BAUMES-GENS 2021 study - ResearchGate
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BAUMES-GENS 2021 study
Introduction
The Baumes-GENS 2021 study is a long-term research aimed at the analysis of the processes of
human adaptation to a new context of life, activity and social interaction. The proposed
psychological study will be conducted within a project created by Associació GENS - Grup
d’Experimentació en Naturisme i Sostenibilitat (Low-tech and Sustainability Research Group),
which is a non-profit organization based in the rural area of Font-Rubí, in the province of
Barcelona. Their project will consist of a 12-months long experience in which a volunteering team
and some of their staff will be hosted in a Tipi camp. Through the experience of living in a Tipi,
participants will rediscover nature and simplicity, and will perform tasks related to nature
conservancy, land stewardship and self-sufficiency mainly in the forest. Therefore, a drastic
change in the lifestyle and their living conditions of the participants, who will be immersed in a
simpler life, closer to nature, and actively performing, will imply psychological adjustments. In
this sense, an impact in several measures such as well-being, mental health, or affective state is
expected.
GENS and a the Baumes Project, a team of researchers from the Autonomous University of
Barcelona (UAB) and University of Barcelona (UB), will collaborate in the development of a
research project which aims at evaluating the psychological impact of the life experience
undergone by participants and, more specifically, to observe the impact on psychological well-
being, the cognitive and the emotional state as a reaction to a process of long-term adaptation2
to the new circumstances. The researchers have conducted previous studies on the impact of
nature on well-being, and on the influence of several variables on cognitive abilities during the
practice of extreme sports. Their aim is to explore new methodologies in the study of the
emotion-cognition connection, and to add ecological validity to the studies conducted in
laboratory settings. Natural contexts and spontaneous responses are in the core of their current
project entitled Baumes Project. You can visit this page for more information on previous
research of the Baumes Project.
Methods
Participants
A total of 15 persons are expected to participate in the study:
● Five volunteers, selected by GENS, will take part in the study as members of the
intervention group. They shall accept the conditions of the research study and commit to
participate. One member of the association living with the volunteers might also
participate.
● In order to compare the psychological outcomes with those of people who are not
experiencing such new conditions, a control group is needed. Ideally, the control group
will be matched to ensure homogeneity, that is, participants of the same gender, age, and
personality traits are desirable. In this sense, members of an association who share values
with the volunteers, but who will not undergo the experience would be the perfect target.
Approximately 10 participants will be part of the control group. These control group
participants will be evaluated on the same variables at the same time as the intervention
group throughout the 12-month experience.
Domains of assessment
The to-be-evaluated variables are categorized into two groups depending on the assessment
timetable:
● Structural evaluation, which will be carried out before (pre) and after (post) the 12-
months experience. It will contain an assessment of personality, behavioural and3
cognitive changes, satisfaction and quality of life, and personal growth as a measure of
coping effort.Cognitive variables (memory, attention and decision making, and time
perception) will also be evaluated.
● The second block of variables will be subjected to a methodology called momentary
ecological assessment (EMA), which allows to observe changes in short time intervals,
and will be evaluated throughout the entire experience on a weekly basis. These will
include the feeling of flow (which is tied to cognitive and motivational processes) mental
health symptoms (depression, anxiety, somatization), mood and causal attributions.
Instruments
The instruments will be administered in 4 packages: Pre-Form (30 min), Post-Form (30 min),
PsychLab 101 (10 min), and EMA-Form (5 min).
● Structural variables:
○ Personality will be included in the Pre-Form with the NEO-FFI questionnaire, a 60-
item self-report questionnaire that measures the five personality factors:
neuroticism (emotional reactivity and distress), extraversion (tendency to be
outgoing, active), openness (flexibility and openness to new ideas), agreeableness
(cooperation and empathy), and conscientiousness (social responsibility and self-
discipline).
