Current Projects

This study is being carried out by Kaiyuan "Oke" Luo, B.S. 

In the United States, one-third of older individuals reported experiencing severe grief after loss, often accompanied by psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Since the Self-affirmation theory proposes that an individual’s stress can be relieved by their own recognition of their self-worth and values which means it could potentially lessen individuals’ grief responses, this study has been designed to address gaps in research on the effectiveness and mechanisms of Self Affirmation in mitigating grief, as well as on how Self Affirmation interventions influence cardiovascular responses to grief in young adults. This study examines the following hypotheses: 

1. Self-affirmation will have a main effect on cardiovascular reactivity and recovery during and after grief recall, moderated by grief severity.

2. Exploring whether a change in self-worth mediates the moderated relationship between the self-affirmation condition and cardiovascular reactivity. 

3. Grief severity is associated with participants’ level of psychological stress and relationship with the deceased person.