Concluded Projects

SOCIAL FLY – DECONSTRUCTING COLLECTIVE COGNITION IN DROSOPHILA: NEUROBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS OF SOCIAL AND ASOCIAL LEARNING

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT
PTDC/BIA-COM/6124/2020 (€249.825,51) | Susana Varela

Associative learning is a cognitive ability that allows animals to assimilate and remember information about predictive relationships between stimuli. To assess the extent to which associative learning is subdivided into independent social and asocial learning mechanisms, SocialFly proposes to characterize the behavioural variation for (a)social learning of mutant and transgenic lines of Drosophila melanogaster (i.e., the fruit fly), whose genes and transgenes have been shown to disrupt the i) biochemical pathways and ii) neural circuits of associative learning.
Drosophila is the model organism with the most powerful genetic tools for studying the nervous system and in which the genetic, molecular and anatomical mechanisms of associative learning have been more widely studied. By conduting behavioural screenings of Drosophila lines with clearly separated social and asocial learning paradigms, SocialFly will allow to disentangle between social and asocial learning. Given that Drosophila has long been used as a model organism to understand mechanisms underlying human cognition, SocialFly will ultimately shed light onto the human (a)social learning capacity.

CLIMACTION – HOW DO WE ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE EATING BEHAVIOURS TO FACE CLIMATE CHANGE?

“la Caixa” Foundation
Call FP23-2B: The social impact of Climate Change in Portugal (€29.920,00) | Filipa Pimenta

The most recent findings in the report by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems (Willett et al., 2019) underscore that achieving a sustainable, health-conscious, and nourishing diet for the growing global population (expected to reach 10 billion by 2050) necessitates a drastic and substantial transformation of diets worldwide. Additionally, despite perceiving climate change as real and tangible, people may not take steps to mitigate or adapt. As such, it is urgent to identify what predicts eco-friendly eating behaviours in order to inform future interventions and policies. The validated Climate Change Risk Perception Model (CCRPM; van der Linden, 2015) emphasizes the influence of cognitive and socio-cultural factors in climate change risk perception and in people’s engagement in mitigation behaviours. Therefore, in our pursuit of understanding the factors driving sustainable eating behaviors among Portuguese adults, the study CLIMACTION aims to investigate whether climate change risk perception, food literacy, and action self-efficacy for eco-friendly eating are correlated with sustainable eating behaviors, independently of perceived barriers to adopting eco-friendly eating practices, in a representative sample of Portuguese adults

PAIN/NO PAIN – PAIN AS A RISK FACTOR FOR VULNERABILITY AND SOCIAL/EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN/ADOLESCENTS

“la Caixa” Foundation
Call FP23-1B: Childhood vulnerability in Portugal (€29.975,00) | Alexandra F. Valente

Chronic pain is a common and severe health problem, known to have an important negative impact on potentially all aspects of the lives of individuals’ of all ages. It’s prevalence on children and adolescents around the world is estimated to be very high, and previous research shows it has serious impact on these individuals’ development and academic performance. However, its prevalence, determinants, and impact on Portuguese children and adolescents remains unknown. Pain/No Pain thus aims at assessing the prevalence and the correlates of chronic pain in Portuguese children/adolescents, examining whether it constitutes a risk factor for vulnerability and impaired social/educational development in this population.

CHAINPREVENT – THE CHAIN OF EVENTS UNDERLYING THE DEVELOPMENT AND PERSISTENCE OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: MOVING FORWARD IN TAILORED CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGIES

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT
nº 2022.03898.PTDC (€39.797,78) | Miguel Basto Pereira

