Our research

An important resource for our reseach is our psychological laboratory, "PSYLABB".

1. Clinical Psychology

Behavior is a central part of mans reaction to health, prevention, illness, and treatment. Mental health issues, such as anxiety, stress and depression-related problems are of major importance to all age groups and are significant contributors to the burden of disease and loss of quality of life within the European Union. During the ongoing decade students of clinical psychology have witnessed a significant increase in long-time sick leave figures – the importance of psychological factors upon public health and chronic disease is recognized but the influence of well defined psychological models are less acknowledged. The challenge is all the greater in that stress and depression-related problems are common and have an impact in numerous areas. Among other things, they cause human suffering, increase the risk of social exclusion and increase mortality. Ongoing projects

2. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine

Psychological and life style factors appear to play an ever increasing part of both issues of well being and disease, i.e. from Quality of Life to Cardiovascular disease. Life style behaviors are of critical importance in that it influences not only health development in different subgroups but also beyond its implications for the affected citizens and their families, also imposes significant costs to society and its health care -, welfare/social security -, and educational systems. Research in Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine at the Division of Psychology... Ongoing projects

3. Cognition and Emotion

The knowledge and understanding of behavior and our self has rapidly increased during the last decades. Basic psychophysiology research in synergy with cognitive and affective sciences have revealed new frontiers. Psychophysiology is devoted to the study of the interrelationship between the physiological and psychological aspects of behavior and is can be defined as “the scientific study of social, psychological, and behavioral phenomena as related to and revealed through physiological principles and events in functional organisms .” Cognitive and Affective sciences help us understand diverse functions such as memory, decision making and language but also abnormalities in different forms of psychopathology. Ongoing projects

4. Work life and Occupational Psychology

Working life continues to undergo rapid change. From these changes complexities are emerging that may call for new work routines along with new organizational design and structures. Aspects of this working life transformation are demands for higher levels of flexibility, leaner structures, independent work teams and a greater focus on knowledge and constant learning. For the individual worker, one consequence of this trend is an apparent increase in the pressures that are endemic in contemporary working conditions, obviously affecting aspects such as necessary skills and efficiency demands, as well as the satisfaction, well-being, and levels of stress experienced. This is posing new challenges for professionals and researchers concerned with the development of support systems for both organizations and individuals as they attempt to meet the new demands. In this context, it is evident that work, occupational psychology and working life studies have an important role to play. At the Division of Psychology our focus is on areas such as  understanding the working individual and the team, the promotion of well-being in the workplace, and the creation and facilitation of working environments that are sustainable and that promote an atmosphere of effectiveness and learning, both for the individual and for the organization.

5.  Social and Organizational Psychology

The area of social and organizational psychology at Mid Sweden University is mainly centered around processes related to democracy, expressed as attitudes and behavior on individual and group level. Research covers antecedents as well as consequences of such phenomena as social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, various forms of prejudice, for example sexism and racism, communication patterns and behavior in group based settings. Some of the projects within this area are applied to democratic processes within voluntary associations, mainly sports associations. Another, cross-cultural, project deals with how students and teachers evaluate teacher effectiveness at different levels of the educational system. A third vein of research focus on people’s behavior patterns when moving around in extended areas, such as in various forms of tourist environments.

6. Developmental and Educational Psychology

Developmental psychology is the study of changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span focusing biological, emotional, physical, cognitive, and social changes that are age-related and long lasting. The study of how characteristics first appear and how and why they change are central topics. Researchers in this field can apply their skills to the treatment of children with psychological disorders, the analysis of psychological issues which pertain to criminal cases, education, elder care, and a number of other situations. Educational psychology concerns how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching and how students learn and develop. Researchers in this field often focus on subgroups such as gifted children and those subject to specific disabilities. Ongoing projects.

7. Environmental Psychology

(...) Ongoing projects.

8. Sport Psychology

Psychological factors in athletic performance. Psychological factors obviously have great impact on sport performance at all levels, not the least in competitive situations at the highest level. Athletic performance behavior could be described as the outcome of a complex interaction between cognitive, emotional, physiological and overt behavioral components, and is – as all behavior­ – affected by current and historical contextual aspects of the training and competition environment. To understand how different psychological factors and processes can have both impairing and enhancing effects on performance is imperative in order to develop and optimize athletic training methods.

We view sport psychology not as a separate knowledge or research area by itself, but rather as an extension of basic academic psychology. Our aim is to use established paradigms within experimental and applied psychology to study empirically validated psychological principles, as well as evidence based intervention principles mainly from behaviorally oriented psychotherapeutic intervention methods, in order to gain further understanding in this area and to develop enhanced training methods.

An athlete should not be exposed to training methods that do not have a solid base of scientific and empirical knowledge, and therefore may adversely affect the performance in the long run. One advantage of the psychological training strategies developed by empirically validated principles is that it provides an quality assurance for the athletes. Ongoing projects.