Biography
Isaac Ahuvia is a PhD student in clinical psychology at Stony Brook University, studying under Dr. Jessica Schleider in the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. His research focuses on the beliefs individuals hold about mental disorders (e.g. what causes them, how malleable they are) and how these beliefs relate to mental health outcomes. Prior to joining the Lab for Scalable Mental Health, Isaac studied Sociology at the University of Michigan and conducted research at the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab and Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.
Interests
- Beliefs about mental disorders
- Scalable treatments for depression
- Evidence-based classification of mental disorders
Education
PhD Student in Clinical Psychology
Stony Brook University
BA in Sociology, 2016
University of Michigan
Current Projects
Biomedical explanations for mental disorders - where disorders are seen as the results of genetic and biological abnormalities - are increasingly common.1 The causes that people assign to mental disorders have a wide variety of consequences, from treatment preferences,2 to social stigma,3 to prognostic pessimism4: the belief that disorders will last for a longer time without improving.
Body dissatisfaction - negative thoughts and feelings about one’s own body - is associated with a variety of mental health concerns and other poor health outcomes.1 It is particularly common among adolescent girls, where it contributes to disproportionately high rates of eating disorders.
