Our people

Professor Baljinder K. Sahdra has made substantial scientific contributions in the areas of well-being, mindfulness, compassion, nonattachment, intensive meditation, discrimination and social identity, compulsive internet use, educational psychology, and personalizing psychology. Her research articles are highly cited. She has received several prestigious awards and competitive research grants totaling $7+ million. She also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science and on the Board of Directors of Global Compassion Coalition, USA, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute for Better Health, USA. According to Research.com, she is one of the "Best Scientists in Psychology" in the world. Her recent research advances idionomic computational methods, which integrate individual-level and group-level insights to advance data-driven personalized psychological care for improving the human condition.

Selected publications:

• Sahdra, B. K., Shin, A., Fraser, M., Levin, M. E., Klimczak, K. S., Krafft, J., Hayes, S. C., Hernández, C., & Ciarrochi, J. (2025). One size does not make all happy: Idionomic links between striving for positive states and happiness in experience sampling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 26:101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-025-00933-0
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Klimczak, K., Krafft, J., Hayes, S. C., & Levin, M. (2024). Testing the Applicability of Idionomic Statistics in Longitudinal Studies: The Example of 'Doing What Matters.' Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2024.100728
• Sahdra, B. K., King, G., Payne, J. S., Ruiz, F. J., Ali Kolahdouzan, S., Ciarrochi, J., & Hayes, S. C. (2024). Why Research From Lower- and Middle-Income Countries Matters to Evidence-Based Intervention: A State of the Science Review of ACT Research as an Example. Behavior Therapy, 55(6), 1348-1363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2024.06.003
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Fraser, M. I., Yap, K., Haller, E., Hayes, S. C., Hofmann, S. G., & Gloster, A. T. (2023). The Compassion Balance: Understanding the Interrelation of Self- and Other-Compassion for Optimal Well-being. Mindfulness, 14(8), 1997-2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02187-4
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Basarkod, G., Dicke, T., Guo, J., Parker, P. D., & Marsh, H. W. (2022). High school students' tenacity and flexibility in goal pursuit linked to life satisfaction and achievement on competencies tests. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(3), 622-636. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000667
• Donald, J. N., Ciarrochi, J., & Sahdra, B. K. (2022). The consequences of compulsion: A 4-year longitudinal study of compulsive internet use and emotion regulation difficulties. Emotion, 22(4), 678-689. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000769
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P. D., Craven, R., Brockman, R., Devine, E. K., Conigrave, J., & Chang, D. F. (2020). Discrimination as a frame-of-reference effect in overlapping friendship communities of ethnically diverse youth. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 26(1), 71-81. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000247
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P. D., Basarkod, G., Bradshaw, E. L., & Baer, R. (2017). Are people mindful in different ways? Disentangling the quantity and quality of mindfulness in latent profiles and exploring their links to mental health and life effectiveness. European Journal of Personality, 31(4), 347-365. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2108
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., & Parker, P. (2016). Nonattachment and mindfulness: Related but distinct constructs. Psychological Assessment, 28(7), 819-829. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000264
• Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P., Marshall, S. & Heaven, P. (2015). Empathy and nonattachment independently predict peer nominations of prosocial behaviour of adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 6: 263. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00263.
• Sahdra, B. K., MacLean, K. A., Shaver, P. R., Ferrer, E., Jacobs, T. L., Rosenberg, E., Zanesco, A., Aichele, S., King, B., Saron, C. D., Bridwell, D., Lavy, S., & Wallace, B. A. (2011). Enhanced response inhibition enhanced by intensive meditation training predicts improved adaptive socio-emotional functioning. Emotion, 11, 299-312, DOI: 10.1037/a0022764.
• Sahdra, B. K., Shaver, P. R., & Brown, K. W. (2010). A scale to measure nonattachment: A Buddhist complement to Western research on attachment and adaptive functioning. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92, 1-12, DOI: 10.1080/00223890903425960.
• Sahdra, B. K., & Ross, M. (2007). Group identification and historical memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 384-395, DOI: 10.1177/0146167206296103.