2022
Causes of Differences in Wellbeing: Recent findings and new approaches
Time and place: Nov. 15, 2022 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups Hus
Happiness and wellbeing have emerged as important study subjects within and across many fields of research. A major driving force behind this is the association with physical and mental health and its pivotal role in socioeconomic issues and economic development. With the increased interest in the importance of wellbeing, it is critically important to understand and reveal sources of individual differences.
On the 15th of November 10.00 - 11.00 in Auditorium 1, world-leading wellbeing researchers Meike Bartels, Margot van de Weijer and Lianne de Vries from Vrije Universitiet Amsterdam will present their work on happiness, wellbeing and the complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors.
All resarchers and students interested in happiness, wellbeing and genetic and environmental influences are invited to attend this presentation.
Forecasting future criminal activity at birth
Time and place: Sep. 7, 2022 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM, Seminarrom 4, Harald Schjelderups Hus
PROMENTAs September Scientific Meeting features a lecture by Professor Torbjørn Skardhamar, Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. The meeting is open to all.
Abstract:
Some cohort studies have claimed crime can be predicted at early childhood with high accuracy, but typically using far more detailed data than would be available in an applied setting. Routinely available administrative records would be more realistic although far less detailed. We examine to what extent future recorded crime can be predicted at the time of birth, based on family-level and neighborhood data available in administrative data. We assess the realism of early prediction, with emphasis on the tradeoffs between accuracy and the costs of errors as well as biases across sub-populations. The results suggests that while forecasting might be better than one could expect given the limitations of the data, fairness is much harder.
Childhood Immigration, Skill Specialization, and Labor Market Sorting
Time and place: Apr. 27, 2022 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups Hus
PROMENTAs April Scientific Meeting features a guest lecture by Associate Professor Are Skeie Hermansen, Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. He will present his new paper "Childhood Immigration, Skill Specialization, and Labor Market Sorting".
Upon arrival in a new country, childhood immigrants face a series of developmental challenges related to language learning, changing educational opportunities, identity formation and possible traumas, and the acquisition of a broad set of skills needed to thrive in knowledge-intensive labor markets. In this talk, I address how childhood immigrants’ age at arrival affects adult earnings, occupational skill specialization, and sorting across workplaces.
Using Norwegian administrative data, the study employs a sibling comparison design that allows me to disentangle the effects of age at arrival on adult outcomes from all factors shared within sibships in immigrant families. Results from sibling fixed-effects models show, first, a progressively stronger adverse effect of older ages at arrival on earnings. Second, older-arriving childhood immigrants increasingly sort into occupations with higher physical demands and lower requirements for communicative, socioemotional, and analytic skills. Third, older-arriving childhood immigrants increasingly sort into workplaces where coworkers are lower paid, less educated, and more often immigrants. These age-at-arrival gradients are stronger among children with less-educated immigrant parents who arrive from low-income origin regions.
To summarize, immigration in later stages of childhood and adolescence has lasting impacts on adult productivity, skill specialization, and workplace segregation.
Adolescent brain development as a window of opportunity for societal contribution
Time and place: Mar. 23, 2022 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Zoom (link provided upon registration)
PROMENTAs March Scientific Meeting features a talk by our partner Dr. Eveline Crone, professor of Developmental Neuroscience in Society at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and professor of Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology at Leiden University.
2021
Monitoring, explaining and reducing health inequalities: An introduction to CHAIN
Time and place: Nov. 10, 2021 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups Hus
The mission of the Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research (CHAIN) is to create a global transformation in actionable health inequalities research. Bringing together leading scholars and international organizations and acting as a change agent, researchers at CHAIN aim to monitor, explain, and reduce health inequalities in the global North and South.
Dr. Eikemo is a Professor of Sociology at NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the leader of CHAIN : Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research. In this talk, Terje Andreas Eikemo will introduce the CHAIN Center and the three central pillars of their approach, and talk briefly about collaboration between CHAIN and PROMENTA.
Eikemo, who has has led several international public health projects, was awarded the scientific prize for young excellent researchers in the Humanities for 2009 by The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab) and the SINTEF prize for outstanding research in 2010. More recently, he was enrolled into NTNUs Outstanding Academic Fellows Programme (NTNUs Stjerneprogram).
Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
Time and place: Sep. 22, 2021 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Zoom (link below)
In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health—and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society.
In her talk Harden challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.
How adversity impacts child development: evidence for a dimensional model
Time and place: Sep. 8, 2021 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Zoom (by registration)
Guest lecture by Dr. Margaret Sheridan, UNC Chapel Hill.
Dr. Margaret Sheridan is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and PI and director of the CIRCLE Lab.
