June Gruber

CU-Boulder’s Gruber explores dark side of happiness

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:21:09 +0000

CU-Boulder’s Gruber explores dark side of happiness Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/17/2016 - 09:21

Julie Poppen

June Gruber was recently honored as a 2016 recipient of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. The award lauds “the creativity and innovative work of scientists who represent the future promise and potential of psychological science.” Photo by Glenn Asakawa.

At some point in your life you’ve likely heard that “too much of a good thing” can be bad for you.

June Gruber has used science to prove this old adage true. Gruber, a professor of psychology and neuropsychology at the University of Colorado Boulder, studies emotional extremes and the upper limits of human positivity. Leaders in her field are taking note of Gruber’s groundbreaking research.

Gruber was recently honored as a 2016 recipient of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. The award lauds “the creativity and innovative work of scientists who represent the future promise and potential of psychological science.” And, she was invited to present her research on emotional extremes recently at the 17th annual convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in San Diego, California.

We wanted to know more about Gruber’s research so we asked her some questions.

Why is this area of research important to you personally? To the greater community?

Emotions are an essential ingredient of what makes us human. But surprisingly, there are still a lot of mysteries as to what emotions are and how we can harness them to improve mental health outcomes and lead happier lives.

In particular, I study the intersection of emotion and psychopathology where I work to shed insight into emotional difficulties among those diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, depression and psychosis.

What was the most surprising finding to you related to extreme emotion?

For me, I have been surprised by how complex the human mind is. And more specifically, that there appear to be many different sides to even our own positive feelings.

In a recent talk at the SPSP conference this January, I presented work describing a counterintuitive but powerful set of findings emerging from our lab suggesting that when positive emotions are experienced too intensely, at the wrong time, or without a proper dose of negative emotions, that such extremes in positivity may predict worsened psychological health and functional outcomes. This includes increased severity and risk for clinical symptoms of mania, depression and anxiety as well as potential physical health ailments including an increased number of visits to the doctor.

In sum, there can sometimes truly be too much of a good thing, which is in itself a surprising finding!

How can people learn more about your groundbreaking research?

There are a few easy ways to learn more about this work. In the spirit of enhancing dissemination and accessibility about the science of human emotion, I’ve created a few free online resources, including an interview series from over 50 scholars around the country about the science behind our deepest feelings (called the “Experts in Emotion Interview Series”), as well as online courses in human emotion I created at Yale University and freely available through YouTube and iTunes U.

I welcome any questions about this material or resource requests at: june.gruber@colorado.edu

You haven’t been here long. What is your favorite thing about working for CU-Boulder?

I moved to CU-Boulder in 2014 from Yale University where I had been working as an assistant professor of psychology. CU is a vibrant and welcoming community, with a lot of energy and creative ideas abounding.

I am honored to be here and excited to be working in a place at the center of major discoveries in the field of psychology, and where we are beginning to address some of the biggest and unanswered questions about emotion. I couldn’t be happier about the move and have not once looked back!

If someone reading this is moved by the work you’re doing, what can they do to support you?

Please consider contributing to the work we do in our lab through a donor website on our lab webpage (www.gruberpeplab.com). This financial support goes toward research, instruction, travel, education and training of my students. I deeply appreciate any and all support. You can get more information on this CU Advancement website.

This interview was conducted by Julie Poppen, senior news editor for the CU Office of News Services.

At some point in your life you’ve likely heard that “too much of a good thing” can be bad for you. June Gruber has used science to prove this old adage true.

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Group taps broad expertise to understand emotion

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Group taps broad expertise to understand emotion Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/17/2016 - 00:00

Alicia Segal

While emotions are essential human experiences, ‘there are still a lot of mysteries as to exactly what emotions are and how we can harness them to lead healthier and happier lives

Human emotions are universally experienced but not fully understood. A new initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder aims to tap a wide range of expertise to shed light on “the mysteries of human nature.”

June Gruber, at left, is leading an interdisciplinary effort to improve human understanding of people’s emotions. Photo by Glenn Asakawa.

June Gruber, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the CU-Boulder, hints at the appeal of a riveting mystery story.

“Emotions are an essential part of what makes us human. But surprisingly, there are still a lot of mysteries as to exactly what emotions are and how we can harness them to lead healthier and happier lives.”

That quest underlies a new initiative that employs an interdisciplinary approach to understanding emotion, called Colorado Affective Sciences Laboratories (CASL, pronounced “castle”).

