Essex ESNEFT Psychological Research Unit for Behaviour, Health and Wellbeing (EEPRU)

This project benefits from a collaborative PhD scholarship that is jointly funded by the ESRC via SENSS and ESNEFT. 2020-2024.

Optimal management of many diseases requires patients to make behavioural changes, with which they struggle. Limitations in the existing evidence base indicate the need to identify self-regulatory processes that might be targets for psychological intervention within health care settings.

This project aims to develop and test a comprehensive account of self-regulation in chronic disease, with immediate relevance to care of dialysis patients and to chronic disease management generally.

Researchers

• Olayinka Farris, PhD Student.
• Supervisors: Professor Sheina Orbell, Dr Veronica Lamarche, and Dr Richard Smith.

Patient care and disease management are typically treated as individual concerns rather than as a social process involving interactions between the patient and his or her partner.

This project offers an exciting opportunity to develop and test a comprehensive account of how partner interactions impact chronic disease, with immediate relevance to care of arthritis patients.

This project benefits from a PhD Scholarship that is jointly funded by the ESRC via SENSS and EEPRU for 2023-2027. If you are interested in applying for this scholarship please email Dr Veronica Lamarche (v.lamarche@essex.ac.uk) 

Researchers

• PhD candidate - Currently in recruitment.
• Dr Veronica Lamarche
• Dr Elia Valentini
• Dr Tania Gudu (Clinician Associate)

The ways in which people understand illness, known as illness representations, are an important guide to how they interpret and respond to symptoms.

We are currently running a study to investigate public representations of kidney disease. If you are over 18 years and would like to take part in the study you can do so online.

We are interested to hear from anybody, whether they have experience of kidney disease or not.

Researchers

• Olayinka Farris
• Professor Sheina Orbell
• Dr Veronica Lamarche
• Dr Richard Smith.

Research at the Department of Psychology at Essex showed that a brief 1-2 day peer supported angling experience had benefits for the wellbeing of military veterans with PTSD.

This project funded by the NIHR Policy Research Programme, will contribute to providing crucial evidence that might enable nature-based interventions like this to become a part of health prescribing policy. 

Researchers

• PI: Dr Nicholas Cooper
• Co-Is: Professor Sheina Orbell, Dr Mike Rogerson (School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences), Dr Claire Wicks (Research Associate).

Many physical health conditions can alter hormone production in the body. These changes in hormone production can have important consequences for behaviour, health and wellbeing but these changes are not well understood.

Social relationships are a key part of who we are, and their success can improve how we feel. Individuals who struggle to maintain relationships have an increased risk of developing physical and mental health disorders.

This project will assess the specific social difficulties patients with a rare type of brain tumor, called adult-onset craniopharyngioma experience. Craniopharyngiomas affect the pituitary gland’s ability to produce hormones.

To date, few studies have investigated the psychological impact of craniopharyngiomas. This project will provide the first in-depth understanding of how this diagnosis affects patient’s lives outside of the clinic.

Related papers

• Daughters, K., Manstead, A. S. R., & Rees D. A. (2017) Hypopituitarism is associated with lower oxytocin concentrations and reduced empathic ability. Endocrine. 10.1007/s12020-017-1332-3

Researchers

• Dr Katie Daughters

This project benefits from a 2022 Research Seminars Award from the British Psychological Society.

We will run a series of seminars bringing together; academics working on habit from different theoretical perspectives, applied psychologists, and practitioners.

We will discuss approaches to advance understanding how to make and undo habit in human behaviour and to develop new tools for practitioners working in behaviour change.

Related papers

• Verplanken, B., Orbell, S. (2022). Attitudes, Habits and Behavior Change. Annual Review of Psychology, 73, 327-352. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-020821-011744

Researchers

• Professor Sheina Orbell

This project benefits from a PhD Scholarship that is funded by the ESRC via SENSS 2021-2025 with support from EEPRU. 

Most women tend to show similar arousal to both men and women, regardless of their self-described sexual orientation. It is unclear why this is the case. We will look into the possibility of a biological explanation and whether it is a matter of character.

Firstly, the project will assess a prominent hypothesis that states that women respond to all sexual stimuli with arousal, and then lubrication, to protect women from genital injury. Since lubrication has rarely been investigated, however, we are one of the first to actually test this hypothesis. 

