LAB NEWS AND UPDATES

2023

Undergraduate RA Joelle Hannam is awarded an Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship

Joelle received an Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for her commitment to public service! This scholarship will provide Joelle with financial support during her junior and senior years of undergraduate study. She will also have financial support to travel and complete a public service research project this summer. As part of her project, and with Dr. Duggan and Odalis’ support, Joelle plans to interview community members to learn about their sleep needs, and how they perceive their sleep is impacted by the built environment.

Joelle’s award has been featured by NDSU and the Montgomery Advertiser.

Joelle also appeared on North Dakota Today Live on November 6th - check out her interview here!

Congratulations to Joelle!

New research on adaptation to stress during COVID-19 published

This study used data from the NDSU National COVID study, which has followed over 300 Americans at least annually since 2020. Here, we studied how people perceived the challenges in their lives during the pandemic. Some recognized there were new opportunities to thrive. However, others who were faced with challenge either perceived those challenges were present, or perceived opportunity despite those challenges. Those individuals who perceived there were opportunities experienced improvements were more likely to flourish one year later. This project includes data from Drs. Katherine Duggan and Jeremy Hamm’s nationally-representative longitudinal study of American adults during the pandemic. Additional coauthors include Jake Shane (CUNY) and Matthew Pierce, a graduate student in the MHAD lab and co-advisee of Dr. Duggan’s.

New research on self-regulation during COVID-19 published

This study used data from the NDSU National COVID study, which has followed over 300 Americans at least annually since 2020. Here, we find adults who perceived they had more control over their lives during the initial pandemic onset (despite the stressors of the pandemic) were able to re-engage with previously challenging goals, which promoted their well-being. This suggests that in highly stressful and unpredictable circumstances, it is important for people to focus on what they can do, rather than focusing on challenges and threats. This project includes data from Drs. Katherine Duggan and Jeremy Hamm’s nationally-representative longitudinal study of American adults during the pandemic. Additional coauthors include Meaghan Barlow (Wilfrid Laurier University) and PATHS Lab graduate student Odalis Garcia.

2022

NIH R01 grant awarded to Drs. Hamm, Duggan, Mogle, and Lachman

Dr. Jeremy Hamm (NDSU Psychology, PI), in collaboration with Dr. Duggan (Co-I), Dr. Jacquie Mogle (Clemson, Co-I), and Dr. Margie Lachman (Brandeis, Co-I) were awarded a large research grant from the NIH National Institute on Aging. This project, titled “Perceived control and cognitive aging: Pathways to preserve cognitive functioning and reduce risk of Alzheimer’s disease in socioeconomically diverse populations,” will allow the team to evaluate whether sleep and physical activity explain why perceived control is related to better cognitive function, and also to determine if these same relationships operate for people who are of lower or higher socioeconomic status (i.e., income). This project will help us identify malleable targets for intervention in different populations.

Graduate Student Odalis Garcia featured in the NDSU Foundation Magazine

Odalis Garcia, a graduate student in the PATHS lab since 2020, was featured in this month’s issue of the NDSU Foundation Magazine. In this article, Odalis talks about what NDSU’s status as an R1 university means for her program of research on sleep, stress, and dreams. Odalis also highlights the ways she hopes her work will help improve people’s health and well-being after they experience stress. Supporting research and student mentorship is important to the community!

Celebrating PATHS Lab 2022 conference presentations

This year, PATHS Lab scientists presented their research at several venues!

Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting, February 2022: PATHS Lab Director Kat Duggan co-chaired a professional development panel titled “Demystifying editorial review: Reviewing, editing, and getting recognition for it” and hosted a graduate student lunchtime mentorship session titled “Advanced statistics: How to get there.” NDSU Motivation and Healthy Adult Development (MHAD) Lab RA Jaron Tan also presented a poster using data from the NDSU National COVID Study, led by Drs. Duggan and Hamm.

American Psychosomatic Society annual meeting, March 2022: Kat Duggan gave a talk titled “Multivariate clusters of heart rate and blood pressure reactivity to psychological stress in young and midlife adults: Descriptive findings using a latent profile approach in two samples” and also co-authored a second poster (led by Dr. Ryan Brindle).

SLEEP annual meeting, June 2022: Kat Duggan and PATHS Lab graduate student Odalis Garcia presented undergraduate RA Mia Meyer’s senior thesis project, titled “The role of perceived control in buffering against poor sleep in essential workers during COVID-19.” Odalis also presented a symposium talk titled “The role of parental absence and parental conflict on sleep during childhood and adolescence.” Lab manager Samantha Weston came with us and attended her first scientific conference, and Odalis Garcia received a trainee merit award!

Society for Personality and Social Psychology Summer Psychology Forum on Health Disparities Research, July 2022: The lab had two presentations from the NDSU National COVID Study. Odalis Garcia gave a talk titled “Loneliness is a stronger predictor of poor sleep than discrimination: An application of social psychology to behavioral sleep medicine.” Lab manager Samantha Weston presented a poster titled “Sleep narratives reveal current theories concerning SES disparities and sleep may have limited utility.” Odalis Garcia also received a travel award!

