Concluded Projects

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.