Besides drawing attention from departments across the university, it has piqued the interest of multiple scholars in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and the backgrounds of its co-founders reflect this diversity:

Gruber is a member of the department’s clinical- and social-psychology areas; Professor Leaf Van Boven is in social psychology; and Professor Tor Wager is in cognitive psychology.

CASL’s founders emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary work, not only spanning areas of psychology, but also including other disciplines.

When friends ask me about grad school, I tell them that I finally get to study what I care about. I get to talk to a diverse group of really smart people about a topic I’m really interested in...”

“At the cutting edge of this science are attempts to measure emotion across multiple levels, meaning integrating information from the cellular level all the way up to people’s self-reports about their own well-being,” Gruber says.

“Bringing together interdisciplinary teams is essential to the success of this multi-level work. You need teams of people with specializations in a variety of disciplines like neuroimaging, mental health, language analysis and behavioral observation, working as a team, not just as individuals.”

CASL aims to foster academic dialogue and collaboration among these and other disciplines, even involving academic communities throughout Colorado.

The robust group of CASL’s 60 members (and growing) gives a sense of this range: though composed primarily of psychology students and faculty, fields including philosophy, art, business, marketing, environmental studies and integrative physiology are also represented.

“It seems like this was a critical gap across the university that needed to be filled,” Gruber says.

Affective science is known most basically as the study of human emotion, but those in various areas of psychology approach that study from different, though often overlapping, perspectives.

Clinical psychologists approach affective science with an eye on mental health and psychopathology; affective disorders, emotional regulation and more recently, positive emotion, may be emphasized.

Social psychologists focus on how social experience affects emotion, and on the social function of emotions; there may be an interest in topics such as stereotyping and prejudice as well as cultural or gender differences in emotion.

Cognitive psychologists are concerned with how emotion affects cognition and vice versa; the interplay of affect and cognitive processes such as memory, decision-making, attention and cognitive reappraisal are often examined.

Researchers in each area may, in turn, look to brain physiology and neuroscience for clarity and theoretical support, examining the neural circuits involved in emotion.

At CU-Boulder, students in all areas of psychology who are interested in CASL and the field of affective science can choose from several existing psychology classes: a large undergraduate class attracting more than 200 students in Human Emotion, taught by Gruber, and three graduate-level classes (Affective Science, taught by Gruber; Emotion and Decision Making, taught by Van Boven; and Affective Neuroscience, taught by Wager).

An additional elective “Brown Bag” class, held during the lunch hour, includes weekly speakers in affective science from major universities such as Yale and Stanford, plus international leaders in the field, and reading groups that expose students to cutting-edge research on human emotion.

Students can also participate in an annual cross-campus conference, Emotion Research Day, a joint venture between CU-Boulder and the University of Denver that includes students and faculty from several fields.

Some broader academic plans are also in the works. The co-founders of CASL are developing a formal graduate-certificate program in affective science and intend to submit a proposal to the university this year.

This would provide students with specialized training to promote their future careers in the field. As part of that program, the CASL team is working on a formal curriculum of the study of human emotions, developing more in-depth courses on both undergraduate and graduate levels.

One of the anticipated courses, Happiness, Psychology and Philosophy, would be taught with two philosophy professors, reflecting CASL’s emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach. Gruber is also working on identifying grant and fellowship funding opportunities for students and their research projects.

The student response to CASL has been strong and positive.

Maggie Tobias, a first-year graduate student in Gruber’s lab, plans to do her own research on the interaction between cognition and emotion, focusing on cognitive bias in relation to positive emotion and psychopathology.

From her perspective, having access to faculty, research and study groups specifically about affective science is a dream come true.

“CASL has been a fantastic experience,” she says.

“When friends ask me about grad school, I tell them that I finally get to study what I care about. I get to talk to a diverse group of really smart people about a topic I’m really interested in. At the CASL Brown Bag, we have really deep discussions with people from different areas and even different departments. There are a lot of insights and new perspectives to be gained from that.”

Gruber notes that the growing interest in affective science is reflected by mass-media attention on the subject, including that of well-respected academic journals.

The National Institute of Mental Health has also endorsed affective science as an important priority in the study of mental illness.

“This underscores how important affective science is,” says Gruber. “The time for CASL is ripe. We believe CU can be at the center of major discoveries in this field and tackle some of the biggest unanswered questions about emotion.”

For updates and further information about CASL, go to https://www.facebook.com/emotioncasl. To support CASL and student fellowships, contact june.gruber@colorado.edu.

Alicia Segal is a writer in the CU-Boulder Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.