Secondly, we will investigate whether sex differences in arousal could be attributed to sex differences in empathy or sexual competition. As women have a greater empathy compared to men, they may be more likely to share the emotional state of females shown in sexual videos and experience the sexual arousal with them.

Moreover, women, more than men, depend on their physical appeal when competing for mates, and are therefore more distressed by physically attractive rivals. Thus, women may be aroused from stress by viewing attractive rivals in sexual videos, and this stress coincidentally triggers physiological sexual arousal.

Researchers

• Chloe Tasker - PhD student
• Supervisors: Dr Veronica Lamarche, Dr Gerulf Rieger, Dr Helge Gillmeister.

Related papers

• Raines J, Holmes L, Watts-Overall TM, Slettevold E, Gruia DC, Orbell S, Rieger G. (2021). Patterns of Genital Sexual Arousal in Transgender Men. Psychological Science 2021 Apr;32(4):485-495. doi: 10.1177/0956797620971654. Epub 2021 Feb 26. PMID: 33635743.
• Watts, T.M., Holmes, L., Raines, J., Orbell, S., Rieger, G. (2018). Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations. Scientific  Reports, 8, 14970. 

• Wickes, C., Barton, J., Orbell, S., Andrews, L. (2022). Psychological benefits of outdoor physical activity in natural versus urban environments: A systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental studies. Applied Psychology, Health and Wellbeing, 14, 1037-1061.
• Lamarche, V. M., Seery, M. D., Murray, S. L., Kondrak, C. L., Saltsman, T. L., & Streamer, L. (2022). Lovers in a dangerous time: Ecologically motivated relationship safety regulation. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 3, 100061. 
• Tam, K. Y. Y., Chan, C. A., Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Lavi, I., & Lau, J. (2022). Boredom belief moderates the mental health impact of boredom among young people: Correlational and multi-wave longitudinal evidence gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Personality. 
• Meadows, A., Higgs S. (2022). Challenging oppression: A social identity model of stigma resistance in higher-weight individuals. Body Image 42:237-245 
• Lamarche, V. M., & James-Hawkins, L. (2022). It happened to a friend of mine: The influence of perspective-taking on the acknowledgment of sexual assault following ambiguous sexual encounters. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(9-10), NP7343-NP7368. 
• Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Pekrun, R., & Igou, E. R. (2022). Consumed by boredom: Food choice motivations and weight changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Behavioral Science, 22, 366. 
• Murray, S. L., Xia, J., Lamarche, V. M., Seery, M., McNulty, J. K., Griffin, D. W., ... & Hicks, L. L. (2022). Trust as a daily defense against collective disease threats. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 3, 100071. 
• Verplanken, B., Orbell, S. (2022). Attitudes, Habits and Behavior Change. Annual Review of Psychology, 73, 327-352. 

• Brosowsky, N., Van Tilburg W. A. P., Scholar, A. A., Boylan, J., & Seli, P., Danckert, J., (2021). Boredom proneness, political orientation and adherence to social-distancing in the pandemic. Motivation and Emotion, 45, 631-640. 
• Pulmann L, Vrticka P, Linz R, Stalder T, Kirschbaum C, Engert V, Singer T. (2021). Contemplative mental training reduces hair glucocorticoid levels in a randomized clinical trial. Psychosomatic Medicine 83(8):894-905 
• Gardner, B., Arden, M., Brown, D., Eves, F., Green, J., Inauen, J., Keller, J., Kwasnicka, D., Labudek, S., McCleary, N., Mullan, B.A., Neter, E., Orbell, S., Potthof, S., Hamilton, K., Hankonen, N., Marien, H., Masaryk, R., Lally, P. (2021). Developing real-world habit-based health behaviour -change interventions: Twenty-one questions to guide future research. Psychology and Health, online open access publication. 
• Lamarche, V. M., & Rolison, J. J. (2021). Hand-in-hand in the golden years: Cognitive interdependence, partner involvement in retirement planning, and the transition into retirement. Plos one, 16(12), e0261251. 
• Stephenson, P., Yuen, E., Skaczkowski, G., Spelten, E., Orbell, S., Wilson, C. (2021). The impact of illness perceptions and coping strategies on use of supportive care for cancer. Cancers, 13 (10),2501.
• Thorpe, A., Sirota, M., Orbell, S., Juanchich, M. (2021). Effect of information on reducing inappropriate expectations and requests for antibiotics. British Journal of Psychology, 112, 3, 804-827. 
• Hagger, M. S. & Orbell, S. (2021). The common sense model of illness self- regulation: a conceptual review and proposed extended model. Health Psychology Review.
• Raines, J., Holmes, L., Watts-Overall, T., Slettevold, E., Griua, D., Orbell, S., Rieger, G. (2021). Patterns of genital sexual arousal in transgender men. Psychological Science, 32, 4, 485-495. 
• Keech, J.J., Orbell, S., Hagger, M.S., O’Callaghan, F.V., Hamilton, K. (2021). Psychometric properties of the Stress Control Mindset Measure in university students from Australia and the UK. Brain and Behavior, 11, 2, e01963.

