With the start of spring quarter on March 28, face masks became optional — but still recommended — inside most 91̽�� facilities. Wearing a face covering for the first two weeks of the quarter is strongly recommended, and anyone who wishes to wear a mask throughout the quarter is encouraged and welcome to do so.

You may be asked by other people, or may ask other people, to wear a mask while around each other. While you are not required to wear a mask, please remember that other people may need to or choose to wear — or not wear — masks for a wide range of reasons. It is important to be clear, in any request, that masks are optional and that wearing a mask or not will have no impact on professional or academic evaluations, including grades.

In light of the policy change, 91̽��News spoke with several 91̽��experts about what to expect on campus, how the current science and transmission rates inform our policy, and emotions and feelings we may experience as a result of removing our face coverings.

Learn more in these university FAQs that address various situations that students,��instructors�����Ի���staff��may encounter.��

Read a recent message from the UW’s Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases��and a letter from 91̽��President Ana Mari Cauce to students about changes for spring quarter.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or none of the above, how you spend the holiday season likely will look different during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gatherings of family and friends are discouraged. Many community events have gone virtual, or have been scrapped altogether. The warmth and celebration – not to mention the anticipation of a new year – can feel halfhearted.

But by being intentional about how we approach and experience the season, we can find joy, and recognize – even embrace – how we’ve weathered this year.

“We have learned a lot about how to adapt to the pandemic that can help people have a meaningful holiday season,” said , a research associate professor of psychology at the 91̽�� who is leading local and national studies of how people have been coping with quarantines and isolation. “It is possible that, because of the restrictions of the pandemic, we may be able to find and experience the true spirit of the holiday season with even more clarity.

“It may not be the most fun break ever, but it can still be meaningful and full of love and connection.”

As restrictions continue and a return to what might be termed “normalcy” still months away, now is the time for resolve and reflection, Kanter said. The stress of the year has showed us our own resiliency; now, facing the winter holidays and the new year involves applying what we’ve learned: patience, hope, flexibility and purpose.

“Make room for uncomfortable feelings and pain; don’t run from them. Look for gratitude, compassion and forgiveness. Take care of each other,” he said. “If anything, this pandemic has taught us how important it is to do the basic things in life well and to not get too caught up in all the distractions. Focus on what matters – our health and our relationships.”

Kanter, director of the , offered 91̽��News some suggestions for a healthy and, yes, happy, holiday season.

The holidays often involve gathering with friends and family – at parties, events or in homes. How do we capture the celebratory spirit, given social distancing guidelines?

For many of us, this pandemic has taught us that we are stronger than we might think. We have incredible capacity to adapt to our evolving context, even if it brings a lot of stress.��Our brains may tell us that we can’t keep going, but in fact we as human beings are built by nature to keep going.��We wake up each morning and do the best we can.��We learn, we change and we adapt.

Second, the pandemic has taught us that, while we may not be able to socialize with as many people as we did previously, it is the quality of the social interactions that matters. These unusual, stressful and painful times are reminding many of us how important our relationships are in our lives, and the holidays are a perfect opportunity to share with others how much we care about them.��People who have experienced grief and loss during this pandemic may need this even more than others.

I know this sounds corny, but now is the time to express your love for those you care about.��Together, look through old family albums and videos. Recollect your favorite shared memories. Remind each other about their qualities that you love, the things they have done for you in the past, how you appreciate them. We all want to be seen and understood for who we are and who we want to be. Let them know that you see them and how you really feel. That is what the holidays are about.

What if people are simply feeling down?

It is hard to know what to recommend, because different people need different things. But hopefully a few reminders are helpful: Stay as active as possible even if your plans fell apart.��Keep up your routines, keep up exercise, and get outdoors, even in bad weather. Socialize in all possible safe ways.��Find those closest to you and talk about how you really feel, even if it is a little depressing. Feeling down is bad, but feeling down and alone is worse.

Look for small, restorative moments, like how your hands feel when washing them under warm water. Several times a day, breathe slowly and fully for 30 seconds and reconnect with your body. Going back to these basics is essential. They won’t make all the bad feelings go away, but they might be enough for you to find some stability, find yourself, keep you going and keep you engaged with those around you.

