We frequently discuss our experiences, thoughts and emotions with friends and family. Their behavior in the course of such interactions can have a tremendous impact--positive or negative--on our ability to cope with life's challenges while preserving our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. However, this ubiquitous resource remains virtually untapped by the public health system: Most people are not educated about ways to offer powerful support through everyday interactions. I aim to demystify the methods and mechanisms of such supportive interactions, in order to help people help one another better.
Consider Barney, who is sick with stress and worry. He is losing sleep, eating too much, cannot concentrate on his work or his relationships. Barney's body is strained from living in a constant state of emergency, and his immune system, already weakened from poor sleep, is beginning to falter. Barney tries to talk with friends about his problem, but they tell him that he shouldn't worry, or give him obvious, useless "easy solutions" without really understanding his concerns. Barney feels like nobody understands his difficulty, and wonders if he is just being silly or weak. But the next day, Barney meets with another friend, and things are different. His friend listens, expresses concern, and acknowledges Barney's difficulty. After talking, Barney feels better, less anxious and more hopeful. He didn't forget his problem but, somehow, it seems less threatening. He is more secure, and even comes up with ideas for ways to handle his predicament. Strangely, he can't say what his friend did to help him feel better. And yet, undeniably, something happened. For the first time that month, Barney sleeps well.
We are only beginning to understand the mechanisms through which supportive interactions facilitate health and well-being. How do supportive interactions impact the immune system? What are physiological and neural processes that are involved in providing and receiving support, and how do these depend on genetic makeup? How do effective supporters behave? What do they say? Do different people benefit from different forms of supportive interactions? Does effective support vary as a function of culture and socioeconomic background? And, perhaps most importantly, how can people be taught to provide effective support?
As an experimental psychologist, I have been exploring the promise that supportive interactions offer to the health of individuals and society, in addition to my research on self-control. As an experienced peer counselor and counselor trainer, I have come to believe in the feasibility of teaching people how to provide effective support, but I am struck by the lack of empirical evidence and systematic training methods to facilitate such training. As an educator, having earned my MA in education while working toward my PhD in psychology, I am involved in creating programs for children, youth and adults, in formal and informal settings, through which knowledge of supportive interactions can be disseminated for the benefit of the learners, those around them, and society at large.
Self-Control
Temporal discounting | Distress tolerance | Cognitive reconstrual
My interest in self-control emerged while working as a homeless outreach specialist for BRC in NY, shortly after completing my military service in Israel. Driving in Manhattan, I would leave the team van to huddle with homeless clients, encouraging them to consider accessing the many social services. I was struck by the variability in clients' ability to help themselves: Many were substance abusers and some were mentally ill, and yet--every once in a while--a determined individual would enter treatment and find his or her way back into society. Sadly, for any one such individual, hundreds of others did not manage to complete the recovery process and succumbed to tempting urges along the way. Why could some do it, while others failed?
I decided to educate myself on this matter, while continuing to work as a social worker. From the research literature, I learned that self-control was extremely complex, and vital to personal well-being, as it impacts medical compliance, exercise, sexual behavior, academic achievement, criminal behavior, drug use, driving style, and myriad other behaviors. Moreover, these behaviors profoundly impact societal well-being, in part due to the devastating economic ramifications of widespread poor health (lost work, healthcare costs), criminal behavior, low education levels, and road safety, to name a few.
I was amazed to discover that self-control was rarely discussed (let alone taught) in educational settings, despite growing scientific knowledge and its crucial importance to individuals and society. After much thought, I decided to become a researcher, to improve our understanding and to educate our society and, to this aim, I joined Stanford`s psychology PhD program. I am fortunate and honored to have James Gross as my mentor and graduate advisor, and I have been a member of the Stanford Psychophysiology Lab throughout my graduate career.
The ability to resist temptations in order to strive toward more distant goals is the essence of self-control. Much of my research aims to unveil the biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying this complex phenomenon, and can be divided to three main branches.
1. Temporal discounting: The tendency to view events in the far future as less important than events in the near future. This topic is of great interest to economists and other social scientists, as it sheds light on such diverse phenomena as medical compliance, retirement savings, and exercise habits. I was fortunate to develop a strong collaboration with Antonio Rangel, an economics professor, who introduced me to the field of neuroeconomics, which I have been involved with ever since. I am especially interested in the effects of personality and situational contexts on temporal discounting. I recently completed a survey study in which I demonstrated how reframing an intertemporal choice (without adding any information) can help people make less impulsive choices. In addition, I am collaborating with two psychiatrists to explore the translation of temporal discounting research to treatments for clinical populations, especially patients with impulse control disorders. Lastly, I am currently conducting a longitudinal study that examines the temporal dynamics of changes in temporal discounting during addiction recovery (e.g. from illicit drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes), with the aim of developing "early warning" systems that would enable programs and recovering addicts to recognize times in which the recovering addict is especially vulnerable to relapse.
2. Distress tolerance: The ability to experience discomfort without escaping or terminating it. The urge to put an end to unpleasant experiences (e.g. intense craving, physical fatigue) often tempts people to behave in ways that result in long-term harm (e.g. consuming drugs, avoiding exercise). Little is known about the way in which the decision to escape/terminate an unpleasant experience is instantiated in the brain. In collaboration with Sean Mackey, a medical researcher (director of the Stanford medical school's pain management division), I am conducting a neuroimaging (fMRI) study in which I use brain activation data to predict when participants will reach their "breaking point" (i.e. terminate a painful but harmless experience). In subsequent studies, I intend to explore the effects of self-regulation strategies on this phenomenon. This research can have far-reaching implications for understanding varied sources of distress (e.g. drug craving, food craving, aggressive impulses), and ways in which people and societies can handle them constructively.
3. Cognitive reconstrual: Thinking about a situation in a new way. I developed a model of decision-making in the face of temptation (informed by psychological, economic, and neurocognitive research), and used it to design an intervention that employs cognitive reconstrual to help people overcome temptations. In a number of studies, I discovered that this manipulation was effective, apparently by making the temptation itself less appealing. I am currently conducting follow-up studies to further elucidate the mechanism underlying this intervention.
As a cognitive neuroscientist and experimental psychologist, I often find myself bridging between the "soft" social sciences and the "hard" biomedical sciences - a position I find hugely rewarding, as it enriches my own thinking. As I continued to develop my research on self-control and supportive interactions, my collaborations with economists, physicians, marketers, engineers, psychiatrists, designers, and educators have been tremendously satisfying. These collaborations provided me with the opportunity to learn from the diverse fields that can shed light on my interests, ranging from cellular/neural through genetic and hormonal, to interpersonal, cultural and economic influences on health and behavior. I believe these collaborations offer the greatest promise for high-impact research that explains and reshapes society.
Can we improve the health and well-being of a nation by giving individuals tools to help themselves and to support one another? I believe we can, and as an experimental psychologist and an educator, I intend to dedicate my career to making this a reality.