I was spotlighted in a Forbes Article.
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts
Making the cover of Berkeley News
#redefine_the_table
I made it to the cover of Berkeley News
“Hari has embraced his Berkeley experience to the very fullest in the classroom, research laboratory, on campus and more broadly,” said UC Berkeley psychology chair Serena Chen. “Along the way, he has touched so many people — fellow students, staff and faculty alike — and has achieved so much against formidable odds, to boot.”
SPSS
Another first coming up. I will be presenting my research poster at SPSS conference next Feb.
My first Psychology conference.
Writing an abstract
My attempt at the abstract for my research project.
Past research on emotions has viewed autistics from a deficit perspective, as lacking in empathy, emotion recognition and emotional experience; even as other research posits autistic emotion experiences as more intense; and we hypothesize that this could also be true of the autistic experience of positive emotions such as awe. This first of its kind study, draws on the science of awe to examine how autistics perceive and view awe, an emotion shown to have transformative effects. This research looks at how these dimensions of emotion may diverge in autistics from what has been written from a neurotypical (non-autistic) lens. With a target sample size of n=200, the study makes use of existing self-report psychological measures of emotions, includes a new empathy measure in development by the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, as well as written narratives, from both autistics and non-autistic controls. Data from this study will add to knowledge on: 1) autism & empathy/ emotion recognition, 2) autism & emotional experience, 3) autism & awe. Potential applications include additional tools such as “small doses of awe” that can be added to the coping and navigating toolbox for autistics.
Haas Scholars Fall Colloquium
Presented my research at the Haas Scholars Fall Colloquium today.
Overall, got very positive feedback.
Prof Dacher Keltner, Psychology: I think many of you know that Hari writes for the Daily Cal. When he was in my class, he would send me his poetry all the time. He is a brilliant writer and a brilliant thinker and I think you all felt that in that presentation. That was an incredible tour of 13 minutes and 47 seconds, from the personal to the humorous to the in-depth critique to the societal critique to the measures to the theory. I mean that, I’ve never felt, I’ve never had a presentation in my lab of that precision. The second thing is Hari’s presentation tells us why we need diversity in scholarship. His scholarship is just you know, its a devastating critique on measures and theories out there and we need these perspectives. What a rich perspective, so it was a remarkable presentation and he’s a remarkable young scholar.
Remote Instruction, International Edition
So I'm in India for a few weeks.
I had multiple varieties of kuzhutattai for breakfast. Kuzhukattais are traditionally steamed rice balls with sweet or spicy stuffing inside. They just got more creative. The white one is made with palm sago, there were ones made with Ragi (Millet) and also upma kuzhukattai.
A variety of spice and sweet Lip-smacking and finger-licking varieties.
Remote Instruction, International Edition
Remote Instruction at the table your parent used during their schooling. No laptops back then!!
A Variety of Kozhukattai Experience
The tiffen scene in Chennai is quite interesting.I had multiple varieties of kuzhutattai for breakfast. Kuzhukattais are traditionally steamed rice balls with sweet or spicy stuffing inside. They just got more creative. The white one is made with palm sago, there were ones made with Ragi (Millet) and also upma kuzhukattai.
A variety of spice and sweet Lip-smacking and finger-licking varieties.
Murunga's Three Feet Long
Freshly harvested Murunga Drumsticks (Moringa Olifera). Murunga's are loaded with good nutrients right from Vitamin C to antioxidants with many parts of the plant used in ayurveda meds. I've never seen a muruga drumstick this long before - its over 3 feet long. And these look fat and juicy too, when cooked.
I'm think I'm getting a yummy Murunga dish from Paati (grandma) tomorrow. Can't wait.
Competitive Cats
The cats at my grandma's place are seriously competitive. It saw me hugging grandma and demanded - as in meowing away loudly and pawing the rug and couch - to be be given room on the couch so it could get in on the love.There are actually 2 cats here, one on each floor and each possessive about its territory. The downstairs one (Chinni) never goes up and vice versa for Feather. The upstairs cat is quite old and decides to meow away in the middle of the night for food.
