Research.

How does it develop?

Our innate ability to recover, regulate, and respond to stress is a true wonder. Decades of research have highlighted the importance of early self-regulation skills in predicting important health outcomes related to academic, physical, emotional, financial, social, and psychological well-being. Dr. Adusei’s scientific contributions in this area have focused on using multi-method approaches (e.g., EEG, behavioral coding, ecological momentary assessment) to validate neural, physiological, and behavioral measures of self-regulation in early childhood. As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Thus, Dr. Adusei’s work is dedicated to expanding our understanding of how to capture the dynamic brain-behavior processes that are unfolding to support the development of self-regulation and related skills in youth.

What gets in the way?

Input from the environment can range from adverse experiences like childhood poverty and trauma to health-promoting influences like interventions and social connection. Dr. Adusei is interested in examining how these environmental inputs impact physiological and behavioral systems supporting self-regulatory capacities. Her research focuses on an ignored yet critical component of self-regulation. Namely, the social and cultural factors that either constrain or enhance self-regulation processes, and ultimately act as determinants of later health outcomes. For example, Dr. Adusei’s most recent project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NICHD F32HD100025; Lo (Adusei), PI) examines how moderate levels of biological stress and sensitivity to the environment may be optimal to effectively respond to and manage self-regulation challenges (i.e., stress), as well as to benefit from self-regulation-focused interventions in a sample of children with a history of living in poverty.

How do we get more of it?

How do we get more self-regulation? Can it change? These are among the most common questions Dr. Adusei receives, which makes sense given that we seem to be inundated with a constant stream of notifications, emails, texts, and tweets that barrage us, not to mention the continuing rise of depression, anxiety, and isolation in society; which taken together, seem to tank our self-control meter. To address this question, Dr. Adusei is working to translate the findings from academia into effective, scalable interventions for underserved youth that are based on mechanisms of change. Research indicates that cognitive training methods (i.e., “brain training games”) are not effective in improving skills outside of the laboratory, which is consistent with Dr. Adusei’s research in this area. In contrast, interventions that target emotional regulation and build mind-body awareness such as mindfulness-based practices and biofeedback show promise beyond the lab setting. Therefore, Dr. Adusei aims to pair with community partners who have established practices that act on these targets effectively to better understand the mechanisms of their success in promoting such skills in youth.