Lab Aims
Our research projects are aligned with our overall lab research aims:
- Promoting human flourishing and dignity;
- Drawing on person-centered research methods; and
- Advancing ethical practices in clinical science. We strive toward these values in both research content and conduct.
Flourishing and dignity: We are interested in understanding the psychological qualities of lives and lived experiences characterized by eudaimonic (meaning-centered) happiness, such as connectedness to others and to the universe; self-worth and self-acceptance; and dignity and belonging. Recent projects involve developing and testing interventions to promote these feelings, especially among older adults and those coping with life-limiting illness.
Person-centered research methods: Person-centered research methods involve engaging individuals’ lived experiences to better understand psychological phenomena, needs, and desires. We most often use a mixed methods “narrative identity” framework (McAdams & McLean, 2013). Narrative identity is a person’s evolving story of self they use to make sense of their experiences and explain how they have come to be the people that they are—to this end, we often collect and analyze individual life story interview data. Decades of research have demonstrated the ways adults story their life experiences tends to be associated with psychological well-being and other health outcomes. We also use other person-centered qualitative methods (such as thematic analysis and grounded theory) as well as quantitative methods (such as multilevel modeling and regression) to connect research on lived experiences to the broader literature concerned with generalizability.
Enhancing ethical practices in clinical science: Ethics-related work relates to both research practices (e.g., equitable open science; involvement of underserved populations) and clinical practices (e.g., increasing dignity of care through improving patient-provider communication).
Current and Recent Research
Below we share a bit about some of the current and recent research projects we are excited about!
Self-Transcendence, Self-Acceptance, and Connectedness
The Narrative Lab is very interested in self-transcendence—feeling connected to something bigger than oneself. This can include feeling connected to all of humanity, to nature, or to the divine, or feeling a sense of wholeness and integration within the self. We are interested in the understanding and measuring individuals’ lived experiences of these psychological phenomena as well as their relationships to various psychological outcomes. Because the literature demonstrates overwhelmingly positive relationships with psychological health, we are also interested in understanding the developmental and clinical conditions under which self-transcendence and self-acceptance may increase for those with and without symptoms of mental illness. Representative publications include:
- Reischer, H. N., Roth, L., Villarreal, J., & McAdams, D. P. (2020). Self-transcendence and life stories of humanistic growth among late-midlife adults. Journal of Personality. 89(2), 305–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12583
- Reischer, H. N., Couch, N., Wright, M. N., Duarte, A. J., & McAdams, D. P. (2024, February 10). Narrative Self-Transcendence: Decreased Regret and Increased Acceptance Over Late Midlife. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zyc3n.
- Reischer, H. N., Cowan, H. R., Johnson, K. J., & Mittal, V. A. (2024). Self-transcendence as a risk and resilience factor in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis. Revision under review. PsyArXiv. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ajzwv
Late Life
Much of our research is centered on understanding and promoting “healthy aging.” That is, we are interested in identifying what people find fulfilling and meaningful—what makes life worth living—as they age from midlife into and throughout older adulthood. To date, our aim has been to elucidate experiences of aging through attending to adults’ first-person narratives and identify areas of mismatch between oppressive societal “master narratives of aging.” Representative publications include:
- Johnson, K. M., Bhowmik, B., Al-Khaouli, N. M., & Reischer, H. N. “A Continuous Opening of Life”: Perspectives on Aging Across Time, Race, and Gender. [LINK TK]
- McAdams, D. P., Logan, R. L. & Reischer, H. N. (2022). Beyond the redemptive self: Narratives of acceptance in later life (and in other contexts). Journal of Research in Personality. 100, 104286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2022.104286
- Reischer, H. N. (2021). The last chapters of life: A proposed research agenda for studying narrative identity in older adulthood. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 2021;e12620. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12620
We have recently begun work on a project funded by the National Institute of Aging to harmonize research on gerotranscendence, solitude, loneliness, and connectedness, in an effort to accelerate research on healthy aging. Promoting Healthy Aging Through Semantic Enrichment of Solitude Research (U01AG088074) is a project in collaboration with applied ontologists Dr. John Beverley (UB Philosophy), Dr. William Duncan (University of Florida Community Dentistry), and Dr. Yongqun “Oliver” He (University of Michigan Medical School), and Dr. Julie Bowker (UB Psychology).
We are currently analyzing narrative data related to The Solitude Paradox: Older Age Study in Solitude (OASIS) with the research labs of psychologists Dr. Rob Coplan (Carleton University), Dr. Julie Bowker (UB), and Dr. Lora Park (UB). This project was funded by a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (435-2017-0849) to Dr. Coplan.
Improving Quality of Life at End of Life
Our lab is currently conducting pilot research related to two applied projects pointed toward improving quality of life at end of life by thinking about end-of-life related values, preferences, and decisions much earlier than is typical among Americans. Both draw on narrative identity approaches to engage adults in reflecting on the topic of end of life: a fairly taboo but extremely important topic. First, research shows better quality of life at end of life (EOL) is predicted by receiving care reflecting one’s articulated goals and preferences—yet only one in three Americans has communicated their wishes through advance care planning. We are currently surveying diverse individuals about advance care planning. (If interested in participating, email us!)
Second, literature demonstrates that acceptance of one’s life story predicts better mental health and quality of life at end of life. We are currently conducting iterative pilot research on a novel narrative intervention seeking to increase such acceptance using the framework of reflecting on one’s life story in the context of leaving a legacy.
Past and ongoing research in this area has also focused on bringing psychological science in conversation with various topics in bioethics. Representative publications include:
- Danis, M. & Reischer, H. N. The science and skill of facing change: Implications for bioethicists. In Lanphier, E. & Churchill L. R. Chapter (Eds.), Bioethics with Bigger Impact. Lexington Books. In press.
- Reischer, H. N. & Beverley, J. (2019). Diverse approaches to meaning-making at the end of life. American Journal of Bioethics, 19(12), 68–70. http://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2019.1674419
- Beverley, J. & Reischer, H. N. (2019). Credibility excess and social support criterion, American Journal of Bioethics, 19(11), 32–34, http://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2019.1665743
Community-Centered Psychological Science
Work in this area has taken two somewhat different approaches. First is research conducted in partnership with community. We are honored to partner with The National Witness Project on two community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects seeking to increase access to and uptake of culturally competent mental health services for Black Buffalonians. One of these projects, with UB psychologists Dr. Rebecca Ashare and Dr. Sarah Taber-Thomas, has been supported by UB Community Health Equity Pilot Studies Program Grant and an NIH/NCATS UB Clinical and Translational Science Institute Community Partnership Development Seed Grant. Read more:
- Reischer, H. N., Taber-Thomas, S. M., Turay, E., Johnson, D., Greene, B., Dauphin, C. Erwin, D. O. & Ashare, R. L. (2024, October 26). Witnessing for Black mental health: Formative steps for designing a community-based mental health education intervention. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/76w5k
The second approach to this work has taken a more metascientific approach in exploring the “openness” of open science and the benefits of remain attentive to both quantitative big data methods as well as qualitative, humanistic approaches grounded in the experiences of diverse individuals. Read more:
- Reischer, H. N. & Cowan, H. R. (2020). Quantity over quality? Reproducibility through a mixed methods lens. Collabra: Psychology. 6(1), 26. http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.284
A full list of my publications can be found on Google Scholar. Please feel free to email me at hollen@buffalo.edu for a copy of an article you cannot otherwise access!