And did I mention the visiting fellows. A couple of cats turn up at the backdoor several times a day and meow for food. My Paati promptly feeds them. These cats never venture inside else they face the wrath of the house cats.
They are too funny. LOL
Lifelong Learning
My Paati (grandma) likes languages and at 82 doing courses on conversational Sanskrit. Got distinction in her last exam too.
No cats competing for this Paati's attention. Lol
Healthy Idly's
Breakfast today was healthy Bajra Idly's
The Ubiquitous Masala Dosa
Evening tiffen was Masala Dosa with sambar and chutney served on a banana leaf
and filter "Kapi" (coffee) served in a tumbler and dabara (saucer)
Happy Tamil New Year Everyone. Its the herald of spring.
My first Tamil New Year in Tamilnadu!!
An elaborate and delicious naivedyam lunch made by Paati (grandma) and Athai (aunt) with mor kuzhambu, kootu, 2 karamadhis, vadas, green mango pachadi, carrot payasum and more. Delicious and served on on a freshly harvested banana leaf from the garden.
It usually rains on Tamil New Year and the weather did not disappoint. Complete with Thunder. Rain is considered auspicious, means things will go well.
I'm a Haas Scholar
I'm a Haas Scholar. Only 20 students are selected each year, so rather thrilled. Which means I get mentorship and funding to do my own independent research for a whole year. This will also be my senior honors research thesis for my Psychology Major.
The last few weeks have been spent in getting my Human Subjects Protocol approved by the Institutional Review Board, I'm glad it did not go beyond one round of revisions.
I can move onto my next phase of tightening up my design and then participant recruitment.
More about the Program from hsp.berkeley.edu
"The Haas Scholars Program was founded in 1997 through the generous
vision of Robert and Colleen Haas. Each year, twenty highly qualified,
academically talented undergraduates... come together
to build a supportive intellectual community during their final year at
UC-Berkeley.
Haas Scholars come from all walks of life and every major on campus,
but they are united by their desire to strive for excellence–both in
their individual academic pursuits, and as an interdisciplinary cohort...
Applicants are evaluated primarily on the merit and originality of
their proposal for an independent research or creative project that will serve as the basis for a senior or honors thesis. Once selected, Haas Scholars receive close mentoring from members of the UC-Berkeley faculty, seminars and workshops to assist them in the research and writing process, the opportunity to present their work at a professional conference...
Haas Scholar alumni have gone on to become leaders in their respective fields, including academia, medicine, law, industry, the arts, and public service."
Haas Scholar alumni have gone on to become leaders in their respective fields, including academia, medicine, law, industry, the arts, and public service."
The Happiness Advantage
I'm reading "The Happiness Advantage" by Shawn Achor and wanted to pen my thoughts on it as I read along. And I'm taking the Happiness Advantage DeCal.
Watch this space for updates as I read more
Introduction:
I would title this Waiting to be Happy, which kind of reminded me in a strange way of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Essentially Acher says we are living milestone to milestone, in the false sense of belief that next milestone will bring us happiness. We think happiness follows success but the reality is the opposite.
Discovering the Happiness Advantage
In this chapter the author writes of how he saw Harvard as a privilege that can open doors, yet many students lose sight of that, complaining incessantly about the workload. In contrast are the children of Soweto township, a majority of whom loved schoolwork, as many were the first in their family to even get schooling.
I can personally relate. Berkeley is a privilege that I truly cherish and appreciate. The privilege comes with workload, but isn't that to be expected if you go to a top university. I was starved of education till age 12. I was in a special education classroom that still taught me kindergarten level skills even at age 12. It was never expected I would get exposure to mainstream academics, get a high school diploma, let alone a college education. College, and that too Berkeley is a privilege, which adds to my self-esteem, my self-confidence, my dignity. It will open different doors, that are closed in special education. So workload is just a one part of the glorious education. Education itself is a privilege. For this starving mind, the search for knowledge can never end.
