Researchers have found that the strength of young people’s brain responses to social rewards influenced their feelings of social satisfaction and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period with limited in-person interactions. Adolescents aged 10 to 17 whose brains are highly sensitive to social rewards felt lonelier when they had fewer in-person and virtual interactions than those whose brains are less sensitive to social rewards. Additionally, highly sensitive youth felt lonelier when they increased their passive use of social media, meaning they were scrolling through social media without posting or commenting. This finding suggests that observing the social lives of others without participating can be particularly negative for this group. Conversely, less sensitive adolescents did not feel as lonely with more frequent passive use of social media, indicating that simply viewing others’ social activities might be beneficial for them.
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Behavior Maintenance Approaches in Clinical and Community Settings Workshop
Date and Time: June 4, 2024, 11:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m. ET
OBSSR and the Adherence Research Network at NIH host a workshop series titled “An Action Agenda: Promoting the Science and Practice of Health Behavior Maintenance.” This series aims to enhance understanding of health behavior maintenance to improve and sustain health outcomes. The fourth workshop in the series, “Behavior Maintenance Approaches in Clinical and Community Settings,” will highlight the experiences of people with chronic conditions maintaining healthy behaviors and clinicians discussing the multilevel approaches that have enabled their patients to be successful. Another session will feature speakers presenting successful programs from real-world clinical and community settings, addressing opportunities and challenges for further development.
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The Future of Scientific Conferencing Workshop
Dates and Times: June 6, 2024, 12:00–5:00 p.m. ET; June 7, 2024, 12:00–3:00 p.m. ET; June 11, 12:00–5:00 p.m. ET
The Future of Scientific Conferencing Workshop will bring together diverse perspectives from multiple disciplines to explore advantages, barriers, gaps, and opportunities in the future of scientific conferencing for the behavioral and social sciences. Areas of particular focus include technological innovations that enable virtual and hybrid approaches and the impact of these approaches on diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and the belonging of participants and attendees, as well as environmental sustainability. The workshop will incorporate innovative evidence-informed approaches to showcase the potential of a virtual platform for learning, networking, and participant engagement.
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NIH Director’s Lecture with Dr. Jenny Tung: Recording Available
The recording is now available for the NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series with Dr. Jenny Tung. During her lecture, Dr. Tung discussed how experiences in early life and our social connections throughout life strongly predict our health and our lifespans. She considered our emerging understanding of this process, drawing on her work on both captive rhesus macaques and wild baboons. She reviewed the strong evidence that early adversity, social status, and affiliative ties in adulthood are central to life outcomes, suggesting that observations in humans are not an artifact of the modern human environment.
Watch Dr. Tung’s Lecture
Continued Extension of Certain Flexibilities for Prospective Basic Experimental Studies with Human Participants
NIH has extended flexibilities for registration and results reporting for studies submitted to funding opportunities for basic experimental studies involving humans (BESH) through September 24, 2025. Thereafter, registration in ClinicalTrials.gov will be required, as will reporting results to either ClinicalTrials.gov or Regulations.gov. NIH is developing a method for reporting BESH results that cannot be expressed in a tabular form in an alternate format in Regulations.gov; this method is expected to be available in 2026.
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Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking
On May 15, the White House released the Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking. The blueprint recommends actions that agencies across the federal government can take to effectively leverage social and behavioral science in improving policymaking to deliver better outcomes and opportunities for all Americans. These recommendations include such actions as considering social and behavioral insights early in policy or program development. The blueprint also lays out broader opportunities for agencies, such as ensuring they have a sufficient number of staff with social and behavioral science expertise.
Read the Blueprint
Request for Information (RFI) Regarding Strategies to Advance the Relevance and Impact of Mental Health Services Research
The Division of Services and Intervention Research (DSIR) at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is seeking input on the impact of research supported by DSIR on mental health practices and mental health policies. NIMH seeks input from a broad array of interested parties, including research organizations, community organizations, academic institutions, professional societies, other government agencies, health services organizations and providers, alternative workforce organizations, those employed by or receiving funding from NIH, advocates, and people with lived experience of a mental illness. Responses are due by September 1, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
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