New paper on goal disengagement and re-engagement published

This study looked at the well-being of a nationally-representative sample of American adults at the earliest - and perhaps most stressful and least predictable - stages of the pandemic (April - June, 2020). As expected, we found adults who lost control over their goals because of the pandemic reported worse psychological well-being. Importantly, those adults who reported more goal reengagement (but not disengagement) were able to preserve their well-being. This suggests that in highly stressful and unpredictable circumstances, it is important for people to redirect and find a new sense of meaning and purpose. This project includes data from Drs. Katherine Duggan and Jeremy Hamm’s nationally-representative longitudinal study of American adults during the pandemic. Additional coauthors include Meaghan Barlow (UC Berkeley, Wilfrid Laurier University) and current NDSU graduate students Jaron Tan and Rachel Delaney.

Celebrating PATHS Lab Spring 2022 graduates and thesis defenses

This semester several PATHS Lab RAs completed their undergraduate degrees. Congratulations to Ben Berdal (BS Exercise Science), Ashley Metcalf (BS Biological Sciences), Anna Olson (BSN Nursing), Samantha Weston (BS Biological Sciences), and Joshua Wong (BS Biological Sciences). Thesis student Samantha Weston also defended her senior thesis titled “A pilot study on stress exposure and changes in actigraphy-assessed sleep.” Congratulations to all lab graduates!

Grant awarded to Drs. Duggan and Krumel

Drs. Katherine Duggan (PI) and Thomas Krumel (Co-I, Agricultural Economics, NDSU) have been awarded a small research grant from the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development! This project, titled “Translational research in rural economic development and health psychology: Sleep and cardiovascular health in a meatpacking community during COVID-19” will allow Drs. Duggan and Krumel to collect pilot data on risk and resilience factors for poor sleep and hypertension in an underserved community beginning Summer 2022.

Grant awarded to Drs. Duggan and Hamm

Dr. Katherine Duggan (PI), in collaboration with Drs. Jeremy Hamm (NDSU Psychology, Co-I), Heidi Saarinen (NDSU Nursing, Consultant), Michael Robinson (NDSU Psychology, Consultant), and Jeff Johnson (NDSU Psychology, Consultant), have been awarded pilot funding from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE program. This project, titled “Increasing conscientiousness to improve sleep and cardiometabolic health,” will allow Dr. Duggan to test the feasibility of a goal-setting intervention in a small sample of 40 community-residing adults.

2021

Celebrating PATHS Lab Fall 2021 graduates and thesis defenses

This semester Mia Meyer, PATHS Lab RA, completed her undergraduate degree (BS Biological Sciences and Psychology). Mia also defended her senior thesis in the lab, titled “The role of personal control in promoting sleep health in essential workers during COVID-19.” Congratulations Mia!

New paper on personality, health behaviors, and heart disease risk published

In a cross-sectional sample of Black and White, urban, midlife adults, we show sleep and physical activity are key health behavior pathways for conscientiousness and metabolic syndrome. This is the first analysis to test multiple self-report and objectively measured health behavior pathways simultaneously for conscientiousness and cardiometabolic risk! This work confirms in part models of personality, sleep, and health presented in Duggan et al. (2014) and Duggan and Krizan (2019). This paper was completed with collaborators Mark Thomas (graduate student), Tom Kamarck, Aidan Wright, Matt Muldoon, and Steve Manuck, all of the University of Pittsburgh.

New paper on personality, parenting, and sleep published

In Black and White, urban boys followed since childhood into their mid-thirties, we demonstrate pathways linking race, socioeconomic status, and sleep across two decades of development using structural equation modeling. Results show that individual differences (in child anxiety, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and peer rejection), as well as parenting (including communication, relationship quality, and monitoring) are key pathways. This analysis was completed with collaborators Karen Matthews (University of Pittsburgh), Alice Lee, and Dustin Pardini (Arizona State).

New paper on personality, parenting, and maltreatment published

In this analysis, we show some of the first prospective, multi-informant associations between parenting (rated by adolescents and their parents), maltreatment (substantiated by social services), and later big five personality traits (rated by adolescents and their parents). We show that parenting is a more sensitive predictor of later personality (particularly higher neuroticism, lower extraversion, and lower conscientiousness) than was maltreatment. This work was completed in collaboration with Drs. Jenny Cundiff (U. Alabama), Mengya Xia (U. Alabama), and Karen Matthews (University of Pittsburgh).

2020

Grant awarded to Drs. Hamm and Duggan

Dr. Jeremy Hamm (NDSU Psychology, PI), in collaboration with Drs. Duggan (Co-I) and Jeff Johnson (NDSU Psychology, Consultant), have been awarded pilot funding from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE program. This project, titled “Maintaining physical activity during stressful life transitions: Examining the role of neurocognitive self-regulation,” will allow Drs. Hamm and Duggan to collect cross-sectional data on physical activity, sleep, cognitive function, and multimethod self-regulation in undergraduate students.