A team of Brock researchers wants to learn more about perfectionism and well-being among adolescents, while also exploring the COVID-19 pandemic\u2019s impact on school experiences.<\/p>\n
Anyone between the ages of 12 and 18 is invited to participate in the Niagara Adolescent Personality and Social Connection Study, conducted by researchers in Brock\u2019s Developmental Processing in Health and Well-being Lab in the Department of Child and Youth Studies.<\/p>\n
Over the course of four months, participants will complete a series of three online surveys covering a variety of topics including personality, emotions, school experiences and feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
A few participants will also be randomly selected to complete an online interview in addition to the surveys. For each survey completed, participants will receive a $20 Amazon gift card. Those who complete an online interview will also receive a $25 Amazon gift card.<\/p>\n
Associate Professor Danielle Sirianni Molnar says the study has grown out of results from previous research on adolescent youth relationships, social connection and personality that began prior to the global pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe previous study didn\u2019t have rich information on the actual COVID-19 experience because it was designed pre-pandemic, and it also didn\u2019t go in depth on educational issues,\u201d says Molnar. \u201cBased on what we\u2019ve learned from our previous research, we\u2019ve added a lot more on these topics to this new study to get a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of what\u2019s going on with youth during COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Dawn Zinga says that although the last study didn\u2019t explicitly ask about mental health, the issue emerged as a strong theme for youth. And because the study continued through key time frames in Ontario\u2019s pandemic restrictions, the team can glean data about youth mental health.<\/p>\n
Zinga and Molnar, along with Sabrina Thai in the Department of Psychology, research associate Tabitha Methot-Jones and master\u2019s student and lab assistant Melissa Blackburn, are now working on a paper based on those results showing how pre-pandemic perfectionism, anxiety and depression changed across the first government lockdown in Ontario and the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom pre-pandemic to first lockdown, depression actually decreased slightly, but then we saw a steep increase from first lockdown to second lockdown, with changes in perfectionism paralleling the changes in depression,\u201d says Molnar. \u201cHigher levels of socially prescribed perfectionism, which is when you perceive others expecting perfection from you, were associated with greater depression over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molnar says this is strong evidence of the links between perfectionism and mental health in adolescents, which has already been shown in older populations.<\/p>\n
\u201cResearch is clearly suggesting that youth who are higher in perfectionism are vulnerable to the negative aspects of the pandemic, so we really want to explore how and why,\u201d Molnar says. \u201cThe goal is to come up with evidence-based strategies to help these youth, as well as parents and educators, to recognize what\u2019s happening and provide some help.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is all the more significant because other research from the lab shows that nearly half of all youth in multiple studies \u2014 47.8 per cent \u2014 self-identified as being perfectionists.<\/p>\n
Zinga says part of a perfectionistic personality is making an effort to seem like the perfect child. She warns that caregivers and teachers need to be vigilant about seeing what is happening, rather than how a young person presents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our earlier work, participants talked about feeling isolated and actively withdrawing from connections, even within the same household \u2014 not connecting with their parents, not telling them things,\u201d says Zinga. \u201cParents need to watch the behavioural signals underneath, like eating or spending too much time in their room. In the pandemic, you may be sharing more space and time with your children, but your attention may actually be more divided, so it\u2019s important to rely on more than proximity as you assess your child\u2019s well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blackburn says the research team is hoping to recruit up to 500 Ontario youth to participate in the mixed-methods Niagara Adolescent Personality and Social Connection Study, which will form the foundation of her master\u2019s thesis research.<\/p>\n
Anyone between the ages of 12 and 18 who would like to participate needs to have a private email address. Those under the age of 18 also need their parents\u2019 permission to participate, which can be granted via email. Requests to participate and parental permission can be sent to dphwblab@brocku.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A team of Brock researchers wants to learn more about perfectionism and well-being among adolescents, while also exploring the COVID-19 pandemic\u2019s impact on school experiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":73344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9794,7,3319,188,55,1,4,5,38],"tags":[45,703,3585,4212,522,10050,3325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73345,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73343\/revisions\/73345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}