Home :: GREPS LAB

OUR WORK

Welcome to the GREPS’ website at the University of Geneva. For those who are interested in our work, we are pleased to introduce our ongoing projects and past published studies. To summarize our research interests, we borrowed Barack Obama’s definition of behavioral insights: How people make decisions and act on them. Action initiation and execution is a centuries-old fascinating question for philosophers, and, more recently, for psychologists, economists, sociologists, anthropologists and neuroscientists, grouped under the heading "behavioral scientists". A lot of knowledge has been accumulated, from striatum’s role in the brain to how social norms and culture shape behavior. Our work aims to integrate action initiation and execution in a large sequence where distant variables, such as culture, external pressure or education, shape beliefs, decision and implementation, resulting into action. Thus, our approach is clearly based on socio-cognitive tradition and on concepts such as beliefs, motivation, decision-making, planned behavior or goal-directed behavior. Our research methods are empirical, going from large scale inquiries to lab-based experiments or fMRI studies.
Basic mechanisms of action initiation and execution are echoed in actual social problems such as health or pro-environmental behaviors: Smoking cessation, body mass control, physical exercise, blood donation, risk taking, recycling behavior or water preservation are few examples of actual societal challenges which share a common feature: being strongly based on people's decision and motivation. Thus, the understanding of basic determinants of behavior has important application in "real life" problems. When possible, we try to embed our basic research into relevant actual questions.
We designed our website to look nice and to be easy to navigate. We hope that you will appreciate it.

Olivier Desrichard, Professor

olivier.desrichard@unige.ch

ongoing projects

determinants of health and pro-environmental behaviors

This research project aims at understanding how socio-cognitive variables (beliefs, motivation, implementation) predict health behaviors and pro-environmental behaviors. Some research have an applied focus, and some are more fundamental.

For example, how does the formulation of a message to promote recycling influence its effectiveness, and what are the underlying mechanisms? Or, how to communicate to lapsed blood donors?

We have some specific research projects in collaboration with external partners such as : Haute Ecole de Santé de Genève, Fédération Internationale de la Croix Rouge et du Croissant Rouge, Service Vaudois de transfusion sanguine (Transfusion Interrégionale CRS).

Lisa Moussaoui, Dr., sENIOR assistant

lisa.moussaoui@unige.ch

Cognitive health and motivation for cognition

The importance of considering both the cold (cognitive system efficiency) and hot (motivation) determinants of behaviors when studying cognitive functioning has been repeatedly highlighted by researchers. The question is particularly at stake when research show quantitative differences in cognitive performance between groups, and when such results are interpreted as a consequence of differences in cognitive system efficiency, without considering motivational explanations. Failing to consider the role of motivation when examining performance on cognitive tests could have serious consequences, such as drawing inadequate conclusions from data, or hastening the clinical diagnosis of cognitive deficits. However, whereas recent recommendations have been made to devote more attention to the motivational determinants of adults' performance, there is a need for research in this domain. This part of our research activity includes the MotCog project, which aims at building a measure of motivation for cognition, and our works on the white coat effect, a phenomenon observed when older people perform better on cognitive tasks under certain circumstances.

SITUATIONAL DETERMINANTS OF OLDER ADULTs' MEMORY PERFORMANCES

Our research specializes in the field of social psychology, particularly the influence of context variables (e.g. research instructions, stereotypes, lifestyle) on memory testing in older people. Is memory performance determined solely by memory capacities of older adults? Our goal is to determine which factors play an important role on older people’s performance and to remove potential biases in the testing environment, rendering neuropsychological testing more accurate. We are also interested in which context prejudice towards elder people arises and its consequences on behavior towards older adults.

Marine Beaudoin, Dr., Maître de conférences, université Savoie Mont-Blanc

Marine.Beaudoin@univ-smb.fr

Fanny Vallet, Dr.

NEELE H. HEISER, ASSISTANT AND PhD CANDIDATE

Neele.Heiser@unige.ch

Factors Determining Self-Management Behaviors in Adults Living with Diabetes

Diabetes, a chronic disease related to sugar metabolism disturbance, represents a steadily increasing public health challenge concerning about 500’000 people in Switzerland. The success of any treatment strategy strongly relies on patients’ ability to integrate diabetes self-management behaviors (DSMBs) into their daily lives. DSMBs usually include decisions and actions regarding medication intake (insulin or oral antidiabetic agents), performing physical activity, adjusting diet, monitoring blood sugar, and foot care. My thesis project aims at describing DSMBs profiles and identifying the cognitive, psychologic, social, and environmental factors influencing their practice in adults. In particular, the results will help identifying 1) DSMBs practices and patterns, 2) DSMBs main determinants acting as obstacles or supports of DSMBs, and 3) patients’ specificities and needs in the process of diabetes self-management. This PhD thesis is supervised by Isabelle Peytremann-Bridevaux, (Director) Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP), Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and Lausanne University, Lausanne, Switzerland, Bernard Burnand (Co-director), Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP), Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and Lausanne University, Lausanne, Switzerland and Olivier Desrichard (Co-director), Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l’Education, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

PROMOTION OF PSYCHOSOCIAL SKILLS IN HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS

Psychosocial skills, such as empathy, effective communication and conflict resolution, or group-based decision-making are essential for social adaptation and constitute a key component of the development of positive mental health. The present project is a two-year longitudinal study of psychosocial competencies in a large sample of French vocational school adolescents (around 4000 students). It is a large-scale experimentation program founded by the French ministry of Education, aiming at exploring effects of cooperative learning on both intra and interpersonal competencies and academic achievement.

Decision, uniqueness seeking and risk-taking

Separately, “Uniqueness Seeking” and “Risk-taking” have both been subjects of a considerable amount of research. Nevertheless, the literature has rarely focused on the potential link between these two concepts. Uniqueness theory suggests that people have a need to build and maintain a feeling of moderate distinctiveness. Several studies have shown that uniqueness motives prompt distinctive behaviors. Can risky actions provide a way to distinguish? The goal of this project is to demonstrate that risk-taking can have an instrumental function serving the need for uniqueness. Various experiments have been carried out, and others more will be conducted in order to experimentally demonstrate that the need for uniqueness predicts risk taking.

Determinants of health behaviors during pregnancy and post-partum period

Pregnancy has repeatedly been described as a time when women may be particularly receptive to changing their health behavior, moreover this period is often a window of opportunity to intervene with their families. Various types of determinants are related to health behaviors during pregnancy: physiological aspects, socio-demographics, and psychological factors. However, the complexity of the processes associated with health behaviors is rarely established. A field of research examine the determinants of smoking cessation and post-partum relapse (in collaboration with Haute école de santé de Genève and Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève). Another study focuses on psychological predictors of the use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) during pregnancy and explore the role of various predictors: perceived stress, beliefs about medicine, health locus of control (HLOC), health literacy, bullshit receptivity, and belief in conspiracy theories (CT). Motivational interviewing (MI) can be incorporated into a widerange of health promotion and disease prevention interventions, it appears to have potential application across diverse professionals and health care settings. A new pedagogical research project focusing on training students in motivational interviewing using simulated patient-based techniques is under development.