UCR’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is partnering with UCR’s Department of Psychology to present the next talk in the ORI Seminar Series. This seminar, entitled “Promoting Well-being in Cancer Patients Using Conversations will be led by. Dr. Megan L. Robbins, Assistant Professor of Psychology. This seminar will take place on Thursday, May 16 at 2:00 PM in HUB265.

In Dr. Robbin’s research, she seeks to understand how people’s daily social interactions are related to their health and well-being. She particularly focuses on the role of expressive behaviors (e.g., word use, sighing, laughing) in coping and romantic relationships. Studying these expressive behaviors in their social context necessitates observational assessment in the “real world.” The naturalistic observation method she uses is the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR; Mehl et al., 2001), which periodically records snippets of sound (typically 30 sec every 12 min) in people’s momentary environments to yield acoustic logs of their days as they naturally unfold. It allows a researcher to be a “fly on the wall” in participants’ lives to study how their observed daily behavior relates to coping and relationship outcomes. In another line of research for Dr. Robbins uses findings from these observational studies to inform the development of coping and well-being interventions. Her goal is to understand the implications of mundane interactions and expressive behaviors to elucidate effective strategies and interventions people can naturally incorporate into their daily lives.

This seminar is free and open to the public. No registration is required but seating is limited.