○ Behavioural changes will be included both in the Pre-Form and the Post-Form by
the PSY-COVID-ADAPT questionnaire: Diet, physical activity, health, sleeping
quality, personal relationships, and leisure.
○ Quality of life will be included both in the Pre-Form and the Post-Form with the
Satisfaction with life scale (SWLS), a five items questionnaire, and the WHO-QL.
○ Personal growth will be included in the Post-Form as a measure of adaptation to
coping effort will be evaluated with the PTGI questionnaire.
○ Cognitive variables will be included in the PsychLab-101 package, and will consist
of a digit span task (working memory task), a Go-No go task (selective attention
task), and Iowa Gambling task (decision making tasks), and a time production task.4
These will be performed using a smartphone or tablet provided by the
researchers, more specifically, PsychLab-101 app and a chronometer will be used.
● Momentary ecological assessment variables:
○ Flow experience, with 8 dimensions (arousal, flow, boredom, control, relaxation,
apathy, worry, anxiety) will be evaluated with the Flow-Q Questionnaire.
○ Mental health symptoms will be assessed with GAD-2 (anxiety symptoms), PHQ-
2 (depression symptoms), and PSY-COVID-SOM (somatizations symptoms)
questionnaires.
○ Mood state will be assessed with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Bradley &
Lang, 1994), which is a pictorial assessment instrument that addresses the
dimensional analysis of affective states. Sets of pictograms for each of the three
affective dimensions (arousal, valence, and dominance), are presented and
assessed on a scale ranging from 1 to 9. Affective state will be complemented with
an ad-hoc questionnaire to explore causal attributions related to mood state.
Procedure
For a graphical representation of the procedure please see Figure 1 below. The structural
variables’ questionnaires will only be administered twice, before (pre) and after (post) the
intervention; on the other hand, cognitive processes will also be assessed 3 more times during
the 12-months experience, that is, every 3 months approximately. EMA variables’ questionnaires
will be administered on a weekly basis. This data collection will ideally take place on weekends,
which is when participants in the experimental group have access to technology, so that it can
be collected using tools such as digital forms that directly send the information to computerized
and anonymous databases. Care will be taken to ensure that the time spent answering the weekly
questionnaires is as short as possible (approximately 5 minutes). The data collection during the
first and the last session will have a longer duration (approximately 30 min), coupled with a
discussion focus group (1 h), in order to collect qualitative impressions.5
Figure 1. Variables assessed, periods of assessment, scales/tests employed, and items included
DOMAINS OF EVALUATION EVALUATION PERIODICITY ITEMS
VARIABLES MEASURED SCALES ITEMS
ASSESSMENT TYPE Pre Weekly Quarterly Post SUM
Extraversion, Emotional
stability,
Personality Pre-Form conscientiousness, NEO-FFI 26
openness to experience,
agreeableness
Diet, physical activity,
Behavioral changes Pre-Form Post-Form health, sleep, personals PSY-COVID-ADAPT 6
Structural relationships, leisure 78
Iowa Glambling
Working memory,
PsychLab 101 PsychLab 101 PsychLab 101 task, Digit Span,
Cognitive tests attention, decision N/A
app app app Go-No Go Task,
making, time perception
time production
Life satisfaction Pre-Form Post-Form Life satisfaction SWLS + WHO-QL 31
Growth (adaptation effort) Post-Form Growth PTGI 15
Flow EMA Form 8 dimensions of flow Flow-Q 8
Anxiety, depression, GAD-2, PHQ-2,
Mental health symptoms EMA Form 9
Ecological somatization PSY-COVID-SOM
Momentary 26
arousal, valence,
Mood Assessment EMA Form SAM 3
dominance
Mood Attributions EMA Form Causal attributions Ad-hoc 66
Baumes Project Research Team:
Judit Castellà Antoni Sanz Jordi Méndez
Tenured professor Tenured Professor Tenure-track Professor
ResearchGate profiles:
Baumes Project
Judit Castellà
Antoni Sanz
Jordi MéndezYou can also read
