The post Infographics by the 2026 Social Psych Seminar Class appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

The post Why Sleep Matters and How to Improve It By Madelyn Cook appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

When Money Becomes Part of Your Identity
By Isabella R. L. Bossom¹ & Sarah Enouy²

Why do some people tie their self-worth so closely to money? Personality may play an important role.

Most people care about their finances. Money affects where we live, the opportunities available to us, and how secure we feel. But for some people, financial success becomes central to their identity. This is called having a financially focused self-concept.

A financially focused self-concept can have consequences. People who strongly base their self-worth on money are more likely to engage in risky financial behaviours, such as gambling or hiding financial decisions from their partners.

Personality Traits

Some personality traits are more common among people who place a strong emphasis on money and status. Traits associated with the Dark Triad (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) include tendencies such as manipulation, self-centeredness, and a lack of empathy.

People who score higher on these traits may be more likely to see wealth as a sign of power or success. As a result, financial success can become an important way of validating their self-worth. For example, people who are more manipulative, impulsive, or distrustful of others may place greater importance on money and status.

Narcissism may also influence how people relate to money. People high in grandiose narcissism often see themselves as superior and deserving of admiration. Wealth and status can reinforce this image. At the same time, people high in vulnerable narcissism may feel insecure and sensitive to criticism. For them, financial success may help provide reassurance or validation.

Another trait linked to financial focus is honesty-humility, which reflects sincerity, fairness, modesty, and a lack of interest in wealth and status. People who score lower on honesty-humility, especially those who value luxury, status, and personal gain, may be more likely to base their self-worth on money.

Valuing financial success is not necessarily a problem. However, when money becomes the main way someone judges their self-worth, it can narrow how they see themselves and what they value in life.

Why This Matters

Understanding the personality traits linked to a financially focused self-concept can help explain why some people develop an especially strong focus on money. It may also help explain why this mindset is sometimes connected to risky financial behaviours.

When financial success becomes only one part of a broader sense of identity, alongside relationships, personal values, and well-being, people may be less likely to experience distress when financial goals are not met.

For Further Reading

Bossom, I. R. L*., Enouy, S*., Blais, J., Wohl, M. J. A., Pruysers, S., & Tabri, N. (2026). Explaining unique and common variance in financially focused self-concept from Dark Triad and honesty-humility personality traits using commonality analyses. International Journal of Psychology, 61(2), e70196. 10.1002/ijop.70196.

¹Isabella is a former MeWeRTH student member (2020-2022) and was supported by a Mental Health and Well-Being Research Training Hub Grant (2021).

²Sarah is a current MeWeRTH student member.

*Isabella and Sarah share first authorship

The post When Money Becomes Part of Your Identity By Isabella R. L. Bossom and Sarah Enouy appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

By Gray Gaudett

What you crave may matter more to recovery than experiencing cravings itself.

Cravings are a normal part of recovery, and learning how to cope with them is a common part of the recovery process. Often, this means planning ahead and avoiding situations, such as going to a bar, that remind you of your addiction.

But not all cravings come from external triggers. Sometimes cravings are sparked by memories of your addiction—experiences you cannot simply plan to avoid or walk away from. This can result in something even more confusing: cravings can make you miss your addiction.

Why does this happen? The answer might be nostalgia.

How Do Cravings Impact Recovery?

Cravings are often explained in two ways. The first is that they arise from withdrawal, or the discomfort that shows up when reducing or stopping your addiction. In this sense, craving is about wanting relief from unpleasant symptoms. But this explanation only goes so far. It does not explain why cravings can show up long after withdrawal has passed or why people who have behavioural addictions, such as gambling, can experience cravings.

Another way of understanding cravings is to see them as being driven by rewards, such as the excitement, euphoria, or relief linked to your addiction. Certain thoughts, memories, or feelings can bring these “rewards” to mind, triggering cravings even when you know the behaviour is harmful. This can feel confusing: you know why you are in recovery, but part of you might still long for these “positive” aspects of your addiction.

There might be another way to think of cravings. Craving can make emotionally charged memories of your addiction resurface, and these emotions might be what give cravings power.

