DDA Study
DDA: Digital Dating Abuse
The @HEART Lab and Dr. Thao Ha were recently awarded a R01 NIH Grant to investigate how, in which contexts, and when adolescents with mental health problems engage in digital dating abuse and, in turn, investigate its long-term consequences on mental health problems. Findings have real-world implications by identifying intervention points to break the vicious cycle between digital dating abuse and adolescents’ depressive symptoms, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Data collection is set to begin in Fall 2025.
Principal Investigators: Thao Ha
Co-Investigators: Miriam Brinberg
Funding: NIH National Institute of Mental Health R01 Grant
TIES STUDY
TIES Study: Tucson Interpersonal and Educational Success study
The TIES study is a multi-wave longitudinal study focused on Latinx youth success, specifically how their cultural assets, influenced and supported by their social relationships, can protect against the impacts of discrimination and subsequently assist in academic success. This study aims to identify multiple profiles of cultural assets in order to explore patterns of development and understand the risk and protective factors of these cultural assets. Studying both social and cultural dynamics within various relationship systems (i.e., family members, peer networks, romantic partners, teachers) promotes the development of these cultural assets and resources.
Pilot data collection occurred in 2019 and included 800 primarily Latino adolescents from four schools in Tucson, Arizona, in 6th and 9th grade. This wave was led by Drs. Ha (ASU, PI), Zeiders (University of Arizona, Previous Co-PI), Olga Kornienko (George Mason University, Co-PI), and Rogers, (BYU, Previous Co-PI), and funded by The Spencer Foundation through a Racial Equity Special Research Grant.
Post COVID-19, a second iteration of the study was started (TIES 2) in 2021 with 9th, 10th, and 11th graders from a High School in Tucson, Arizona. These students were then followed one year later when they were in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, and will be followed for a third wave of the study in 2025.
Principal Investigator: Thao Ha
Co-Investigators: Olga Kornienko (George Mason University), Adam Rogers (Brigham Young University), Maciel Hernández (UC Davis), and Norma Perez-Brena (University of Arizona)
Funding: The Spencer Foundation through a Racial Equity Special Research Grant, University of Arizona, and Arizona State University
Daily TIES STUDY
TIES Study: Tucson Interpersonal and Educational Success study
This sub-study builds on the longitudinal TIES 2 sample of Latino youth. This study consisted of a baseline survey and a 28-day daily diary around the 2024 Presidential Election, from 80 adolescents. This study aimed to understand how daily experiences of in-person and online discrimination and election distress. The project is led by Drs. Ha (ASU, PI), Hernández (UC Davis, Co-PI), Kornienko (GMU, Co-PI), Norma Perez-Brena (University of Arizona), Dalal Safa (UNC), Kristia Wantchekon (Georgetown), Esther Burson (Smith College)
Principal Investigator: Thao Ha
Funding: University of Arizona and PI Personal Funding
Virtual Reality and Romantic Touch Study
This study aims to investigate social touch among early adult romantic partners in a fully immersive VR environment. Using Arizona State University’s (ASU’s) unique immersive VR installation (Dreamscape Learn, https://dreamscapelearn.asu.edu/), the first wave of data collection included 47 young adult couples. The couples completed a baseline survey, and together completed the Curse of the Lost Pearl, Dreamscape Virtual Reality experience. Each couple wore Empatica wristbands to measure biophysiological indicators and were also recorded as they walked through the experience. Currently a team of undergraduate research assistants and graduate students are coding the videos from the virtual reality experience for indicator of physical touch between the couple. A second wave of data collection will begin in Spring 2025 with an additional 100 couples to be recruited.
Principal Investigators: Thao Ha, Liesel Sharabi
Funding: ISSR Seed Grant and MRI Research Grant
PAL STUDY
PAL Study: Project Alliance study
The PAL study participants included 998 adolescents and their families, recruited in sixth grade from three middle schools in an ethnically diverse metropolitan community in the northwest region of the United States. These participants formed a community-based sample in that the schools involved in this study were representative of middle schools in this community and were not part of a high-risk neighborhood. This project included a randomized intervention component following the Family Check-Up model (Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003). Youths were thus randomly assigned at the individual level to either the control group (498 youth) or the intervention group (500 youth) in the spring of sixth grade. Approximately 80% of youth were retained across the study span. During middle school (Waves 1 through 3), student self-report surveys, peer nominations, teacher ratings, and school counselor ratings were collected in the school context. Student self-report surveys and teacher ratings were administered in the high school setting at Wave 6, and parents also filled out a questionnaire that they mailed back to our research office. Questionnaires to be completed by participants at Wave 9, when participants were on average 23 years old, were sent directly to their homes and were returned to our research office by mail.