How do we get over our disappointment about traditions that can’t happen this year?

There are opportunities for fun and joy, even now. It is OK to find relief in simple pleasures. We have so many inspiring examples throughout this pandemic of people overcoming the obstacles and connecting in safe ways, from Italians singing to each other on balconies to virtual happy hours to musicians putting together virtual bands.��There is strength, innovation, creativity and inspiration all around us, even now.

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Are there other ways to rethink how we ’do’ the holidays?

I hope people can find and express what speaks to their personal values.��For me – and I know for many others – the true spirit of the holidays is about giving to and supporting others. This year, such giving and supporting others in need is more important than ever. There are so many ways to give: donating time, food, clothing or money to charities, reaching out to friends or family, or simply expressing thanks and gratitude to those who have helped you. Some Seattle communities and businesses have been hit much harder by the pandemic than others.��I recommend intentionally doing all we can to support these groups during this season, and beyond.��Research suggests, by the way, that such giving is restorative and nurturing of our own mental health and well-being as much as it helps others.

The new year is traditionally a time when we think about things we want to change. How should we approach thinking about the new year?

The goals we set for 2021 undoubtedly will be shaped by all the changes, losses and stressors of 2020. It is super important to be flexible when thinking about goals: Your 2021 goals likely will be different, and less ambitious, than were your 2020 goals. Adapting to changing circumstances with new goals is crucial in preventing depression. Last year you may have wanted to join a gym; this year it may be enough to get outside more regularly.

That said, identifying goals may be the easy part; following through is harder.��Psychological research shows that there are things we can do to make follow-through more likely.��Here are some evidence-based tips for completing goals that certainly apply to this unusual year:

• Find a friend with whom you can check in once a week on your goals, and hold or each other accountable, with gentle compassion.
• Consider one-month goals rather than a whole year – those that are challenging enough to feel a sense of accomplishment, but not so hard that they feel overwhelming. And consider setting a goal of simply starting.��Sometimes starting is the hardest part.
• Don’t be embarrassed by being really visible with your efforts.��Put reminders to stay on track all over your living or work spaces. Write in these reminders what you plan to do, and why it is important to you.
• Finally, have compassion for yourself if you lapse a little.��Lapses are OK, but if you are really hard on yourself when you lapse, then you’re more likely to quit entirely.��Let yourself be imperfect, wake up the next morning, remind yourself of your goals, and try again.

For more information, contact Kanter at jonkan@uw.edu.

Months into the pandemic, as restrictions loosen and more people venture out, families and friends may confront differences over what’s necessary, safe or comfortable.

So many questions and choices: Attend a child’s birthday party? Host a backyard barbecue? Meet for a drink? Hug a relative?

Decline, and you risk hurt feelings; accept, and you may expose yourself and your loved ones to risk, increase the risk for your community, and feel judged by others in the process.

All are natural experiences during the pandemic, 91̽�� psychologists say, but there are ways to approach interactions with friends and loved ones, and to reflect on your own feelings, that can provide a positive path forward and help maintain healthy relationships.

“Effective communication skills are key to navigating conflicts around COVID-related attitudes,” said , a doctoral student in the 91̽��Center for Anxiety & Traumatic Stress. Consider the goal for an interaction. Maybe you simply want to explain how you’re feeling, and that maintaining the friendship or relationship is the priority.

Rosencrans recommends speaking with a respectful tone and an easy manner, listening actively, with interest, and really trying to understand the other person’s point of view. Use humor when appropriate. Smile genuinely. Think of it as the “soft sell” approach, rather than the hard sell, he said.

Key to that approach is trying not to judge others for the decisions they feel are best for them, said , an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the 91̽��School of Medicine.

“These things are going to differ greatly from person to person. A little empathy and understanding goes a long way,” she said.

