Rebecca Shankland

Biography

Her work in positive psychology is part of the theory of "extending and developing" (Fredrickson, 2004), which considers positive emotions to expand the attention span, allowing for greater creativity and improved problem-solving abilities. In particular, she worked on the impact of grateful orientation on physical, mental and social health (Emmons & McCullough, 2004), and on the links between well-being and prosocial behavior. More recently, her work has focused on studying the processes involved in health promotion through programs aimed at the development of mindfulness or "Mindfulness". In particular, her study the effect of these practices on self - improvement of physical and mental health, in particular through improved inhibition and decision-making capacities that should increase the adoption of health behaviors such as physical activity, balanced nutrition, and prevention addictive behaviors. She also works on reducing some cognitive biases such as thought-form fusion (believing that thinking about high-calorie food will increase weight gain) as part of eating disorders

Research Interest

 Psychology