David Creswell

Professor Carnegie Mellon University

  • Pittsburgh PA

David Creswell’s research focuses broadly on understanding what makes people resilient under stress.

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Carnegie Mellon University

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Biography

David’s research focuses broadly on understanding what makes people resilient under stress. Specifically, he conducts community intervention studies, laboratory studies of stress and coping, and neuroimaging studies to understand how various stress management strategies alter coping and stress resilience. For example, he is currently working on studies that test how mindfulness meditation training impacts the brain, peripheral stress physiological responses, and stress-related disease outcomes in at-risk community samples. David also explores how the use of simple strategies (self-affirmation, rewarding activities, cognitive reappraisal) can buffer stress and improve problem-solving under pressure.

David has made some recent research forays into other areas, such as in describing the role of unconscious processes in learning and decision making, developing new theory and research on behavioral priming, and in building a new field of health neuroscience.

Areas of Expertise

Social Psychology
Health Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Health Psychology
Psychoneuroimmunology

Media Appearances

Stressed by current events? Instead of unplugging, a Pittsburgh psychology researcher says lean in

WESA  online

2025-03-12

David Creswell (Dietrich College) wants you to embrace the news, not tune it out, for the benefit of your brain. "You’re sort of working through those emotions and turning toward that distress [so] you can start to build those distress tolerance muscles,” said Creswell.

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Neuroscientist shares the ‘nonnegotiable’ routine he uses to stay mentally sharp during the day

CNBC  online

2023-03-07

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these routines, but building success with your sleep schedule is a lot easier than that, says David Creswell, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Carnegie Mellon who studies sleep.

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Nightly Sleep Is Key to Student Success

Carnegie Mellon University News  online

2023-02-17

David Creswell(opens in new window), the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences(opens in new window), led a team of researchers to evaluate the relationship between sleep and GPA.

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Industry Expertise

Writing and Editing
Health and Wellness
Education/Learning
Research

Accomplishments

American Psychosomatic Society Herbert Weiner Early Career Award

2017

Social Personality Health Network Early Career Award

2015

APA Early Career Award for Scientific Contributions to Psychology

2014

Education

The Colorado College

B.A.

Psychology

2000

University of California, Los Angeles

Ph.D.

Social Psychology

2007

University of California, Los Angeles

M.A.

Social Psychology

2003

Affiliations

  • Social Personality Health Network : Executive Committee member

Event Appearances

How do mindfulness interventions work?

From Behavior to Brain to Body to Health, Center for Neuroscience and Society colloquium series, University of Pennsylvania  Philadelphia, PA

2022-02-04

Self-affirmation writing for breast cancer survivors

University of Hawaii Medical School  Honolulu, HI

2023-01-09

How do mindfulness interventions work?

Mind-body interface international symposium, PNIRS Asia-Pacific Symposium Plenary talk  Taichung, Taiwan

2021-10-30

Research Grants

Mindfulness training for the Pittsburgh Community

Highmark Foundation

2022-2023

Mindfulness meditation training for Irritable Bowel Syndrome

NIH R01

2021-2025

Value affirmation and physical symptom relief among breast cancer patients taking aromatase inhibitors

NIH R01

2019-2024

Articles

Effect of mindfulness-based intervention on endurance performance under pressure and performance-relevant mental attributes, an interdisciplinary perspective

Contemporary Clinical Trials

2023

Performance under pressure is one of the primary features of competitive sports. Considering that increased competition levels are typically accompanied by elevated stress and anxiety, athletes' ability to cope with stress has gained even more importance in recent years. Accordingly, the current trial, entitled Mindfulness-based Peak Performance (MBPP), will take an interdisciplinary approach (e.g., sport psychology, sports training, and cognitive neuroscience), to more definitively examine whether a MBPP affects athletic performance under pressure and relevant mental attributes.

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Nightly sleep duration predicts grade point average in the first year of college

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

2023

Total nightly sleep is a potentially important and underappreciated behavior supporting academic achievement. First-year college students from three independent universities provided sleep actigraphy for a month early in the academic term, across five separate samples. Lower average nightly sleep early in the academic term predicted lower end-of-term GPA, an effect that held even when controlling for factors known to predict end-of-term GPA, including previous-term GPA, daytime sleep, and overall academic load.

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Psychometric evaluation of a Visual Interpersonal Analog Scale

Psychological Assessment

2023

Interpersonal theory organizes social behavior along dominant (vs. submissive) and warm (vs. cold) dimensions. There is a growing interest in assessing these behaviors in naturalistic settings to maximize ecological validity and to study dynamic social processes. Studies that have assessed interpersonal behavior in daily life have primarily relied on behavioral checklists. Although checklists have advantages, they are discrepant with techniques used to capture constructs typically assessed alongside warmth and dominance, such as affect, which typically rely on adjective descriptors.

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