For example, everyone has a different level of risk at which they are comfortable, said psychology professor . People take “reasonable” risks of all kinds every day, balancing a need or want with the possibility of rejection, loss or danger. Letting a newly licensed teenager drive the car, for example, can be considered a reasonable risk.

A deadly pandemic, of course, carries with it other risks. People face differing degrees of risk related to COVID-19, due to age, underlying health conditions and other factors. If someone believes they are less likely to suffer severe consequences from contracting coronavirus, then they may be more willing to take risks that expose themselves, noted Bedard-Gilligan.

The difficult conversations can arise when someone’s behavior endangers others, she added. Arguing or trying to engender fear is unlikely to work. You can attempt a rational discussion with that person, or focus instead on what you can control in your own life, and the behaviors and limits that work for you.

Following public health guidelines should be paramount, and doing whatever possible to minimize risk to the community, said , a 91̽��research associate professor of psychology who’s leading both King County and national studies into how people are coping with the physical isolation of lockdown restrictions.

“When we experience others not following guidelines, we have choices to make, and they’re not easy,” Kanter said. “Do we feel a responsibility to speak up? Will we be effective, or just start an argument that won’t change behavior in any event? Do we have a handle on why we’re feeling what we’re feeling, and are we coming from a sense of values and purpose, or are we just reacting out of anger?”

People are feeling a responsibility to step up because of a lack of leadership, but they don’t necessarily know how to be effective, or even why other people aren’t adhering to the guidelines.

Researchers say there could be more, and perhaps better, public health messaging to educate the public. Simoni, who specializes in community and health psychology, said that in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, solely disseminating information about the risks of HIV wasn’t enough. Public health interventions needed to promote not only the knowledge of what was necessary to stay safe, but also the motivation and skills needed to effectively change behaviors. This also had to be done at many levels: individuals, health providers and systems, and communities. Today, the mitigation strategies around coronavirus – the importance of wearing masks, testing and contact tracing – require the same coordination at the individual, health provider and community levels.

Fear and a lack of control tend to guide our responses, Simoni said.

“There are a variety of reasonable reactions to the pandemic. Try to have compassion and patience with other people. We share more in common than we think,” she said.

In her own life right now, Simoni said, she feels comfortable playing tennis, but other tennis-playing friends don’t. “We all agreed not to judge each other. Everyone has to feel comfortable and supported in their choices,” she said.

What about when the situation is more adversarial? Say you’re asking someone to change their behavior, or standing your ground.

Speak matter-of-factly, and nonjudgmentally, Rosencrans said. Be clear and direct about your feelings and beliefs about the situation; don’t assume the other person knows. Explicitly ask for what you want.

“Keep the conversation focused on your goals,” he said. “But potentially be willing to negotiate, while also having a clear sense of your limits.” In the end, focus on what works, and try not to let the desire to be “right” on every point of disagreement get in the way of being effective.

Before word got around of graduate student Adam Kuczynski’s social distancing study last month, he and his advisor, Jonathan Kanter, had hoped a couple hundred people would sign up.

The , focused on how King County residents spend their time during COVID-19 physical isolation, drew 500 participants. And very quickly, a theme emerged.

“The response from the public and the media to our first survey was overwhelming,” said , a research associate professor of psychology at the 91̽��. “The main question we heard over and over again was, what should someone do to best cope with the crisis?”

Participants in the must be at least 18 years old, live in the United States and have a smartphone that can receive text messages. So with now under stay-at-home orders, Kanter and his team this week launched a new study in partnership with Bastyr University, aimed at a national audience, to test whether a motivational, mental health tip each day changes participants’ behavior during social distancing, and improves their mental and relational health.

Like the original social distancing study, which will continue to check in on participants for several months, the new research relies on people’s use of smartphones to take a survey each night about their mood and activity throughout the day. The new research will follow the same process each day for a month, but for two of the weeks, half of participants will be sent daily text messages with suggestions about how to cope – breathing exercises, for instance, tips for reaching out to friends and family, or audio clips or links with more detailed information, like how to have helpful conversations with others.