ChainPrevent aims at mapping the crucial temporal sequences of multisystemic factors that create and enhance the risk for the development of antisocial behaviour, from childhood to adulthood. The project 1) assesses the role of prevalent chains of risk and protective factors that promote antisocial and violent behaviour, and 2) investigates the role of sequences of risk and protective factors leading to criminal persistence vs. early desistance from crime.
The identification of temporal sequences of risks allows for the prevention of particularly detrimental risk factors in a given trajectory before those risk factors arise, and for the promotion of particularly powerful protective factors. This integrative approach to criminal phenomena will help advance a risk-need-responsivity (RNR) approach to a trajectory-need-responsivity approach, establishing important bridges between desistance from crime concepts and RNR principles

POTION – PROMOTING SOCIAL INTERACTIONS THROUGH EMOTIONAL BODY ODORS

Horizon 2020 Program (€788.645,00/€6.500 000,00) | Gün R. Semin

This is an international research project aimed at studying how human body odours transfer emotions and shape social behaviour. This research is expected to lead to an olfactory-based technology that will analyse the chemical composition of the body odours as well as develop instruments to disperse artificially produced body odours.
This project (POTION) stands out for its innovativeness. It is a unique collaboration between psychologists, experts in wireless body wear, chemists, clinical psychologists, engineers involved in developing odour dispersion systems, among others. It will run for five years and is made up of 10 European partners from eight different countries with complementary profiles (seven research centres from various areas and three companies). Its external committee includes, for example the prestigious MIT (Boston, USA). 

ON & OFF – LONELINESS AND PROBLEMATIC USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

“la Caixa” Foundation, (€25.000,00) | Rui Costa

On & Off aims at examining the association between the problematic use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and perceived loneliness, independently of the perceived quality of the relationships with significant others (i.e., partners, family, and friends).
The project explores mediating factors that can plausibly explain this putative association, including negative social comparisons, aggressive interactions, disappointment, and familiarity (frequency of contacts with strangers vs. well-known people) in interactions during online social networking.

CHILDBI – DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW UNIVERSAL INTERVENTION PROGRAM FOR PRESCHOOL TEACHERS TARGETED AT BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION DURING THE PRESCHOOL YEARS

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT
EXPL/PSI-GER/0395/2021 (€45.411,13) | Maryse Guedes

In line with the 2030 agenda in health, education and inclusion areas, ChildBI aims at bridging fundamental research in child social development and translational research in multi-modal programs for inhibited preschoolers to develop a new universal teacher-based intervention with targeted elements for children’s Behavioral Inhibition (BI). The project extends current interventions by reframing teachers’ beliefs and practices toward child social behaviors and empowering/coaching them to establish positive teacher-child and peer interactions in the classroom. A set of innovative mixed-methods research studies will be conducted with preschool children, teachers and experts to design the new intervention program.
ChildBI will provide an updated evidence base about early intervention targeted at BI during preschool years and will go beyond the descriptive focus of extant research on modifiable extra-familial factors that shape child development, shedding light on the relationship between teachers’ and peers’ attitudes and responses toward inhibited behaviors.

COPAHS –
COPING WITH PAIN THROUGH HYPONOSIS, MINDFULNESS
AND SPIRITUALITY

BIAL Programme for Grants for Scientific Research 2018/2019
n.º 188/18 (€45.000,00) | Alexandra F. Valente

This research project focuses the comparative effectiveness of three psychological and/or spiritual interventions in reducing pain intensity and pain-related stress, and in increasing pain tolerance in a sample of 196 healthy participants with acute experimentally induced pain. The study uses a quantitative experimental mixed-method repeated-measures design.
As part of this study, the research team will: (1) examine the immediate effects of each of the three interventions on pain experience as compared to a control group; (2) compare the relative effects of the three interventions on pain experience; and (3) examine of the mechanisms explaining such effects.

MULTI-COMPONENT
EARLY INTERVENTION TURTLE PROGRAM

Academias Gulbenkian do Conhecimento, co-founded by
Gulbenkian Foundation, nº 222926 (€ 38.000,00) | António J. Santos

This project is aimed at adapting for Portugal, implementing and conducting the preliminary evaluation of the Multi-Component Early Intervention Turtle Program, targeted at behaviourally inhibited/socially reticent preschoolers and their parents.

