Research
The following are the ongoing research projects that I am involved in:
Traditional Luhya mourning rituals: A cultural evolutionary approach to understanding community wellbeing, cooperation, cultural transmission, and cultural resilience in a Kenyan Indigenous community
Funding Body: Templeton Foundation and Cultural Evolution Society
Research Team
Project Overview
Grief after the loss of a loved one is a universal human emotion. Around the world, communities have developed mourning rituals which aim to bring closure to the bereaved while bringing them back into the fold of the greater community. Indigenous mourning rituals face ongoing threats from globalizing forces, and despite ongoing cultural evolutionary research on the prosocial effects of religion, limited attention has been paid to how mourning rituals foster individual and community wellbeing and resilience. In light of these issues, our project will investigate how globalization has affected the practice and transmission of Indigenous mourning rituals from the Luhya community of western Kenya, and how these mourning rituals can help enhance individual and community wellbeing. We specifically aim to answer three interrelated questions: (1) What is the therapeutic value of Indigenous mourning rituals? (2) Do mourning rituals promote cooperation? and (3) How does participation in mourning rituals contribute to cultural transmission? These questions will be answered using qualitative and quantitative methods including focus groups, quantitative interviews, behavioral observations, and psychometric tests with traditional healers, Christian leaders, and bereaved adolescents and adults. We will disseminate our findings in peer-reviewed articles and popular op-eds. By involving Christian religious leaders and traditional healers who hold divergent views on the use of mourning rituals during dissemination workshops, we will also create a platform for dialogue, understanding, and resolution. Our research findings will be incorporated into training curricula and policy briefs to promote the valuation of Indigenous practices among Kenyan mental health practitioners. By shedding light on the psychological, spiritual, developmental, and religious value of mourning rituals among Kenyan Luhya, our project will apply cultural evolutionary theory to helping redress global north-global south imbalances regarding knowledge production, especially in relation to the identification of mental health issues, symptomatology, and effective therapy.
Co- Investigator:
Sheina Lew-Levy, PhD (Durham University, UK)
Sheina Lew-Levy is an assistant professor of Psychology at Durham University. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge (2019). Drawing from anthropological and psychological theory, she conducts research in hunter-gatherer societies to understand the cultural diversity in, and evolution of, social learning in childhood. Specifically, she has used quantitative and qualitative methods to study how and from whom BaYaka and Hadza children from Congo and Tanzania, respectively, learn through meaningful participation in everyday activities. As the co-founder and co-director of Forager Child Studies, she also conducts cross-cultural reviews and secondary data analysis on the pasts, presents, and futures of hunter-gatherer children’s learning.
Statistical Consultant:
Eric J Ringen (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Erik is the Consultant Statistician for the project. . He is an expert in Bayesian bespoke multilevel statistical modeling. He will assist the research team in developing computational workflows in R to clean and analyze our data. He will also ensure that our statistical modeling approach is appropriate to our research question, and that we are interpreting results effectively.
The Africa Long Life Study: A longitudinal exploration of the psychological development of young adults in Kenya, Namibia and South Africa.
About the project
This is a longitudinal collaborative study examining the psychological development of emerging adults with focus on personality traits and mental disorders with data being collected over a period of 5 years. The work is spearheaded by psychologists from the University of Zurich, Switzerland; The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya; University of Namibia and University of the Free State, South Africa. The study is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Zurich. The Study has been approved by the Daystar University Ethical Review Board (DU-ERB-000617) and the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI).
The Kenyan sample consists of eight hundred (800) 18-year-olds at the point of the first wave of data collection, of which 50% are men and 50% are women, from throughout Kenya and belonging to any ethno-linguistic group. Data is collected at intervals of six months for a period of 5 years. The Kenya research team is supported by a team of postgraduate students from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa working as research assistants.
The goals of the study are to compare results to those from other contexts, in order to help differentiate more universal from culturally specific aspects of psychological phenomena among emerging adults. The findings will inform counsellors, policy makers and educators in different countries about the characteristics and needs of this generation of young adults.
Funding Body: Swiss National Foundation
Lead Researchers
Dr. Stephen Asatsa (Principal Investigator, Kenya)
Department of Psychology,
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa
Professor Dr. Amber Gayle Thalmayer (Overall principal investigator in all the involved countries)
Assistant Professor for Personality, Mental Health, and Culture
Department of Psychology
University of Zürich
Dr. Elizabeth Shino (Principal Investigator, Namibia),
Department Of Psychology,
University of Namibia.