Berkeley is my magical place, my Hogwarts and a bonus is that it is the birthplace of the Disability Rights Movement. I look beyond the workload to appreciate the high quality of teaching and the way it expands my perspectives in my world view, how it helps me grow personally, and how it nudges me in my future life towards working on social justice issues and hopefully making into reality positive societal changes too.
I liked how Acher termed Positive Psychology as "what makes people thrive and excel" rather than bringing the focus on the unhappy and bringing them back to normal.
I also feel for instance that Autism/Disability is treated as a deficit model which is very devaluing to the autistic. Team meetings during my elementary years of ABA therapy for instance was invariably dominated with a litany of all that I WOULD NOT or COULD NOT do. Wouldn't it be nice if the child, (who is usually present in these meetings to demonstrate said lack of skill) could also hear a litany of what they CAN DO as well. There are going to be areas that we may never catch up on or never learn. Yet in other areas we may just outstrip our NT peers. It is going to be hard to be average.
A parallel to Acher's "Cult of the Average" in the autism space is meeting the milestone of "age-appropriate behavior," which in itself is a moving target as society shifts attitudes.
As Acher's points out we are starved of happiness since we are so focused on the negatives whether it's from external news or internal ourselves. Our brains have been crammed with facts and theory but not how to "maximize the brain's potential to find meaning and happiness".
7 principles
- Happiness Advantage
- Fulcrum & Lever
- Tetris Effect
- Falling Up
- Zorro Circle
- 20 second rule
- Social Investment
Stress and Sleep - Project
My semester long project for Psych 102 - done entirely in R.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10gyJE_BRbPnxoryNV0D2Fv0TNSS7Z8In/view?usp=sharing
Abstract:
Existing research has demonstrated a strong correlation between stress levels and sleep quality. The current study further investigated this negative correlation between sleep and stress and in addition, examined the interaction of stress caused by the current coronavirus pandemic on sleep. As expected, the first hypothesis was met, in that stress negatively predicts sleep. The data in the study showed a strong, statistically significant relationship between stress and sleep, along with strong statistical power. The second hypothesis attempted to look at the interaction role of the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby the relationship between stress and sleep was stronger (a steeper negative slope) for participants who report that a greater degree of their stress was related to the pandemic. The data collected in the study seemed to suggest that there was a reverse main effect of the pandemic; that is to say, sleep increased as a result of the pandemic, but this was not statistically signficant. In addition, the actual interaction of the pandemic stress on sleep in the current study was also not statistically significant. Recent studies such as that by Katuna and Lau (2020), have however suggested that the relaxed schedule of the pandemic lockdown have allowed for longer sleep times though there were limits to actual sleep quality due to a lack of sleep buildup from decreased physical activity.
# Introduction
Research on stress and its impact on sleep has been ongoing for a while now and the strong negative relationship between them is well established. For instance, it has been found that insomniacs had overactive cortisol levels, which is a measure of hormonal stress; cortisol levels were especially elevated at the time of sleep onset (Vgontzas et al., 2001). To underscore the importance of sleep, lack of REM sleep which helps delete the emotional component of memory is thought to contribute to PTSD (van der Helm et al., 2011). REM sleep also serves a number of functions such as housecleaning extraneous memories accumulated during the day (Crick & Mitchenson, 1983). Given the crucial role of sleep for both forgetting and learning (Walker, 2009), the role of stress as a predictor is an important factor. The current study attempted to further confirm this negative correlation between sleep and stress.In addition, this study also investigated the impact of stress caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic on sleep. Existing research, though recent due to the newness of the pandemic itself, is steadily growing. Unlike natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, which tend to be localized events, the pandemic has been an unprecedented prolonged and ongoing stress event at a global level with the associated stresses over finances, employment, income, food insecurity, access to medical care, social isolation, as well as challenges of juggling family and work obligations (Morin & Carrier, 2020). Such intense and prolonged stress is bound to have an impact on sleep, especially, “at a time when healthy sleep is particularly important to cope adaptively with this crisis and uncertainty about the future” (Morrin & Carrier, 2020).
