Selected Lab and Press Updates
Denise Zheng receives Outstanding Thesis Award
June 2022. Lab member Denise Zheng, MS has won the Outstanding Thesis Award in the VCU Graduate School’s academic fields of Social Sciences, Business, and Education. This Award recognizes Denise’s compelling Master’s thesis examining contemplative practice effects on intergroup prosociality.
Polina Beloborodova receives Outstanding Teaching Award
May 2022. Lab member Polina Beloborodova, PhD has won the Outstanding Teaching Award in the Department of Psychology at VCU, given in recognition of her exceptional teaching performance in the Department’s core graduate statistics courses.
Hadley Rahrig receives Outstanding Social Psychology Student Award
May 2022. Lab member Hadley Rahrig, PhD has won, for the second time, VCU Psychology’s Outstanding Social Psychology Student Award, given primarily on the basis of exceptional research.
Hadley Rahrig accepts post-doctoral position
March, 2022. Lab member Hadley Rahrig, MS, has accepted a post-doctoral position in the Training Program in Emotion Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She will work primarily with Christy Wilson-Mendenhall and Richard Davidson in the Center for Healthy Minds.
Polina Belaborodova receives Francisco J. Varela Research Award
December, 2021. Lab member Polina Beloborodova, PhD, was awarded a competitive Varela Award from the Mind and Life Institute to fund her research on the effects and mechanisms of smartphone-based mindfulness training on emotional well-being in at-risk college students. The Varela Grants fund “rigorous examinations of contemplative practices with the ultimate goal that findings derived from such investigations will provide greater insight into contemplative practices and their applications for reducing human suffering and promoting flourishing.”
Hadley Rahrig receives Francisco J. Varela Research Award
January, 2019. Lab member Hadley Rahrig, BS, was awarded a competitive Varela Award from the Mind and Life Institute to fund her research on the effects of mindfulness training on political intergroup behavior. The Varela Awards provide grant funding "to pursue research at the forefront of exciting developments in the field of Contemplative Science while advancing careers in laboratories of major universities around the country."
Does mindfulness meditation really make you kinder?
July, 2018. Greater Good article features our research showing how mindfulness instruction fosters prosocial responses to a victim of ostracism. View the article.
Mindfulness may ease pain of social rejection
June, 2018. PsychCentral article features our research showing that those disposed to mindfulness showed a pattern of neural activations and subjective experience suggesting less social distress after being ostracized. View the article.
This one thing makes you a nicer person
January, 2018. Time online article highlights our series of studies showing how mindfulness instruction fosters empathy and prosocial behavior toward a victim of social exclusion. View the article.
The key component of mindfulness that lowers stress
October, 2017. Pacific Standard article features our research (led by Emily Lindsay and David Creswell) showing that acceptance is a beneficial complement to attentional monitoring to reduce social evaluative stress responses. View the article.
Lab member Dan Berry, PhD accepts Assistant Professorship at California State University, San Marcos
May, 2017. Dr. Berry's dissertation examined the effects of mindfulness training on helping outgroup members in need.
Lab intern Justin Tubbs receives an NIH Post-bac Intramural Research Training Award to work in the National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health
Spring, 2017. The IRTA provides an opportunity to spend one or two years working side-by-side with some of the leading biomedical scientists in the world.
Lab member Tarah Raldiris wins first place in 2017 VCU Graduate Student Research Symposium
Spring, 2017. The research examined the role of mindfulness in attenuating self-serving performance attributions.
Neurobiological changes explain how mindfulness meditation improves health
February, 2016. Science Daily article discusses our brain imaging research examining effects of mindfulness training on immunity. View the article.
Meditation for meatheads
Undated. Breaking Muscle article discusses our research on mindfulness training for social evaluative threat and relationship conflict. View the article.
Mindfulness: 7 amazing holistic brain benefits of meditation
February, 2015. Yoga Journal article discusses our brain imaging research on mindful emotion regulation. View the article.
Daniel Berry receives Francisco J. Varela Research Award
January, 2015. Lab member Dan Berry, MA, was awarded a competitive Varela Award from the Mind and Life Institute to fund his research on the effects of mindfulness training on empathy and prosocial behavior. The Varela Awards provide grant funding "to pursue research at the forefront of exciting developments in the field of Contemplative Science while advancing careers in laboratories of major universities around the country."
Lab intern Courtney Vaughan earns place in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Undergraduate Scholarship Program
September, 2014. The UGSP provides funded scholarship support, summer research training at the NIH, and employment and training at the NIH after graduation.
Mindfulness: Is it a fad or a powerful life-changing coping skill? A look at the science
March, 2014. Washington Post article discusses our research on mindful emotion regulation. View the article.
Meditation as medicine: It's not what you think
December, 2013. Psychology Today article discusses our research on mindfulness training for those with cancer. View the article.
Collaborators
Joanna Arch, University of Colorado, Boulder
Gina Biegel, Stressed Teens Program
David Chester, Virginia Commonwealth University
J. David Creswell, Carnegie Mellon University
Nathan DeWall, University of Kentucky
Britta Holzel, Institute of Aterty and Meditation
Michael Inzlicht, University of Toronto
Todd Kashdan, George Mason University
Tim Kasser, Knox College
Sara Lazar, Massachusetts General Hospital
Mark Leary, Duke University
Nancy McCain, Virginia Commonwealth University
Jan Moynihan, University of Rochester
Christopher Niemiec, University of Rochester
Richard M. Ryan, Australian Catholic University, University of Rochester
Baljinder Sahdra, Australian Catholic University
Shauna Shapiro, Santa Clara University
Baldwin Way, Ohio State University
Image Credit
Newspaper reader by Anna.