Health, Adaptation, and Well-Being Cluster (HAWC)

The aim of the Health, Adaptation, and Wellbeing Cluster (HAWC) is to study the individual and social factors that enable people to lead happy and healthy lives throughout the lifespan. As human development is a life-long process, people need to constantly adapt their goals and behaviors to changes in their environments in order to maintain high levels of functioning and wellbeing. Our focus on social aspects of adaptation emphasizes the need for children and adults of all ages to pursue their own wellbeing in cooperation with others in a highly social world. The study of wellbeing and adaptation requires a broad range of methods from the traditional laboratory psychology experiment to longitudinal designs, cross-cultural studies, nationally representative surveys, experience sampling studies, and randomized controlled intervention studies. To analyze these complex data, HAWC research utilizes a broad range of advanced statistical methods such as multi-level modeling, structural equation modeling, growth modeling, and survival analysis.

Currently, the core of the cluster consists of six researchers who study wellbeing and adaptation in relation to health (Judith Andersen, Janet Polivy, & Mary Lou Smith), interpersonal relationships (Emily Impett), social-emotional development and children's mental health (Tina Malti), and personality (Ulrich Schimmack).  In the future, the cluster is expected to grow by four positions that complement the areas represented by the present HAWC members.  In 2014, HAWC will move into a brand new building with research space and graduate, post-doc, and faculty offices for 10 HAWC researchers. The new building will also house the administrative offices of the Psychology Department at UTM (see plan).

HAWC graduate students are part of the tri-campus graduate program at the University of Toronto and most are affiliated with the Social, Personality, & Abnormal (SPA) [http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/spa/] area in UofT Psychology.

Faculty Members with primary affiliation to HAWC

Judith Andersen examines the mental and physical health consequences of severe stress and the biological mechanisms by which these changes occur. Her research interests include the physiological processes associated with psychotherapeutic interventions for stress-related health conditions, as well as LGBT population health.

Emily Impett examines topics at the intersection of well-being and interpersonal relationships. Her research interests include motivational factors that promote relationship happiness and health, prosocial emotions across the lifespan, and the authenticity of the self in social contexts.

Tina Malti examines social-emotional and moral development, trajectories of adaptive and maladaptive social behaviour, and mental health in children and adolescents. She also has a strong interest in evidence-based, developmental intervention in school and out-of-school time contexts.

Janet Polivy examines wellbeing in relation to eating behaviors, dieting, and body image. A major focus is on the consequences of unsuccessful dieting on the wellbeing and health of women.

Ulrich Schimmack examines how individuals’ personality influences their wellbeing and adaptation. His research interests include the development and validation of wellbeing measures and the use of advanced statistical models to test causal models of the determinants of wellbeing.

Mary Lou Smith examines the wellbeing and health consequences of epilepsy and treatments for epilepsy.

Affiliated Faculty Members

Alison Fleming studies the neurobiology and genetics of parenting in both animal models and humans. The work explores links between  mothers' affective state and  executive function in parenting and the role of mediating neural, endocrine, and genetic mechanisms/influences. Recent studies include teenage mothers, depressed mothers and mothers who have had difficult early childhood experiences (see http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/fleming-mum-lab/).

Kamenetsky, Stuart
social development; exceptionality in human learning, disability and giftedness; cross-cultural psychology.

Urbszat, Dax
personality, social, forensic and abnormal psychology.