• Wheeler, M., Cooper, N., Hacker-Hughes, J., Andrews, L., Juanchich, M., Orbell, S. (25. November, 2020). Outdoor recreational experiences improve wellbeing of military veterans with PTSD: Positive evidence from a pilot study and a randomized controlled trial. Plos One.
• Valentini, E., Fetter, E., Orbell, S. (2020). Treatment preferences in fibromyalgia patients: A cross sectional web-based survey. European Journal of Pain, 24, 1290-1300. 
• Thorpe, A., Sirota, M., Juanchich, M., Orbell, S. (2020). ‘Always take your doctor’s advice’: Does trust moderate the effect of information on inappropriate antibiotic prescribing expectations? British Journal of Health Psychology, 25, 358-376.
• Thorpe, A., Sirota, M., Juanchich, M., Orbell, S. (2020). Action bias in the public’s clinically inappropriate expectations for antibiotics. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Applied, 26, 422-431.
• Lamarche, V. M. (2020). Socially connected and COVID-19 prepared: The influence of sociorelational safety on perceived importance of COVID-19 precautions and trust in government responses. Social Psychological Bulletin, 15(4).
• Lamarche, V. M., Seery, M. D., Kondrak, C. L., Saltsman, T. L., & Streamer, L. (2020). Clever girl: Benevolent sexism and cardiovascular threat. Biological Psychology, 149, 107781.

• Orbell, S. Phillips, L.A. (2019). Automatic processes and self-regulation of illness. Health Psychology Review, 13, 4, 378-405.
• Lamarche, V. M., & Seery, M. D. (2019). Come on, give it to me baby: Self-esteem, narcissism, and endorsing sexual coercion following social rejection. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, 315-325.
• Watts, T.M., Holmes, L., Raines, J., Orbell, S. Rieger, G. (2018) Sexual arousal patterns of identical twins with discordant sexual orientations. Scientific Reports, 8, 14970.
• Cavers D., Calanzani, N., Orbell, S., Vojt, G., Steele, RJC., Brownlea, L., Smith, S., Patnick, J., Weller, D., Campbell, C. (2018). Development of an evidence based brief ‘talking’ intervention for non-responders to bowel screening for use in primary care: stakeholder interviews. BMC Family Practice, 19, 105.
• Barnett, K.N., Weller, D., Smith, S., Steele, R.J.C., Vedsted, P., Orbell, S., Moss, S.M., Melia, J. W., Patnick, J., Campbell, C. (2018). The contribution of a negative colorectal screening test result to symptom appraisal and help-seeking behavior among patients subsequently diagnosed with an interval colorectal cancer. Health Expectations, 19 Feb 2018.

• Hagger, M. ,Koch, S., Chatzisarantis, N., Orbell, S. (2017). The Common Sense Model of Self-Regulation: Meta-Analysis and Test of a Process Model. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 1117-1154.
• Orbell, S., Sczepura, A., Weller, D., Gumber, A., Hagger, M. (2017). South Asian Ethnicity, Socio-economic Status and Psychological Mediators of Faecal Occult Colorectal Screening Participation: A Test of a Process Model. Health Psychology, 36, 1161-1172.
• Daughters, K., Manstead, A. S. R., & Rees D. A. (2017) Hypopituitarism is associated with lower oxytocin concentrations and reduced empathic ability. Endocrine, 57, 166-174.
• Karen N Barnett, David Weller, Steve Smith, Sheina Orbell, Peter Vedsted, Robert JC Steele, Jane W Melia, Sue M Moss, Julietta Patnick, Christine Campbell. (2016). Understanding of a negative bowel cancer screening result and potential impact on future symptom appraisal and help-seeking behavior: a focus group study. Health Expectations.