This guest lecture is a part of the Promenta Scientific Meetings, but open to the general public via Zoom.
2020
Individual differences in human brain development
Time and place: Dec. 9, 2020 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM, on Zoom (by registration)
Guest lecture by Dr. Kate Mills, University of Oregon.
Dr. Kate Mills is Associate Professor at the University of Oregon and PI of the Developing Brains in Context Lab. She is affiliated with the Neurocognitive Development research group at Promenta.
This guest lecture is a part of the Promenta Research Seminar, but open to the general public via Zoom.
PTSD, resilience, and everything in between
Time and place: Mar. 11, 2020 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Harald Schjelderups Hus
Mapping the heterogeneity of responses to potential trauma.
Potentially traumatic events (PTEs) are unfortunately common. Indeed, surveys show that most people are exposed to multiple PTEs during the course of their lives. Until recently, however, responses to PTSs have been understood almost exclusively in terms of extreme psychopathology, such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In this talk, Dr. George Bonanno will describe his research over more than two decades demonstrating that responses to PTEs vary greatly and can be effectively captured by a small set of prototypical trajectories of outcome. Although, predictably, a small minority will show a trajectory of chronic PTSD symptoms, by far the most common trajectory, observed in a majority of individuals, is one of stable psychological health or resilience. Bonanno will also describe his research on predictors of the resilience trajectory and devote particular attention to various components of flexibility in coping and emotion regulation.
Quantification of Biological Aging
Time and place: Jan. 15, 2020 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Harald Schjelderups Hus
Opportunities and challenges for research into the social determinants of health and health disparities.
Aging is a leading risk factor for morbidity, disability, and mortality. Breakthroughs in the new field of geroscience suggest that aging-related risk reflects and accumulation of molecular changes that cause a gradual and progressive decline in system integrity. New tools may allow us to measure this process of biological aging. These tools open opportunities to test the hypothesis that accelerated aging is a critical mediator of health disparities, and to evaluate effectiveness of interventions to mitigate social gradients in health. This talk will cover theory and methods in the quantification of biological aging and challenges and opportunities in applying these methods to study etiology of health disparities/social gradients in health. Belsky will also share new data from recent efforts toward developing a single-time point DNA methylation-based method to quantify the pace of aging.
2019
Differences in well-being: What do we know about genes, the brain, and the environment?
Time and place: Nov. 28, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus
Happiness and well-being have emerged as important study subjects within and across many fields of research. A major driving force behind this is the association with physical and mental health and its pivotal role in socioeconomic issues and economic development. With the increased interest in the importance of well-being it is critically important to understand and reveal sources of individual differences.
Prof. Meike Bartels will present her work on happiness and well-being that describing the complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. She will present the current state of art within the field of behavioral and molecular genetic research into well-being, including twin-family studies and molecular genetic findings and the search for the exposome. She will furthermore explain the importance of her findings for individuals and the society at large.
Unravelling the Paradox of Solitude
Time and place: Nov. 20, 2019 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM, Seminarrom 3, Harald Schjelderups hus
The Costs and Consequences of Spending Time Alone in Childhood and Adolescence
Professor Robert J. Coplan will discuss recent advances in the psychological study of solitude. Over the course of the lifespan, humans spend time alone for many different reasons and subjectively respond to solitude with a wide range of reactions and consequences. This presentation will focus on the underlying mechanisms that appear to link time alone to aspects of wellbeing in childhood and adolescence, as well as mitigating facrtors that may serve to amplify or attenuate the potential costs and benefits of solitude.
The developing brain and the emergence of psychopathology during adolescence
Time and place: Oct. 30, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminarrom 3, Harald Schjelderups Hus
How is aberrant brain development related to adolescent mental health?
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by heightened emotional reactivity, which for some sets the stage for emotional and behavior problems. Cross-sectional studies suggest a relation between aberrant structural brain trajectories and psychopathology. Longitudinal studies are still scarce, but critical to identify whether trajectories of brain development relate to the emergence of psychopathology during adolescence. Marieke Bos will present data from a longitudinal study of a community sample of adolescents, assessing the relation between structural brain development and depression and aggressive behavior. She will discuss the differential relation between development of cortical thickness and cortical surface area with psychopathology.
Public health approaches to reducing the burden of mental illness
Time and place: Oct. 23, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus
How can we reduce the burden associated with adolescent mental illness?
Professor Ian Colman will present recent research on health promotion strategies to reduce the burden associated with adolescent mental illness. This will include whether making healthy behaviour changes such as making a child’s diet more healthy, improving parenting behaviours, or making efforts to build social support for a child could have a beneficial impact on a child’s mental health.