“The first month of our research suggests that, while many of us are coping well and adapting to our new normal, others are suffering in different ways. Social interaction has decreased substantially, loneliness is high, and substance use has increased for a substantial portion of our sample. We are concerned and want to help,” Kuczynski said.

All the advice is evidence-based, and the tips are meant to be easy to do, said Kanter, who runs the Center for the Science of Social Connection at the UW. At the end of the study, the other half of participants will receive the full package of tips.

“Many of us right now are overwhelmed and are trying to sort through all the opinions, advice and suggestions that are flooding social and news media.��We are hoping that our tips will cut through all that noise,” Kanter said.

“We know a great deal from psychological science about how to help people with stress, anxiety and depression, as well as how to help people connect and overcome loneliness, but we don’t really know how to put all that into practice, or how best to deliver that information to the public, in a situation like the current crisis.”

Kanter and his lab hope their work will inform public health authorities about how people are coping, offer help to participants in their study, and add to the science on how to effectively and quickly disseminate public health tools in times of need.

Because the lab developed the project quickly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kanter and his team are seeking funding to continue the work.

, professor and chair of the Department of Counseling & Health Psychology at Bastyr University, is a co-investigator on the project.

For more information, contact Kanter at jonkan@uw.edu.

Social distancing, seemingly the new way of life under coronavirus, has obvious protective measures for health.

But it’s also important to maintain human connection, 91̽�� psychology researchers say, even when circumstances have changed. Isolation can affect immune functioning and increase feelings of threat and anxiety, so striking a balance helps all aspects of health.

“Any connection is better than no connection,” said , 91̽��research associate professor of psychology. “Now is the time to reach out to friends and family and connect with them however you can. It may sound dramatic, but it really helps. Let people know how much you care about them, you’ll feel better for doing so.”

Kanter, who runs the Center for the Science of Social Connection, and , a lecturer in the 91̽��Department of Psychology, have a few tips for staying connected — at a distance:

• Stay active, or just get out in nature
• Help someone else — in ways big and small, inside your community and out
• Call or FaceTime friends and family — don’t just text or post on social media
• Stick to routines you enjoy — they make the world feel more predictable
• Avoid looking at the news all day – read a book or watch a show just for fun
• Keep a journal
• Exercise self-compassion – treat yourself like you would a friend

“Keep things in perspective and try to stay positive,” McNichols said. “Challenges in life ultimately lead to personal growth. We WILL come out of this and we may even gain something from the experience, even if that ‘thing’ is just extreme gratitude for our ‘normal’ way of life. ”

Social distancing practices, both informal and now official, during the COVID-19 outbreak have prompted Kanter and graduate student to launch a study, for which they’re looking for King County adults to share their experiences. Participants will on their smartphone every evening for 2 ½ months. People will be asked about their emotional responses — such as feelings of loneliness or depression — and behavioral responses — such as how much time they spend interacting with others, or even how much time they spend thinking about coronavirus news.

“We know from previous research, and of course intuitively, that social isolation can negatively impact our physical and mental health, and also that people differ in their preference for solitude and the degree to which it affects them,” Kuczynski said. “We hope that participation in this study will inform public health intervention for the current pandemic right here in King County, but also in any future situations similar to this.”

“This crisis we are experiencing may not end soon,” Kanter added. “Building a foundation of healthy coping, doing everything we can to stay connected to each other, to reach out and care for each other, is imperative.”

It was a small study, really — the seed of research to examine political beliefs among college students and the bridging of partisan divides.

Noting that conservative students in particular, might feel isolated on campus, in 2017 the 91̽��’s and his students designed a half-day workshop to help a couple dozen participants understand each other better, then followed up a month later to see how their opinions about political “others” had changed, if at all. Kanter, a research associate professor of psychology who studies how to help people improve their relationships, thought he might be able to use the data to inform a future study, perhaps expand the workshops and reach more people. The research, focused on improving empathy and connection among college students of different political persuasions, published in October in the earlier this fall and spread quickly through the world of conservative media.

Kanter said he hadn’t sought any media coverage, believing the study sample too small to justify widespread attention. And the coverage the study did receive, which Kanter said took several statements from the article out of context, seemingly gave voice to the very biases and prejudices he was trying to work against.

