Social Behavior

The PReventing Aggression In Schools Everyday (PRAISE) Program has evidence of impact when run by research staff. PRAISE was adapted using community-based participatory research to a coaching model whereby school-staff are trained to facilitate the program and receive ongoing coaching from research staff. The overall objective is to demonstrate the efficacy of the adapted PRAISE program when facilitated by in-school staff.

The study will assess if toddlers show differences in stranger wariness according to race, temperament, social network diversity, and neighborhood diversity.

Exercise is routinely recommended because of its benefits for physical, cognitive, and mental health. It is especially beneficial for older adults due to its potential buffering effects against Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (Luck et al., 2014). However, little is known about how to best encourage older adults to exercise. Based on behavior change theory, different intrapersonal and interpersonal motivational factors are likely to be relevant during the contemplation, action, and maintenance stages of behavior change. Generally, as a result of motivational shifts toward prioritizing positivity and socially meaningful goals with advancing age (Carstensen, 2006), socioemotional aspects of decision making may become more salient and influential for older adults (Mikels et al., 2015; Peter et al., 2011). Our previous work has demonstrated that positive affect (Mikels et al., 2020) and social goals (Steltenpohl et al., 2019) play a critical role in older adults' motivation to exercise, but these two lines of research have not been integrated to date. Recent work indicates that positive affect is particularly beneficial for health when shared in social connections (Fredrickson, 2016; Major et al., 2018), and the proposed work will, for the first time, examine how shared interpersonal positivity may impact exercise decision making and behavior, especially during the contemplation and action/maintenance stages of behavior change. But who are the older adults that benefit the most from exercise in terms of physical, cognitive, and mental health (and should be hence be targeted with messages)? Not all older adults reap the benefits of exercise (Sparks, 2014) and, conversely, sedentary older adults have the most to gain. Overall, the current proposed research program is innovative in its (a) translational application of insights from affective, cognitive, and aging theory and research to understand the antecedents and outcomes of exercise decision making in younger and older adults, (b) conceptualization of both the social and emotional aspects of decision making, (c) development of novel methods for health messaging that incorporate social influences, and (d) novel assessments of the exercise-health link.

The researchers are testing a mobile game (named Detour) to support smoking cessation in adolescents and young adults (16-25 years). The game will be tested in a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) where Detour is tested against a digital self-help brochure ("Jouw eigen plan om te stoppen met roken" \[in English: Your personal plan to quit smoking\]) as the active control group. The researchers will recruit 604 participants (aged 16-25) and randomly assign them to receive the game or brochure intervention. The duration between pre-test and post-test for both groups is 5 weeks during which participants can access (parts of) their respective intervention. All participants quit smoking at the end of week 1 of the intervention period. Data is collected on smoking behaviour, intervention usage, and emotional well-being.

Using a randomized controlled trial design, the investigators will examine the effects of music engagement through choir training on the hearing, communication, and psychosocial well-being of older adults, particularly those at heightened risk of developing dementia.

Drug use, substance-related disorders (SUD), other addictive behaviors, or, from a broader perspective, dual pathology, are problems of enormous socio-health impact that still require a great research effort to improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures employed in healthcare practice. Since addictive behaviors have been consistently associated with the presence of alterations in cognitive and executive functions, it is necessary to be able to detect, evaluate, and have specific therapies for these dysfunctions and investigate, among other issues, the role they play in the onset and course of evolution. After implementing neuropsychological evaluation techniques for diagnostic improvement, the search addresses procedures that allow working on cognitive and executive deficits as a specific therapeutic target. In a previous project, the investigators studied the presence of social cognition (SC) dysfunctions in a clinical sample of patients treated in drug addiction care facilities. The investigators evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of the ET® program in those who presented difficulties in SC and analyzed molecular patterns in saliva that could be associated with SC dysfunctions and predict therapeutic response. The ET® program is an online self-training program for SC rehabilitation that includes modules for emotion recognition (ER), Theory of Mind (ToM), and attributional style (AS). To replicate the RCT carried out in patients with SUD in patients with dual pathology with difficulties in ER or ToM, in addition to including a gender perspective, tele-neuropsychology, and searching for a biomarker or a pattern of them that predicts the patient profile that will benefit from the training, using advanced LC-ESI proteomics techniques. It is also intended to subsequently improve the instrument (ET®) through the implementation of a gender perspective and big data analysis and machine learning, and the introduction of automated user management. From the perspective of the STATE PLAN FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION, the project combines clinical and translational research, based on evidence of scientific and technological knowledge, and the use of e-health enabling technologies in the area of Health Services. Health for people with dual pathology, with special attention to the gender perspective.

The proposed study is an observational investigation that aims to examine the impact of an unexpected and unusual event on prosociality within the Milan metro. The event is the simple presence, in the underground car, of a student wearing a Batman suit. The main objective is to assess whether or not the presence of the unusual event influences prosocial behaviour towards a student pretending to be pregnant. During the study, the student, equipped with a sponge prosthesis to simulate a pregnancy will board the underground. She will be asked not to interact with anyone, but to simply look at her phone. In the experimental condition, an individual dressed as Batman will enter the carriage (through a different door than the one used by the student). In the control condition, on the other hand, no one will show up in costume. In addition, the observer will try to gather information on the reason for this prosocial behaviour, noting down the answer given.