Ian Colman is a Professor at the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He is president of the Canadian Academy of Psychiatric Epidemiology and director of the Applied Psychiatric Epidemiology Across the Life Course (APEAL) Lab. His research program investigates the epidemiology of common mental illnesses in the general population. His current focus is understanding longitudinal and life-course processes surrounding depression and anxiety, with a particular interest in identifying early-life factors that may predict depression and anxiety later in life. In addition, he has interests in long-term outcomes of common mental disorders and their treatment, and the epidemiology of suicidal behaviour.
Genetics of ADHD dimensions: biological and clinical implications for ADHD
Time and place: Sep. 25, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus
In this seminar presentation Tetyana Zayats, MD, PhD will give an overview of the field of genome-wide association (GWA) testing in psychiatry and secondary analyses built upon GWA data. She will also provide some examples of the biological and clinical implications of GWA studies using the data from her own research on ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Tetyana Zayats has a clinical background as an MD and has a PhD in statistical genetics. She is a researcher at the Analytic and Translational Genetic Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at BROAD Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Dr. Tetyana Zayats’ current research focuses on novel approaches to better our understanding of both biological and clinical aspects of psychiatric disorders, focusing on ADHD. These approaches encompass the analyses of (1) parent-of-origin effects (POE), (2) polygenic risk scores (PRS), (3) epigenome and (4) combined genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors across a lifespan.
In addition to the seminar, Dr. Zayats will host a workshop on genomicSEM in practice (registration required).
Personality changes! The transition to first grade and into adolescence
Time and place: Sep. 18, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Forsamlingssalen, Harald Schjelderups Hus, Forskningsveien 3A
As part of the PROMENTA lecture series, we are honored to invite you to this exciting lecture by Oliver P. John.
Oliver P. John, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most prominent researchers in personality psychology.
He is director of the Berkeley Personality Lab and author of the widely used personality test “Big Five Inventory - BFI”. In his guest lecture he will focus on personality changes during childhood. Welcome to a unique opportunity to learn more about personality, the Big Five traits and change!
Oliver John visited PSI last year and held a lecture in an overflowing Auditorium 4. Now he is back, and you are invited.
The Development of Personality Functioning Between Adjustment and Growth
Time and place: Sep. 4, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminarrom 6, Harald Schjelderups hus
How should we understand positive personality development across the lifespan?
Two types of positive development of personality functioning have been distinguished: adjustment and growth. The former is linked with mastering the developmental tasks and challenges as they arise across the life span as well as day-to-day hassles and maintaining one’s well-being. The latter is linked with pursuing the advancement of a greater good even if that implies jeopardizing one’s own well-being. For instance, personality dimensions like emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness as well as environmental mastery and self-acceptance fall into the category of adjustment and show on average increases during the adult life span. Whereas, openness to new experience or purpose in life index personality growth and are observed much more rarely. The distinction can also be made for emotion regulation and basic life goals. In the literature, often these two types are not distinguished. Even though both types of development are positive, there is reason to study them separately.
How to securely collect questionnaire data, sound, and pictures for research by using Nettskjema.no and mobile apps
Time and place: Aug. 19, 2019 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Seminar room 3, Harald Schjelderups Hus
We can assume that Apple and Google see all data stored on a mobile phone. How do we then collect data for research from the camera and the microphone in a secure way without compromising the respondent´s privacy?
Nettskjema.no recently released a new version of the mobile app Nettskjema-diktafon. This autumn Nettskjema.no will release a new generic mobile app for taking pictures — available for everyone at UiO.
As a part of the opening of the PROMENTA Research Center, Dagfinn Bergsager (PROMENTA, USIT) will demonstrate how researchers at all levels (including Master students) can use Nettskjema.no and its mobile apps to collect questionnaire data, sound, and pictures with or without using TSD.
The lecture will be in English, and everyone is welcome.
The genetics of educational success
Time and place: Apr. 25, 2019 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Auditorium 3, Harald Schjelderups hus, Forskningsveien 3A, 0373 Oslo
Is educational success already determined at birth?
Dr Ziada Ayorech will hold a talk on what can the genes tell us about educational success. It has recently become possible to predict educational outcomes using common genetic variants. Such variants predicting long education can be aggregated into “polygenic scores”. Such scores constitute a person specific indicator of genetic risk and resilience, are permeating the social, behavioural and biomedical sciences.
She will discuss how polygenic scores contribute to our understanding of social mobility, success at university, and early adult educational and occupational trajectories.
After the lecture there will be a discussion of the usefulness of these methods in the social and behavioural sciences.