“Our study was about trying to improve relations between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and it worked fairly well,” Kanter said, “but the media picked up on and ran with this idea that liberal students simply hate conservatives, which really wasn’t the point.”

Published in October in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, the described the workshop Kanter and his team designed. The half-day session relied on an intervention model that promotes awareness of people’s personal histories as a way of understanding their politics, and fosters positive personal interactions to combat prejudices. Conducted in the summer of 2017, the study — called “Healing the Political Divide” — drew 23 91̽��students. Of these, five students who identified as conservative and five who identified as liberal were assigned to do a workshop together. The other students served as various controls.

During the workshop sessions, participants did not focus on political ideology until the end. Instead, the focus was on discussing life experiences that informed their beliefs and values, and simply getting to know each other in a personal way. Participants were surveyed before, immediately after, and a month following the workshop to gauge their feelings about conservatives and liberals. Questions ranged from those about workshop expectations to those that measured levels of , a good-versus-evil framing of political beliefs — such as the level of agreement with a statement, “The country would be better off if most liberals just packed up and left,” for example.

“There was a grain of truth in what the media said, in that the liberal students were a bit higher than the conservatives on political Manichaeism before the workshops,” Kanter explained. “Just as conservative media often portrays liberals inaccurately, liberals are also guilty of negatively and inaccurately stereotyping average conservatives because of what their own media feeds them.”

Kanter and his team, led by graduate student Katherine Manbeck, found that immediately after the workshop, almost all participants had substantially improved attitudes about people with different political ideologies. According to the study, students “expressed surprise that the workshops did not deteriorate into arguments,” felt closer to their fellow participants and would recommend the workshop to others.

But those effects didn’t last, Kanter said, at least not for political beliefs on the whole.

The surveys a month later showed that, while participants continued to hold positive views of the other students in the workshop, in general they didn’t sustain the same degree of understanding of, let alone affinity for, conservatives or liberals.

“The workshop had a nice effect on participants’ attitudes toward each other, and that effect lasted,” Kanter said, “but after spending a month soaking up all the news and current events, previous attitudes about others in general essentially snapped back into place.”

This may be the crux of the issue, he added. Today’s strident, emotional political environment may eclipse people’s ability to cultivate a lasting, peaceable understanding of opposing points of view writ large. The media coverage of Kanter’s own study drove that point home.

“We made the point in our study that the current political climate is so toxic, it is almost impossible to reach out and connect with those who are different from you right now. And the media sort of proved that point,” Kanter said. “It is too bad, because the students we worked with in this study are all pretty cool individuals once you get to know them, and trying to connect with and understand each other is important.”

Inroads, though, start somewhere. In their study, Kanter and his co-authors noted that even a short-term detente based on personal acquaintance — such as that created in the study — can, for instance, ease family get-togethers or other group-oriented situations. Kanter said he’d like to expand the workshops to larger, even more diverse groups. The political climate, after all, hasn’t changed.

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For more information, contact Kanter at jonkan@uw.edu.

Blatant racism is easy to identify — a shouted racial slur, a white supremacist rally, or the open discrimination, segregation and violence of the pre-civil rights era.

But more subtle forms of bias, called , emerge in the everyday exchanges among friends and strangers alike and can offend racial and ethnic minorities.

Such statements, uttered intentionally or inadvertently, draw upon stereotypes and are linked with racism and prejudice, according to a 91̽��-led study. The research is believed to be the first of its kind to explore microaggressions from the perspective of those who commit them, and suggests that whites who are more likely to deliver microaggressions are also more likely to harbor some degree of negative feeling toward blacks, whether they know it or not.

The concept of microaggressions has garnered greater attention in today’s political environment, explained lead author , a 91̽��research associate professor of psychology.

“Our study results offer validation to people of color when they experience microaggressions. Their reactions can’t simply be dismissed as crazy, unreasonable or too sensitive,” Kanter said. “According to our data, the reaction of a person of color — being confused, upset or offended in some way — makes sense, because they have experienced what our data show: that people who are more likely to make these comments also are more racist in other ways.”