TAR STUDY
TAR Study: Technology And Relationships study
The TAR study began in April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, among young adults and their romantic partners. The study aims to understand how technology and social media use are related to romantic relationship quality and maintenance, as well as mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to identify the various ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted college students’ romantic relationships over time, as well as investigate their daily relationship experiences through daily diaries. The couples involved, 290 in total, first completed a baseline survey, then 91 couples were enrolled in a second phase of the study. The second phase of the study consisted of randomly assigned conditions, including an online survey assessed 6 weeks after their baseline survey was completed, or a 21 day daily diary study and then an online survey assessed 3 weeks after they completed the daily diaries. The project is led by Drs. Thao Ha (PI) and Masumi Iida, (Co-I, Masumi.Iida@asu.edu), as well as by graduate student Selena Quiroz, MS (selena.quiroz@asu.edu), and funded by Ha start-up funds and a Quiroz Catalyst Award.
ASPIRE STUDY
(Adolescents, Schools, Peers, and Interpersonal Relationships)
The aim of the ASPIRE study was to identify the affective and neurocognitive characteristics of adolescent social relationships that impact academic success and wellbeing. We assessed the impact of family, peer, and romantic relationships on academic engagement. This is important because social relationships can help teens navigate the path to school and career success, but they can also pose challenges, and at times, hinder engagement in school. We partnered with two local high schools and collected data from 99 dating adolescent couples. This sample consisted of 42% Hispanic/Latino, 42% White, and 16% African-American, Asian American, Native American teens. These adolescent couples participated in a laboratory study at Arizona State University that included observations of conflict discussions, survey assessments, dual-acquisition EEG while playing an interactive computer game, and salivary stress physiology assessments. Participants were also tracked longitudinally for 12-weeks using mobile ecological momentary assessments. Principal Investigator: Thao Ha, Graduate students: Adam Rogers, Frank Poulsen, Charlie Champion, Katie Panza, Funding: T. Denny Sanford School of Family and Child Dynamics
Principal Investigator: Thao Ha
Graduate students: Adam Rogers, Frank Poulsen, Charlie Champion, Katie Panza
Funding: T. Denny Sanford School of Family and Child Dynamics
ASSIST STUDY
(ASU Support for Success Initiative for Students Transitioning to College)
The ASSIST Study, a collaboration among REACH, ASU Educational Outreach & Student Services, and the Department of Psychology, seeks to better understand the challenges students face as they move from high school into the college environment. The primary goal of ASSIST is to learn from ASU incoming students in order to develop a web-based prevention program that promotes strategies and tools for a successful college transition. ASSIST uses a multi-method approach, including twice-weekly diaries, questionnaires, focus groups, and academic records, to assess students and parents before, during, and after the transition to college to better understand the experiences and coping strategies that predict success and well-being. These data will directly inform the design of support services for parents and students in an effort to increase the likelihood of positive adjustment and decrease problematic behavior and drop out.
Multiple Principal Investigators: Thao Ha, Leah Doane, William Corbin, and Thomas Dishion
Graduate students: Scott van Lenten and Will Pellham
Funding: ASU Educational Outreach and Student Services, the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, the Department of Psychology and the REACH Institute
@HEART EEG STUDY
The ability to form and maintain healthy relationships is a key developmental milestone in early adulthood, and the resulting relationship dynamics form the foundation for family stability and health. This study is focused on brain responses of romantic couples in new relationships during game playing with their partner. Specifically, we will investigate how couples’ brains react on a millisecond level to a computerized game using encephalogram (EEG) neural assessments. Moreover, we relate these brain responses to their observed relationship dynamics and their academics, emotional adjustment, as well as alcohol and drug use.
Principal investigator: Thao Ha
Graduate students: Ryan Hampton
Funding: Arizona State University
DEVELOPMENT, ECOLOGY, AND PREVENTION OF ADULT ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR STUDY
This study builds on the same sample as in the Relationships Dynamics grant. This grant enabled us to genotype the participants and their romantic partners. These data will be used to address the following hypotheses: (a) the disrupted self-regulation hypothesis, that adult problem behavior generally and addictive behavior specifically are part of an overall pattern of adaptation that is characterized by a low-investment strategy in respect to family relationships and other adult milestones, with low demands on self-regulation; (b) the genetic moderation hypothesis, indicating that the effects of poor parental monitoring and deviant peer exposure on progressions in AOD use and other problem behaviors are most pronounced for youth who are genetically vulnerable; and (c) the risk malleability hypothesis, which proposes that early environmental risk can be modified and that these effects are especially pronounced for genetically prone youth.
Principal Investigator: Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant
Co-I: Thao Ha, Jen Yun Tein
Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA007031)
