RESEARCH

Our social milieu is a complicated and sometimes hostile environment with which we learn to live and through which we learn to navigate. The strategies we develop to "deal with" and "navigate" our social world stem largely from our past experiences, whether positive or negative, and greatly impact the way in which we perceive, interpret and anticipate our future social experiences. Whereas some individuals develop positive strategies such as cognitive reframing or ignoring menial social threats, others develop negative strategies such as rumination and over-attending to social threat information thereby exaggerating their negative experience and perpetuating their emotional distress. The underlying tenet guiding my research is that in order to promote psychophysiological wellbeing, we must first start by identifying positive strategies used by people to overcome social stress and properly deal with and navigate their social world. Second, by implementing targeted training strategies that develop these positive strategies, particularly for those who lack these skills, we may be able to significantly increase people's overall wellbeing.

Axis 1 :	Identifying the underlying mechanisms and processes linked to social resilience and psychological wellbeing This first axis focuses on identifying the psychological and cognitive mechanisms linked to the perception of social stress as well as the cognitive mechanisms and processes linked to the modification of these mechanisms. Projet: Mechanisms and processes linked to social resilience
Axis 2 :	Developing ways of maintaining social resilience strategies over time This second axis focuses on developing ways of reinforcing social resilience strategies by investigating ways in which positive cognitive habits can be automatically triggered and automatically maintained over time. Projet: Cued inhibition of social rejection
Axis 3 :	Applying social resilience strategies in various psychosocial contexts to promote and enhance psychological and physical wellbeing This third axis focuses on the application of such social resilience strategies in a variety of psychosocial contexts. In part due to my collaborators, we have now begun to investigate the emotional and physiological effects of training positive cognitive strategies in "vulnerable" populations. Projet1: Marital satisfaction Projet2: Thinking differently