Research in 90sec's

Why do some people still remain skeptical about climate change?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Luo and Zhao who explain how some biases can give rise to divergent opinions. Polarization along political parties is a case in point. As your motivations dictate the evidence you look for, data about climate change should be presented differently for liberals or conservatives.

Full citation:

Luo, Y., & Zhao, J. (2019). Motivated attention in climate change perception and action. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1541.

How is structural distress experienced by resident physicians?

In this paper, I feature a paper by Sukhera, Kulkarni and Taylor who describe structural distress as a distinctive form of moral distress.  When it comes to resident physicians, structural distress centers upon the experience of powerlessness leading them to go above and beyond the call of duty, potentially worsening their psychological well-being. When that happens, faculty play a buffering role through role modelling vulnerability and involving residents in policy decisions.

Full citation:

What explains our tendency to consider solutions that add features rather than solutions that remove them?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Adams and colleagues who bring attention to our tendency to add rather than subtract when thinking about solutions to a situation.  It seems as though, subtractive solutions just aren't "top of mind" in most situations. However when dealing with larger societal problems like bureaucracy in organizations and the environmentally unsustainable quest for economic growth, we should reconsider our approach.

Full citation:

Adams, G. S., Converse, B. A., Hales, A. H., & Klotz, L. E. (2021). People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature, 592(7853), 258-261.

How can historical trauma impact health in current and future generations?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Conching & Thayer who offer a model to understand this issue. It appears that exposure to trauma can result in changes to the genome that could make sufferers predisposed to chronic disease. On top of that, these effects can also be transmitted to future generations.

Full citation:

Conching, A. K. S., & Thayer, Z. (2019). Biological pathways for historical trauma to affect health: A conceptual model focusing on epigenetic modifications. Social Science & Medicine, 230, 74-82.

Is it possible to assign a dollar value to culture?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Graham and colleagues who explored the relationship between corporate culture and business value. And a key insight they uncovered was the importance of separating cultural values and cultural norms for understanding the connection between culture and performance. Cultural values are the ideals employees strive to fulfill, while cultural norms reflect whether employees “walk the talk” by actually living out those values. When both are aligned, the value of a company increases.

Full citation:

Graham, J. R., Harvey, C. R., Popadak, J., & Rajgopal, S. (2017). Corporate culture: Evidence from the field (No. w23255). National Bureau of Economic Research. 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2805602

What does civic honesty look like around the world?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Cohn and colleagues who examined the trade-off between honesty and self-interest in 355 cities spanning 40 countries. They turned in more than 17,000 lost wallets containing various amounts of money. And they found that contrary to what we might expect, people were more likely to return wallets that contained larger amounts of money. Apparently the shame of viewing oneself as a thief played a role in this behaviour.

Full citation:

Cohn A, Maréchal MA, Tannenbaum D, Zünd CL. Civic honesty around the globe. Science. 2019 Jul 5;365(6448):70-3.

How can poetry help us personalize climate change?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Illingworth who analyzed 72 poems about climate change written by poets from across the world. Apparently these poets are bringing attention to the need to re-position humans at the centre of the debate. If not, we risk dismissing climate change as a phenomenon that is passively happening. However, engaging with poetry might counteract this effect.

Full citation:

Illingworth S. “This bookmark gauges the depths of the human”: how poetry can help to personalise climate change. Geoscience Communication. 2020 Mar 6;3(1):35-47.

How might Covid-19 disrupt treatment for other diseases?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Hogan and colleagues who quantified the extent to which disruptions to services for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in low and middle-income countries will lead to additional loss of life over the next 5 years. As we continue our efforts to mitigate Covid-19, we should also ensure that HIV, tuberculosis and malaria patients continue to have access to their treatments.

Full citation:

Hogan AB, Jewell BL, Sherrard-Smith E, Vesga JF, Watson OJ, Whittaker C, Hamlet A, Smith JA, Winskill P, Verity R, Baguelin M. Potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study. The Lancet Global Health. 2020 Sep 1;8(9):e1132-41.

What can CALMER technology do for babies who are born preterm?

In this episode, I feature the work from a group of researchers at the University of British Columbia who took on a 10-year technological challenge: how to simulate key aspects of maternal skin-to-skin holding for prematurely born babies.  And they succeeded. With CALMER technology, moms felt at ease. They perceived CALMER not as a threat but as an ally in maintaining the maternal bond.

Full citation:

Hauser S, Suto MJ, Holsti L, Ranger M, MacLean KE. Designing and evaluating CALMER, a device for simulating maternal skin-to-skin holding for premature infants. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020 Apr 21 (pp. 1-15).

Do our conversations with people end when we want them to?

In this episode, I feature a paper by Mastroianni and colleagues who performed a set of very intriguing experiments to better understand what's behind our conversations with other people. As conversations are the bread and butter of social interactions, learning that we are not that good at ending them might put things in perspective.

Full citation:

Mastroianni AM, Gilbert DT, Cooney G, Wilson TD. Do conversations end when people want them to?. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021 Mar 9;118(10).