The appears online in the journal Race and Social Problems.

For this study, the team, with the help of focus groups of students of color from three universities, devised the Cultural Cognitions and Actions Survey (CCAS) and administered it to a small group of students — 33 black, 118 white — at a large public university in the Midwest. The 56-item questionnaire asks the white respondent to imagine him- or herself in five different everyday scenarios involving interactions with black people, such as talking about current events, attending a diversity workshop, or listening to music. The respondent then considers how likely he or she is to think or say specific statements. For black respondents, the wording of the scenarios and questions was revised slightly to assess whether they would experience racism. Each of the statements included in the survey was deemed at least somewhat, if not significantly, offensive by black students.

In the “current events” scenario — the one that yielded the highest percentage of “likely” responses from whites — respondents were to imagine talking about topics in the news, such as police brutality and unemployment. More than half of white respondents said they would think or say, “All lives matter, not just black lives,” while 30 percent said they might say, “I don’t think of black people as black,” and 26 percent said they were likely to think or say, “The police have a tough job. It is not their fault if they occasionally make a mistake.” More than half of black respondents identified each of those statements as racist.

Responses on the CCAS were then related to several validated measures of racism and prejudice, to determine if one’s likelihood of making microaggressive statements was related to these other measures. An additional scale controlled for social desirability — the idea that respondents might answer in ways that put themselves in the best possible light.

Results indicated that white students who said they were more likely to make microaggressive statements were also significantly more likely to score higher on all the other measures of racism and prejudice, and results were not affected by social desirability.

The statement that yielded the highest statistical relation to other measures of racism among white respondents came from the “diversity workshop” scenario, in which a class discusses white privilege. Though only about 14 percent of white respondents said they were likely to think or say, “A lot of minorities are too sensitive,” the statement had the highest correlation with negative feelings toward blacks. Nearly 94 percent of black respondents said the statement was racist.

The correlations between statements and attitudes are averages from the study sample, Kanter said, and so the results do not address the intentions or feelings of any one person.

“It doesn’t mean that on a case-by-case basis, if you or I engaged in microaggressions, that we have cold or racist feelings toward blacks,” he said. “But the study says that regardless of the intention behind a microaggression or the feelings of the specific person who uttered it, it’s reasonable for a black person to be offended. On average, if you engage in a microaggression, it’s more likely that you have cooler feelings toward black people, and that whether you intended it or not, you’ve participated in an experience of racism for a black person.”

In many ways, overt racism has declined gradually since the civil rights movement, Kanter said, and white people often assume that because they do not utter racial slurs, or perhaps are well-versed in and value social justice, that they do not have to worry about engaging in racist behavior themselves.

“It can come as a bit of a shock to a lot of white people that their behavior and attitudes are under scrutiny,” said Kanter, who pointed out that as a white male, he has had to confront realizations about his own behavior over time. “The nature of how we’re looking at racism is changing. We’re now able to look at and root out more subtle forms of bias that weren’t focused on before because explicit racism was taking a lot of the attention.”

Taken in isolation, the size and location of the study sample limit the generalizations that can be made, Kanter said. But the idea behind the CCAS is to use it elsewhere and adapt it to focus on other racial and ethnic minorities so as to better understand racism and develop educational tools to combat it. The survey has since been used at the 91̽��, he added, where early results are very similar to those reported in the published article.

Kanter said he’s heard from critics who say the study has a liberal bias, or that the research should examine offenses against white people. But he says the point is to address racism targeted at oppressed and stigmatized groups.

“We’re interested in developing interventions to help people interact with each other better, to develop trusting, nonoffensive, interracial relationships among people. If we want to decrease racism, then we need to try to decrease microaggressions,” he said.

Other authors of the study were 91̽��graduate students and ; of the University of Connecticut, of the University of Kentucky; and of Bastyr University.

The study was funded by a grant from the American Psychological Foundation.

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For more information, contact Kanter at 206-221-2591 or jonkan@uw.edu.