Professor Luzelle Naudé (Principal Investigator, South Africa)
Department of Psychology,
University of the Free State
South Africa.
Impact of Covid 19 Experiences on Emotional Regulation among Adolescents in 6 Countries.
Overview of research question, motivation, and hypotheses:
The onset of Covid-19 brought about disruption in almost every sector globally, leading to travel restrictions, and the closure of schools,
workplaces, and places of worship. Meaning-making and religion have emerged as one means for developing coping skills to manage stress (Lorenz et al., 2019). When the ability to use those tools is disrupted, adolescents are likely to revert to maladaptive attempts to cope, which could translate to delinquency (Barendregt et al., 2018). Thus, we care about the specific disruptions to meaning-making resources for young adults, in particular, and the resultant emotional regulation strategies.
In the education sector, school shutdowns resulted in the loss of a full academic year, affecting about 168 million children globally (UNICEF, 2021). The reopening of schools and recovery of the lost academic year came with disrupted wellbeing, increased inequity, and increased dropout rates (UNESCO, 2022). In Kenya, the reopening of schools was accompanied by the introduction of a crash academic programme, suspension of extracurricular activities, and reduced school holidays (Oduor, 2020). During the recovery period, Kenya witnessed heightened delinquency among school adolescents in the form of arson (Wasonga, 2021), indicating a shift in emotional regulation strategies and character strengths of adolescents.
This study hypothesizes that Covid-19 disruptions inversely affected religiosity and character strengths, consequently reducing their buffering effect against stress. This study will examine the mediating role of religiosity and character strengths on emotional regulation among adolescents during the Covid-19 pandemic period in 6 countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Namibia, Philippines, and Australia). The study conceptualizes the main variables shown in Figure 1 as informed by various theoretical literature: Covid-19 experiences (Grasso, Briggs-Gowan, Ford, & Carter, 2020), religiosity and spirituality (Fetzer Institute and National Institute on Aging Working Group, 1999), character strengths based on the 5-C model (Lerner & Lerner, 2013), and emotional regulation (Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhoven, 2001).
This study considers that prior to the pandemic, adolescents had a variety of emotional regulation mechanisms to choose from to manage stress, but with the Covid-19 disruptions, coping mechanisms may have been disrupted too. This variation may be mediated by the quality of character strengths and religiosity of the adolescents.
Funding Body: Templeton Foundation/International Consortium of Developmental Science Societies (ICDSS)
Link: SRA Covid-19 Early Career Global Scholars Program
Dr. Stephen Asatsa (Principal Investigator, Kenya)
Department of Psychology,
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa
Co- Investigators
Alex Gardener
Griffith University, Australia
Eden Terol
University of the Phillipines, Phillipines
Mulat Asnake Goshu
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Chidozie Nwafor
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria
Covid-19 Pandemic-Related Impacts and Severity of Substance Use Disorder Symptoms among Patients in Selected Rehabilitation Centers in Nairobi, Kenya
Project Summary
The onset of Covid-19 brought about disruption in almost every sector globally. In an attempt to contain the spread of the virus, many countries imposed travel restrictions, closed social places, and introduced working from home. Among the affected places in Kenya were rehabilitation centers, where patients were discharged to avoid infection. This was accompanied by the closure of bars and the introduction of curfews, among other measures. Data on the possible impact of these disruptions on substance use disorders remained scant. This study aimed to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the severity of substance use disorder symptoms to inform treatment programs during the ongoing pandemic. The study was guided by the following objectives: to assess addiction severity before and during the Covid-19 pandemic among patients in selected rehabilitation centers; to examine the effect of the pandemic on patients in selected rehabilitation centers in Nairobi; and to explore the relationship between Covid-19 containment measures and the severity of addiction among patients in selected rehabilitation centers in Nairobi. The study targeted 204 residential patients in selected rehabilitation centers in Nairobi, who were selected through simple random sampling, with the inclusion criterion being those who had started treatment before the Covid-19 pandemic. Data were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (EPII), and the Modified Addiction Severity Index. Data were analyzed using univariate analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The findings of this study were expected to inform the adjustment of treatment programs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Funding Body: International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction (ICUDDR)
Dr. Stephen Asatsa (Principal Investigator, Kenya)
Department of Psychology,
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa