Irradiated Traditions: Navajo People Wearing the Yellow Dust of Uranium Toxicity

This project involves a multidisciplinary team including a fiber artist/textile surface designer, an apparel designer, a Navajo matriarch and traditional weaver, and a multimedia artist. This design was originally developed for ‘Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land,’ an Arizona exhibition where invited artists explored the impact of uranium mining on Navajo lands and people. The two designers incorporated the work of a skillful and revered Navajo weaver who has herself experienced the personal trauma of uranium in her family and on her land. Through her weaving, she told the story about how the very fabric of Navajo family and tribal lives were permanently changed because of uranium toxicity. The second designer then created nuno felt fabric that harmonized with the weaver’s rug. The first designer then created a contemporary outfit, infused by all of the fabrics and design elements, relying on traditional Navajo garment style

Do-It-Yourself Activities and Subjective Well-Being

We examined predictors of subjective well-being (SWB) associated with do-it-yourself (DIY) activities in a sample of 525 self-identified DIYers through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. We hypothesized that positive mood, feeling energized or aroused, and experiencing flow during DIY activities, would each contribute to subjective well-being (SWB), and, that negative self-focus would not. We also controlled for individual differences that could affect the experience of negative self-focus and flow: quiet ego and depression/anxiety. Overall, participants identified most with DIY activities that involved aesthetics, repair, upkeep and maintenance, and landscape or gardening, and construction; they reported these activities were challenging and utilized their skills. Using structural equation modeling, we examined our hypothesized model and two alternate models. Our amended hypothesized model accounted for 61% of the variance in SWB. Positive mood/arousal was positively associated with SWB. Quiet ego facilitated SWB, both directly and indirectly through the positive mood/high arousal pathway. Depressed and anxious mood was negatively associated with flow during DIY activities and SWB; it was also positively correlated with excessive self-focus during DIY activities. Our results lend credence to the idea that DIY activities that induce positive mood and high arousal may benefit SWB. Having a strong quiet ego identity may enhance the benefits associated with DIY activities. Our study contributes to the literature by describing the mechanisms responsible for how DIY activities promote SWB, as well as by explaining the factors that optimize the impact of these experiences

Brief quiet ego contemplation reduces oxidative stress and mind-wandering

Excessive self-concern increases perceptions of threat and defensiveness. In contrast, fostering a more inclusive and expanded sense of self can reduce stress and improve well-being. We developed and tested a novel brief intervention designed to strengthen a student’s compassionate self-identity, an identity that values balance and growth by reminding them of four quiet ego characteristics: detached awareness, inclusive identity, perspective taking, and growth. Students (N = 32) in their first semester of college who reported greater self-protective (e.g., defensive) goals in the first two weeks of the semester were invited to participate in the study. Volunteers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: quiet ego contemplation (QEC), QEC with virtual reality headset (QEC-VR), and control. Participants came to the lab three times to engage in a 15-minute exercise in a 30-day period. The 15-minute Quiet Ego Contemplation (QEC) briefly described each quiet ego characteristic followed by a few minutes time to reflect on what that characteristic meant to them. Those in the QEC condition reported improved quiet ego characteristics and pluralistic thinking, decreases in a urinary marker of oxidative stress, and reduced mind-wandering on a cognitive task. Contrary to expectation, participants who wore the VR headsets while listening to the QEC demonstrated the least improvement. Results suggest that a brief intervention that reduces self-focus and strengthens a more compassionate self-view may offer an additional resource that individuals can use in their everyday lives