Missing Your Addiction

One emotion that may arise from cravings is nostalgia (a sentimental longing for your addiction). Nostalgia is often talked about as a helpful emotion, and sometimes it is. Remembering who you were before your addiction can motivate recovery. But nostalgia is not always helpful. Missing your addiction itself—how it felt, social connections, or feeling a sense of purpose—can make relapse feel tempting.

How do Cravings and Nostalgia Impact Recovery?

We wanted to know how craving and nostalgia influence each other, and how this impacts recovery. We found that there is a reciprocal relation between craving and nostalgia. When participants experienced cravings, they were also more likely to feel nostalgic for their addiction. When participants felt nostalgic for their addiction, they often experienced stronger cravings. In other words, there seems to be a reciprocal relation between gambling and craving that can make staying on the recovery path challenging.

Planning for Success

Craving can elicit nostalgia for the addiction, which can make recovery challenging. To stay on track, recovery can include noticing when these memories arise, challenging idealized views of the past, and reframing them. Recovery plans that address both craving and nostalgia can help strengthen recovery commitment and reduce risk of relapse.

For further reading

Gaudett, G. E., Tabri, N., Stefaniak, A., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Wohl, M. J. A. (under initial review). Future desires, past longings: Craving and nostalgia as mutual reinforcing factors that undermine recovery. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science.

The post Is It Normal to Miss Your Addiction? By Gray Gaudett appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

The post The Science of Healthy Boundaries By Madelyn Cook appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent… Or Do You?

Why some Canadians might need a refresher on their legal rights and what you need to know if you are ever questioned by police.

By Roshni Sohail

When you are arrested for a crime, you must be told your legal rights before the police can question you. It seems straightforward – you have the right to silence and to legal counsel. But did you know that a vast majority of Canadians don’t understand their legal rights? Without fully understanding their rights, people may not be making decisions in their best interest and are not being given the full protection of the law.

Hollywood has made Miranda warnings issued by police famous (think, “you have the right to remain silent… anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”). Shows like Criminal Minds and Law and Order feature scenes with lengthy interrogations, sometimes with lawyers present to guide their clients, telling them when to shut up, and storming out of the room after declaring “my client doesn’t have to answer that”. In Canada, most of these things don’t happen. There is no standard way for police to deliver cautions (rights) to people detained – some organizations simply state them out loud, others might provide them in writing, some may use language that is easy to understand, whereas others may not (what is a “duty counsel” anyway?), and some may read off a list of rapid-fire statements and end it with “do you understand?”, while others may pause after every statement and check whether you understood what was said. Also, police do not have tell you about your

right to remain silent, you do not have a right to have a lawyer in the room while you are being questioned, and police questioning does not stop if you declare “No comment!”.

With the mixed messages from American TV and no clear rules for how police should tell us our rights, no wonder Canadians are unsure of what their legal rights are and what they should be doing to stay protected during police questioning. So, what do you need to know when you are questioned by police? Remember the acronym: SLAP.

S – you have a right to Silence.

L – you have a right to speak to a Lawyer right away (your own or a free one).

A – Anything you say can be used as evidence against you.

P – the police cannot make any Promises or threats to get you to speak.

If that’s too much to remember, the single greatest piece of advice I have is to STAY SILENT.

The post You Have the Right to Remain Silent… Or Do You? By Roshni Sohail appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

Who needs a best friend when you have a best bot?

By Tiffany Cheng

Can AI relationships replace human connections?

You’re sitting in a classroom, the teacher has filled the board with weird symbols and might as well be speaking another language as they explain matrix algebra but you know The Matrix as a popular movie from 1999 and algebra is supposed to be x = 2 + 5. You don’t know what’s going on but you want to, you swallow your fear, raise your hand and ask a question. You can barely hear the instructor’s answer, let alone understand it as your heart throbs in your ears – your peers are staring at you. After their detailed explanation you still don’t get it, you ask another, smaller question and they answer that too but there’s no eureka moment, you’re just as lost as before. The teacher wants to move on and so does the class. “Does that make sense now?” you nod, smile politely and open up ChatGPT to write: Explain matrix algebra to me like I am five years old…

This is a common experience for most students today and it extends beyond the classroom. As artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots have improved, people have begun to turn to AI in place of humans. ChatGPT and other chatbots have been increasingly used to supplement daily tasks, work, and even act as sources of emotional support and advice. Some people have even gone as far as to form relationships with AI, using chatbots as romantic partners, friends, and advisors. There is a lot of fear of AI chatbots replacing authentic human to human relationships due to their accessibility and capacity to simulate humanity but much empirical research. To address this gap, my research aims to examine how people are forming relationships with AI chatbots and the implications of AI-human relationships.

