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Prevention science may benefit from the use of physiological measures to examine how interventions influence or interact with a person’s physiology or neurocognitive function. However, it is unclear which physiological measures to use and what they may add to intervention studies that could not be captured by measures that are more easily collected and less costly.
Greenberg and Riggs (2004) outline three possible ways physiological measures might be useful in intervention studies. First, such measures (eg. cortisol, skin conductance or blood pressure) could be direct outcome measures of an intervention. Secondly, physiological measures might be conceptualized as moderators to examine individual characteristics that influence how people respond to different types of intervention, enabling prevention scientists to target specific populations with interventions catering to their needs. Third, physiological biomarkers might be considered as mediators empirically linking short-term measures of change to longer-term outcomes.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions seek to develop resilience by facilitating five domains of skills - self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision making, self-management, and relationship management - through skill-based curricula and/or supportive environments that foster these skills. Current research and theory from developmental biology creates a logical basis on which to hypothesize that building social and emotional competencies could positively influence physiology. However, even though biomarker collection and analysis is improving, there are a variety of challenges measuring physiology in school-based intervention studies.
During this paper symposium, presenters will report on physiological measurements from three school-based interventions that aim to promote social and emotional skills. The first paper focuses on an intervention study of Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) with kindergartners that examines skin conductance and heart rate variability as moderators of intervention effects. The second paper discusses improvements in the diurnal slope of cortisol concentration in adolescents who received the MindUP SEL curriculum. Finally, the last paper reports on changes in educators’ stress physiology (the cortisol awakening response) observed in the context of an efficacy trial for a school based intervention to promote educator wellbeing called the Comprehensive Approach to Learning Mindfulness (CALM). The feasibility of research incorporating psychophysiology in schools and the implications for future intervention research will be discussed. The goal of this symposium is to open a discussion about current and future school-based intervention research that incorporates physiological measures.