Dr Tim Lomas from the School of Psychology has been awarded early career research funding from the Richard Benjamin Trust to explore the use of mindfulness in promoting well-being amongst at-risk adolescent males.
The research will involve designing a new intervention that uses mindfulness – a form of meditation – to help socially deprived young men in East London develop emotional intelligence such as awareness, understanding and management, all of which are associated with well-being.
Dr Lomas will work in partnership with local charities who will help to recruit a group of at-risk male youths. In-depth qualitative interviews will be carried out to assess the impact of the intervention.
Dr Lomas says: “Teenage boys are a source of considerable concern in society, with poorer health and educational outcomes, worse problems with drug and alcohol use, and greater propensity to violence and crime than their female counterparts.
“These behaviours are often linked to societal expectations about how males should act and one solution is to help boys develop strategies to resist these norms and pursue more adaptive courses of action, as this research aims to do. It is an innovative new addition to social psychology research, bringing together diverse fields of scholarship to address a salient social issue.”
The Richard Benjamin Trust supports innovative research in social and occupational/organisational psychology that has the potential to make a difference to families, organisations and communities and to people’s lives. Early career researchers are invited to apply for funding – for further information visit their website – http://www.richardbenjamintrust.co.uk/
Dr Tim Lomas joined UEL as a lecturer within the School of Psychology in 2013. His PhD, completed in 2012, explored the impact of meditation on men’s wellbeing, using a mixed-methods design comprising narrative interviews, cognitive testing, and EEG measurement. His thesis has just been revised and published as a monograph by Palgrave MacMillan, entitled ‘Masculinity, Meditation, and Mental Health‘
Grant details
Lomas T. (2014 – 2015). The Richard Benjamin Trust. ‘Development of a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence intervention for at-risk adolescent males’. £9384.
UEL Research, Innovation and Impact 