A September 2020 study by Katuna and Lau looked at the impact of COVID-19 from a sleep health perspective. They point to data such as that from the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City, which showed a 60% increase in calls relating to stress since the pandemic related lockdown was initiated.
At the same time, Katuna and Lau (2020) point to the more relaxed schedule of the lockdown which actually allows for, “longer sleep opportunities and total sleep time.” While it may not make much of an impact on those who enjoyed good sleep earlier, it may benefit those who had been sleep deprived due to the nature of their occupation and time spent in commuting. They do highlight however that there is less actual sleep pressure built up during the day due to the lack of physical activity which can limit improvements to actual sleep quality.
This study thus investigated both the main effect of stress on sleep as well as the interaction effect of stress induced by the pandemic on sleep.
Hypothesis 1: I hypothesize that people sleep less and stress predicts that.
Hypothesis 2: I hypothesize that there is an interaction, whereby the relationship between stress and sleep is stronger (a steeper negative slope), for participants who report that a greater degree of their stress is related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
# Methods
## Participants
Data was downloaded from Qualtrics survey software in the form of a .csv file and read into R to collect information on participants.`r nrow(responsedata)` participants were recruited through Academic Prolific. Participants were limited to those living in the United States, age range from `r min(responsedata$agr)` to `r max(responsedata$agr)`, with a mean age of `r mean(responsedata$agr)` years, and standard deviation of `r sd(responsedata$agr)`. `r sum(responsedata$gdr == 1)` were female, `r sum(responsedata$gdr == 2)` were male and `r sum(responsedata$gdr == 3)` identified as non-binary or other.
## Material
Data was collected via a Qualtrics survey. The survey was intentionally kept very simple and short to encourage maximum participation.Two existing scales were used. The first was the single item Sleep Quality Index (Snyder et al., 2018). The SQI is a 11-point likert scale and scores 0 as terrible sleep, 1-3 as poor sleep, 4-6 as fair sleep, 7-9 as good sleep and 10 as excellent sleep. In filling out the SQI, participants were asked to consider other components of sleep such as the hours of sleep, frequency of nighttime waking, ease of falling asleep, how refreshing their sleep was and, "how often they woke up earlier than they had to in the morning" (Synder et al., 2018).
Despite being a single item measure, the SQI has been found to show both validity and reliability, relative to the longer sleep questionnaires used in depression and insomnia patients (Synder et al., 2018).
The other established scale that was used was the four item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4) which asks for thoughts and feelings over the last month (Cohen et al., 1983). The PSS-4 uses a five-point likert scale with zero being never and four being most often. Individual line items ask, “In the last month, how often have you felt, #1 that you were unable to control the important things in your life, #2 confident about your ability to handle your personal problems, #3 that things were going your way, and #4 difficulties were piling up so high you could not overcome them" (Cohen et al., 1983). As per the scale requirements, items two and three were reverse coded, and individual scores were added up for a single score; the highest possible score of 16 indicating the maximum stress.
The PSS-4 is a well established scale that has been around for a few decades. Initially developed as a 14 item scale (PSS-14), shorter subsequent versions (PSS-10 and PSS-4) were later introduced.
An additional single item measure, "pandemic stress score;" was added to the survey in the form of a five-point likert question; namely - "How much of your stress is related to the pandemic?." The scoring was zero for "none of my stress," to four being, "all of my stress." This measure was used for lack of an existing measure as the pandemic itself is a recent global phenomena. As a result, this measure has not passed any test of validity or reliability.
The resultant survey contained a total of 8 questions, including two questions on demographics of age and gender (male, female, other).
## Procedure
This was an observational study with all data for the study collected over a twenty four hour period through Prolific Academic and with the use of the Qualtrics survey describe above.The dependent variable in this study was sleep quality which was measured by the single item SQI.
The independent variable in this study was stress, which was measured in two ways. One was via the four item PSS-4. The second was the single item "Pandemic Stress Score," created for this survey as described above.
