Welcome to the WELLab at Washington University!
The ultimate goal of the Wellbeing and Emotion across the Lifespan Lab (the “WELLab”) is to discover knowledge that will improve wellbeing and health across the lifespan. First, we investigate how wellbeing changes, both in the short-term from moment-to-moment and in the long-term as people age. Second, we apply findings from this research to examine links between wellbeing and important health outcomes, such as mental health, chronic illness, mortality, and dementia risk. We address these research questions using longitudinal, daily diary, and experience sampling methods, as well as experimental and intervention designs. The WELLab is committed to practices that promote transparent, robust, generalizable, and replicable science, and an inclusive scientific community.
What’s New in the WELLab
- The WELLab’s recent research on emotion judgments was featured in the New York Times!
- WELLab manager Tori Trammell was accepted into Washington University’s Brown School Master of Social Work! Congrats, Tori!
- The WELLab is growing! Welcome incoming Postdoctoral Researcher Kyrsten Hill and incoming PhD student Karysa Britton!
- Congratulations to post-bacc researcher Payton Rule on her diversity supplement from the National Institute on Aging! This supplement will support an 18-month research and training position in the WELLab. With the support of this supplement, Payton will examine bidirectional associations between mobility disability and cognitive decline, and the moderating role of wellbeing.
- The WELLab has a new lab manager, Tori Trammell. Welcome Tori!
- In a new lab paper published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, the WELLab summarized the evidence for wellbeing as a protective factor against cognitive decline and dementia and outlined a research agenda to push the field closer to understanding whether and how to apply this knowledge to improve cognitive health in older adulthood.