resident-to-resident aggression, as well as help prevent RRA and reduce the prevalence of these incidents. Click here to view the brief.

Hebrew Home at Riverdale- Research Division R-REM Online Training