# Data Cleaning
Some data cleaning was required. The Qualtrics survey software automatically scores data using a 1-5 score, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest. However, the two established scales used in this study, the SQI and PSS-4, use a 0-4 score, with zero being the lowest score and four the highest. Data for all three variables was therefore adjusted by one to bring them all to a 0-4 scale. A total for the PSS-4 scale was generated after reverse-coding items two and three as per the scale instructions.# Descriptives
## Means and Standard Deviations
Descriptive statistics for the variables are summarized and reported in the table below.## Tests for Normality
The Shapiro-Wilk test was run on all variables to check for normality and ggplot was used to create histograms to visually check for skewness. The R output for the Shapiro-Wilk is given below.## Test for Scale Reliability
Cronbach's Alpha was calculated for the PSS-4 scale and the R-output displayed below. Cronbach's Alpha was not calculated for the other two measures, SQI and Pandemic Stress Score, as both are single item measures.# Data analysis Plan
R [@R-base] and Papaja [@R-papaja] were used for all the analyses.To test the first hypothesis, a multiple regression type of analysis was run, which would indicate if stress (as measured by PSS-4) predicts sleep (SQI score).
To test the second hypothesis, a regression interaction model was run, to see if the relationship between sleep (SQI score) and stress (PSS-4) was especially strong if people reported that their stress is mainly related to COVID-19 (Pandemic Stress Score).
A power analysis was also run to check for effect size and power for this study.
## Libraries
The following libraries were used for the analyses:## Analysis 1: Multiple Regression Interaction
The R-output of the multiple regression interaction analysis is displayed below.## Analysis 2: Power Analysis and Effect Size
The R-output for the Power analysis is displayed below.# Data Visualization
## Plot 1: Normalcy and Skewness of the Data Variables.
Data for all three variables was also visualized in the form of histograms below.
## Plot 2: A look at interaction
The output of the multiple regression interaction is further represented pictorally in Plot 1 below.
# Results
The pictoral visualizations of the data (the SQI sleep score, the PSS-4 score, and Pandemic Stress Score) in the form of the histograms in Plot 1 appeared to approximate normal distributions visually. The Shapiro-Wilk test had however indicated that all three variables differ from the normal. Attempts to transform the data using log or squareroot seemed to only skew the data, so no transformation was done on the data as regressions can typically handle some level of assumption violations.Cronbach's alpha for the PSS-4 scale for this study was 0.79 which meets the acceptable threshold of 0.70 for scale reliability. This measure indicates the degree to which the set of items in the scale co-vary, relative to their sum score.
The Power analysis revealed a large effect size of 0.38 (as it above the threshold of 0.3) showing a strong relationship between the variables. The study also had strong power at 0.99, indicating that if this study was run multiple times, a statistically significant difference would be obtained 99% of the time.
Descriptive Statistics were summarized in the table in the Descriptives section. Means for the three variables PSS Score, Pandemic Stress Score and SQI score were 7.73, 1.86 and 6.53 respectively and the standard deviations 3.10, 0.91 and 6.00 respectively.
Running multiple regression interaction analysis on the data indicated that if there was no stress (PSS score or Pandemic stress score), then Sleep Quality would score at 8.89 which is ranked as "good" on the SQI scale (a score of 7 to 9 indicates good sleep quality on the SQI scale). This relationship is also evident in the Plot 2 above.
The analysis also revealed a main effect of the PSS stress score on sleep quality. That is, for every one unit increase in PSS score, the sleep quality score will decrease by 0.29. The p-value for this variable shows that there is a statistically significant relationship, such that a higher PSS score predicts lower sleep quality. The second main effect of this study seems to indicate that for every one unit increase in Pandemic stress score, the sleep quality would in fact increase by 0.29; however this relationship is not statistically significant. The model fit indicates that the PSS stress and Pandemic stress together account for 27.5% of the variation in sleep. However the interaction between PSS and Pandemic scores is not statistically significant.
