The Center of Life-Span Development (CLSD), Faculty of Psychology UGM, is developing environmental-themed storybooks for early childhood as a community empowerment initiative to strengthen literacy and foster eco-friendly habits from an early age. The program builds on insights from The Reading Buddies (TRB) initiative, which shows that children aged 4–6 are highly responsive to interactive stories, yet access to reading materials specifically addressing waste management and environmental themes remains limited.

Lentera Senja, short for Lansia Energik Sejahtera Sehat Sentosa Jiwa dan Raga (Energetic, Prosperous, Healthy, and Peaceful Older Adults in Body and Mind), is an initiative by the Center for Life-Span Development (CLSD) at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) that develops a support toolkit to help older adults enhance their understanding of psychological well-being. The program stems from Indonesia’s demographic reality: according to Statistics Indonesia (2023), the proportion of older adults has reached 11.56% and is projected to rise to 20% by 2045. Alongside increasing life expectancy, older adults face complex challenges such as declining physical and cognitive functioning, shrinking social networks, and heightened risks of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Existing services have tended to prioritize physical health, while psychological, social, and educational dimensions remain insufficiently integrated. This gap motivated the CLSD team to design a structured, user-friendly, evidence-informed toolkit that provides clear guidance for facilitators to strengthen older adults’ understanding of psychological well-being.

A research team from the Center for Life-Span Development (CLSD), Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), is initiating a qualitative study to understand how Indonesian adolescents define mental health, the challenges they face, and the protective and risk factors that shape their psychological well-being. National data indicate that 34.9% of adolescents experienced mental health problems in the past 12 months, yet only 2.6% have accessed services. In response, this study seeks to foreground adolescents’ own voices to ensure that resulting interventions genuinely align with their lived experiences. This research is funded by the 2025 UGM Faculty of Psychology Research Grant.

The Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, through the Mental, Neural, and Behavior expertise group, is organizing a community empowerment program in the form of training on brain imaging analysis using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for students. This initiative is designed to bridge the growing need for neuroimaging competencies in modern psychological research while expanding interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly with medicine and radiology.

A research team from the UGM Faculty of Psychology will investigate factors that contribute to everyday cognitive failures, ranging from forgetfulness and divided attention to simple errors that can escalate into safety risks, by combining an updated self-report questionnaire with a series of mental chronometry–based cognitive tasks. This initiative places objective, standardized measurement at the core of understanding how different components of cognitive functioning work together and, at times, fail, thereby opening opportunities for more targeted interventions to support psychological well-being and daily performance.

The surge of online gambling practices in Indonesia, estimated to involve 1 percent of the population, with the majority in productive age groups, highlights the need for an accurate screening tool to detect gambling disorder and its impacts on mental health, social relationships, and work performance. Responding to this need, a multidisciplinary research team from the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), in collaboration with the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, is adapting and validating the Gambling Disorder Identification Test (GDIT) into Indonesian. This initiative is expected to provide a valid and reliable screening instrument for researchers and practitioners in Indonesia.

The Faculty of Psychology at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) is developing an educational module to support individuals with type 2 diabetes in managing their health independently, called EduDiaCare. The study is led by Dr. Nida Ul Hasanat, M.Si., Psikolog, together with a team of experts from various disciplines. The aim is to produce a practical, research-based guide that helps patients better understand and care for themselves in daily life.

Amid the growing role of social media in shaping public opinion, a new study from the Faculty of Psychology at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) examines how political conversations in digital spaces influence young people’s emotions and political engagement. Drawing on the dynamics of discourse on platforms like TikTok—from sympathetic support to aggressive commentary, the research seeks to understand users’ response patterns to political conversations of differing tones and characteristics. This study is funded by the 2025 Research Grant of the Faculty of Psychology UGM and is situated within the Cyberpsychology theme at the Center for Indigenous and Cultural Psychology (CICP).

A research team from the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), is examining how Common Method Bias (CMB) affects findings in survey research. CMB refers to bias that arises when the same measurement approach is used for multiple constructs at the same time, for example, administering many questions to the same respondents, at the same time and place, using the same form. As a result, correlations between concepts can appear higher than they truly are, with part of the “high” value coming from the measurement method rather than the actual phenomenon. Internationally, many journals now require authors to demonstrate efforts to reduce CMB. In Indonesia, however, reporting and mitigation of CMB are still uncommon, highlighting the need for trusted guidance.

The Faculty of Psychology at UGM has launched a study examining how organizational values are translated into effective strategies that enhance company performance. The study stems from the observation that many organizations fail not only due to market pressures, but because shared values are not consistently operationalized in decision-making. “Shared values” here refers to core principles agreed upon and embraced across the organization, from leadership to employees, as a compass for thinking and acting. Examples include integrity, professionalism, innovation, service, and collaboration. Led by Dr. Bagus Riyono, M.A., Psychologist, the research team will test empirical evidence that values must be embedded in strategy to make a tangible impact on performance.