CHILDREN’S OBESITY RISK:
THE ROLE OF ATTACHMENT, TEMPERAMENT
AND SELF-REGULATION

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT
PTDC/PSI-GER/29636/2017 (€215.152,00) | Manuela Veríssimo

In this project we’ll examine the interplay between multi-level predictors of children’s weight in preschool children. We will conduct analyses testing hypothesized models of the relations between individual child (temperament,), parent-child (attachment security), and family mealtime (interaction, feeding, eating) factors and patterns of children’s eating behaviors.

ATTACHMENT,
SLEEP QUALITY AND
SOCIO EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN PRESCHOOL
CHILDREN REGULATION

FCT PTDC/PSI-GER/29636/201FCT
Grant PTDC/MHC-PED/0838/2014 (€157.988,00) | Manuela Veríssimo

This project aims to link both the amount and the quality of sleep to many health-related outcomes for children. We will examine social/emotional and cognitive outcomes associated with sleep duration and quality and test whether such relations are mediated or moderated by attachment security.

ENSURING TEAMWORK EFFECTIVENESS
IN ANTARCTICA

ETeA I – PROPOLAR 2016-2017; ETeA II – PROPOLAR 2017-2018 |
Pedro Marques-Quinteiro

This project’s goal is to develop a conceptual model of teamwork effectiveness in Antarctica. The project combines qualitative (i.e., interviews; ethnography) and quantitative (i.e., surveys) methods to gather data for science teams and logistic teams spending the summer season in Antarctica (± 3 months). The outcomes of this project will drive future research on teamwork in Antarctica, and the development of planning and intervention policies focused in promoting teamwork in isolated, confined, and extreme work environments such as the Polar Regions, and Space.

A SOCIAL NETWORK APPROACH
TO HUMAN DYNAMICS IN EXTREME WORK ENVIRONMENTS: HOW PERCEIVED SOCIAL ISOLATION, PARANOID THINKING, AND REFLEXIVITY SHAPE TEAM PERFORMANCE IN ANTARCTICA WINTERING TEAMS

AO-2017-Concordia_014_Cantisani | Pedro Marques-Quinteiro

The most critical difficulties that humans will face during long duration spaceflights may be of psychological and psychosocial nature. This research project aims to gain a dynamic understanding (i.e., multilevel, and longitudinal) of how individual psychological attributes and team processes influence within-and between-team interactions in isolated and confined extreme work environments. To achieve this goal, we will apply social network theory and cutting-edge Sociometric badge technology to investigate how loneliness -defined as perceived social isolation –impacts the development of feelings of suspiciousness and mistrust. Participants will be science teams enrolled in one Antarctica Winter Campaign (± 9 months).

TUNING COGNITIVE PROCESSING TO
SOCIAL PRESENCE:
THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN
SPREADING OF THOUGHTS AND CONTROL

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT
PTDC/PSI-GER/28850/2017 (€233.827,00) | Teresa Garcia-Marques

One of the earliest findings in social psychology was that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context. The mere presence of others has been shown to improve (facilitates) or impair (inhibits) performance.
Our research offers new insights to this effect by focusing on how social presence modulates the interplay between the associative and monitoring thinking promoting matching to individual and context features.  This “tuning processing approach” is supported by our research showing mere social presence tunes earlier attention processes, increasing the scope of individual’s attention to internal and external information and that social presence tunes attention to monitoring mechanisms allowing for better control of undesirable interferences.
In this project we explore the interplay between these two processes: higher attention to our environment (increasing the likelihood of adaptive responses) and a more active role for the executive control so as to select what is relevant to our current goals and guaranteeing an adaptive reaction. We further show that by understanding how the mind is tuned to social and non-social contexts, we will be able to offer new insights on how/when prejudiced reactions emerge and will advance our knowledge about the ways to control food intake in both isolated and social contexts.