# Discussion
The first hypothesis was met in that stress negatively predicts sleep. The data in the study, as is evident in Plot 2 showed a strong relationship. There is strong statistical power and effect size. The relationship between stress and sleep is a well established relationship and therefore the results were not surprising.The second hypothesis had attempted to look at the interaction role of the stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby the relationship between stress and sleep is stronger (a steeper negative slope) for participants who report that a greater degree of their stress was related to the pandemic. While the raw data seems to suggest that there was a reverse main effect of the pandemic; that is to say, sleep increased as a result of the pandemic, this relationship was not statistically significant. Recent studies such as that by Katuna and Lau (2020), have shown that the relaxed schedule of the pandemic lockdown have in fact allowed for longer sleep times though there were limits to actual sleep quality due to a lack of sleep buildup from reduced physical exercise.
The interaction of the pandemic on sleep in the current study however was not statistically significant either. This may be due to the nature of the survey question itself, which unlike the PSS and SQI, is not a scale that has statistical validity or reliability.
A future direction would be to explore this idea further with a scale that passed tests of validity and reliability and truly measures the impact of a global ongoing pandemic specific stress on sleep versus localized stress events such as an earthquake or other natural disasters.
Last Office Hours for the Semester
Last Office Hours for the Semester w/ Prof Dacher Keltner for Human Happiness. I throughly enjoyed this class
Happiness Happens at Six
Each week, it’s an experience of savoring Happiness after a discussion class that ends at 6pm at Dwinelle Hall.
As you walk down the steps of Dwinelle Hall at 6pm, the bells of the Campanile start chiming accompanied by the music of the carillon.
You look up to see the top of the Campanile all lit up just behind Wheeler hall.
You look up to see the top of the Campanile all lit up just behind Wheeler hall.
As you walk down the lamp-lit Dwinelle Plaza towards the bridge, the trickling sounds of the running water of Strawberry Creek add to the serenade just above the hum of students talking.
The light from the rising moon glows up over the trees between Wheeler and Sproul hall.
Neurotransmitters tap dance at the synapses of the brain as you meander under Sather gate towards Sproul plaza.
Happiness happens at Six!!
Happiness happens at Six!!
====
As the clock strikes six at Dwinelle Hall,
The Campanile's bells start nightly call,
Accompanied by carillon's sweet sound,
Echoing through the campus grounds.
Under lamplight in Dwinelle Plaza,
Rising moon glows over Wheeler Hall,
Strawberry Creek's trickle adds to the stanza,
Nature's serenade, a peaceful lull.
Neurotransmitters dance in the brain,
In that stroll towards Sproul Plaza again,
On Berkeley's campus, riding dreams.
Happiness happens at six, it seems,
In Awe of Awe
A PowerPoint presentation on Awe with my fellow student Kyana for my discussion class on Human Happiness. My slides have text-speech audio files attached for what I want to say.
RPP - Participating in Research.
Many of my psychology courses have RPP (Research Participation Program) credit but I've usually ended up doing the alternative assignment for the credit instead. Always been disappointed about this as I'm a psych student wanting to do my own research - so I would like to experience both sides. I can't believe with the enormous amount of research being done at Cal, there is no study that I can be involved in as a participant and which matches my profile.
When I investigated before, it seemed like many were time-bound (I need extra time) or needed you to get into a fMRI machine while doing an activity (I need to be sedated before I agree to anything like that) or the participation time was super long (couple of hours) or required social skills such as talking or lot of fine motor skills.
Finally got my first short at research participation at the Hass XLab Social Science Experiment Lab at for my business course UGBA 105 Leading People at Hass Business School. It was just 20 mins long so ideal. Each half-hour of RPP is 0.5 credits and I need 5 credits. The GSI for the UGBA course, Ignacio, was happy to hear that I got some credits in and was telling me that I need to do a paper only any remaining credits - its a page of critical analysis of an Org Behavior article for each 0.5 RPP.
Perhaps my psychological profile means I am left out of many studies by default. This sem, I missed the deadline for the pre-screen survey over the confusion of having to log into two different labs. Maybe that's why some studies are showing in the system for me to participate in. Hmmmm...... did my disability cause the system to exclude me from studies?
Will have to try to be a participant in the research at the Psych Labs as well. After all, I'm a Psychology major. I need to complete RPP credits for my current psych course as well.
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