Social Psychology of Health and Well-Being Lab
Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University
Principal investigator: Dr. Rotem Kahalon
At the Social Psychology of Health and Well-Being Lab at Bar-Ilan University, we investigate the psychological mechanisms that help maintain inequality, and how they contribute to disparities in health, mental health, and well-being.
We welcome people from various backgrounds: social psychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, health studies, social work, etc.
Our Focus
Applying social psychology to study health and well-being-related outcomes, the lab focuses on two main lines of research:
- Understanding the effects of dehumanization and objectification on people’s health
- Understanding the subtle psychological processes that maintain inequality and finding ways to overcome them
We use diverse methodologies including experimental, descriptive, and survey methods as well as analysis of archival data and intervention studies.
Inequality between groups is often unintentional but stems from subtle, often unnoticeable, social psychological mechanisms, such as biases, that help maintain the status quo. In the lab we examine whether and how these social psychological mechanisms (e.g., endorsement of gender beliefs and stereotypes) affect people’s behaviors as well as their physical and mental health and well-being.
Main research questions:
- How implicit and explicit gender stereotypes (i.e., beliefs we hold about groups) influence medical doctors’ career choices?
- How stereotypes influence peoples’ perceptions of the medical staff, choice of doctors, the doctor-patient interaction and adherence to medical care?
- How idealized perceptions of motherhood can serve as a risk factor for women’s mental health?
- How is the endorsement of patriarchal beliefs associated with sexual health?
Perceiving or treating people as less than human (i.e., dehumanization) or as an object (i.e., objectification) can negatively affect people’s mental health and wellbeing. When this perception is internalized, in a process called self-objectification, it can lead to various negative outcomes such as eating behaviors, anxiety, sexual dysfunctions and decreased well-being.
Main research questions:
- How objectification and self-objectification influences women’s health and mental health?
- How dehumanization and objectification, of both patients and staff, can be reduced in medical practice?
- How self-objectification affect health and mental health outcomes for people of different genders and sexual orientations?
Our Research in the Media
Receiving compliments can be distracting, and lead to a self-conscious state that’s cognitively draining.
Photo credit: Eva Bronzini. Pexels.
Unseen Trauma: Recognizing and Understanding Childbirth-Related PTSD
Photo credit: freepik www.freepik.com.
Lack of sample diversity: How biased is our research practice?
Photo credit: Annie Spratt, Unsplash
Self-objectification linked to increased sexual dysfunction among women
Photo credit: Ron Lach. Pexels.
As a social psychologist, I’m interested in how subtle, often unnoticeable, social psychological mechanisms help maintain intergroup inequality, and how they contribute to disparities in health, mental health, and well-being.
The lab is a place for people from different disciplines and backgrounds (e.g., psychologists, social workers, healthcare workers) who are interested in how psychology could be used to improve patients’ health and well-being.