Department Calendar

Understanding how threats to belonging affect health

Dr. Lisa Jaremka, Psychology Department, University of Delaware 

The desire for close and caring relationships is a basic human need. Accordingly, threatening a person’s sense of belonging can be highly aversive. In this talk, Dr. Jaremka will present an overview of her research about the physiological mechanisms linking threats to belonging to longer-term health problems. Specifically, she will discuss multiple studies demonstrating that loneliness, attachment anxiety, and marital distress are linked to appetite and immune dysregulation.