The first step towards this goal is to capture the ways people may form relationships with AI chatbots and compare it to human relationships. To effectively compare human-human and AI-human relationships, we will measure how chatbots compare on relationship satisfaction and quality. Relationship researchers have found that relationship satisfaction and quality can be captured by measuring performance on six “friendship functions”: stimulating companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, self-validation, and emotional security. Stimulating companionship is whether you can have fun with the other person, help is whether the other can provide guidance, assistance, or other forms of aid, intimacy is the ability to be vulnerable and sensitive with each other, reliable alliance is the other’s availability and loyal to you, self-validation is how much they reassure and validate you and finally, emotional security is the other’s ability to provide a sense of comfort and confidence in threatening or new situations. Altogether these have been able to reliably measure relationship satisfaction and positive outcomes from that satisfaction in human-human friendships. They have not been explored in AI-human relationships but if people are truly starting to believe AI can act as their friend and confident, maybe the way we examine AI chatbots in research should be less as a tool and more as a human.

Referenced Works

Mendelson, M. J., & Aboud, F. E. (1999). Measuring friendship quality in late adolescents and young adults: McGill Friendship Questionnaires. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue Canadienne Des Sciences Du Comportement, 31(2), 130– 132. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0087080

The post Who needs a best friend when you have a best bot? By Tiffany Cheng appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

The Shy Coaching the Shy

By Megan DeGroot

Believe it or not, shyness does not always end in childhood.

If you were lucky enough to grow out of your shyness (or, even luckier, have never experienced shyness at all), you’ve probably come across adult friends, family members, or colleagues who are shy. These individuals likely appear quiet, reserved, or even self-conscious when they are around other people, especially people they do not know well. Have you considered, though, how these individuals fare in their day-to-day lives, particularly in their jobs?

Recently, my graduate supervisor and I conducted a research study that attempted to determine how shy youth sports coaches perceive the youth that they work with. To do this study, we sent out an online survey to sports organizations across Canada. Over 400 adults with experience coaching youth sports filled out the survey, which asked a variety of questions about their personality and how they would respond to and perceive different types of youth athletes. We specifically focused on the differences in how coaches perceive shy and talkative athletes, given that these two types of kids behave very differently.

What we found was that shy coaches, compared to coaches who are not shy, were more likely to worry about both shy and talkative athletes. They also were more likely to believe that both kinds of athletes would experience problems with their teammates, such as being excluded or ignored. Finally, and I think most interestingly, shy coaches were more likely to feel that they are not prepared to deal with either shy or talkative athletes.

These findings tell us that shy coaches may be more tuned-in to the potential problems that can come with being a shy or overly talkative kid. This could be because, as a shy person themselves, they’ve likely experienced some of these problems. People who are shy also tend to struggle with their self-confidence, which may explain why these coaches said that they did not feel prepared to deal with shy or talkative athletes.

So, what can be done to help these shy coaches? As with most things, practice makes progress. Simply making an effort to work directly with both shy and talkative kids can boost these coaches’ confidence and problem-solving abilities. There is also the tried-and-true idea of “fake it ‘till you make it”. That is, shy coaches may be able to boost their confidence just by pretending that they are already confident in their abilities to coach shy and talkative athletes.

It is important to note that shyness is not a personality flaw. It is simply a different way of perceiving and experiencing the world. Shy coaches have the unique advantage of being able to relate to and understand shy athletes, which can make them the best kind of person to support these kids. Sometimes, understanding is what is most important.

The post The Shy Coaching the Shy By Megan DeGroot appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

Check out the Winter Wellness Newspaper here!

The post Winter Wellness Newspaper appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.

By Madelyn Cook

The post Expressive Journaling appeared first on Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub.