Linda R. Tropp, UMass Amherst

How much do you engage with others when you’re out in public? Lots of people don’t actually engage with others much at all. Think of commuters on public transportation staring down at their phones with earbuds firmly in place.

As a professor of social psychology, I see similar trends on my university campus, where students often put on their headphones and start checking their phones before leaving the lecture hall on the way to their next class.

Curating daily experiences in these ways may appeal to your personal interests, but it also limits opportunities for social connection. Humans are social beings: We desire to feel connected to others, and even connecting with strangers can potentially boost our mood.

Though recent technological advances afford greater means for connection than at any other moment in human history, many people still feel isolated and disconnected. Indeed, loneliness in the American population has reached epidemic levels, and Americans’ trust in each other has reached a historic low.

At the same time, our attention is increasingly being pulled in varied directions within a highly saturated information environment, now commonly known as the “attention economy.”

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that so many Americans are experiencing a crisis of social connection. Research in social psychology helps to explain how the small behaviors and choices we make as individuals affect our experiences with others in public settings.

Where you focus your attention

One factor shaping people’s experiences in public settings concerns where they focus their attention. Since there is more information out in the world than anyone could ever realistically take in, people are driven to conserve their limited mental resources for those things that seem most crucial to navigating the world successfully. What this means is that every person’s attention is finite and selective: By attending to certain bits of information, you necessarily tune out others, whether you’re aware of doing so or not.

More often than not, the information you deem worthy of attention also tends to be self-relevant. That is, people are more likely to engage with information that piques their interest or relates to them in some way, whereas they tend to ignore information that seems unrelated or irrelevant to their existence.

These ingrained tendencies might make logical sense from an evolutionary perspective, but when applied to everyday social interaction, they suggest that people will limit their attention to and regard for other people unless they see others as somehow connected to them or relevant to their lives.

One unfortunate consequence is that a person may end up treating interactions with other people as transactions, with a primary focus on getting one’s own needs met, or one’s own questions answered. A very different approach would involve seeing interactions with others as opportunities for social connection; being willing to expend some additional mental energy to listen to others’ experiences and exchange views on topics of shared interest can serve as a foundation for building social relationships.

How others interpret your actions

Also, by focusing so much attention on their own individual interests, people may inadvertently signal disinterest to others in their social environments.

As an example, imagine how it would feel to be on the receiving end of those daily commuting rituals. You find yourself surrounded by people whose ears are closed off, whose eyes are down and whose attention is elsewhere – and you might start to feel like no one really cares whether you exist or not.

As social creatures, it’s natural for human beings to want to be seen and acknowledged by other people. Small gestures such as eye contact or a smile, even from a stranger, can foster feelings of connection by signaling that our existence matters. Instead, when these signals are absent, a person may come to feel like they don’t matter, or that they’re not worthy of others’ attention.

How to foster connection in public spaces

For all these reasons, it may prove valuable to reflect on how you use your limited mental resources, as a way to be more mindful and purposeful about what and who garner your attention. As I encourage my students to do, people can choose to engage in what I refer to as psychological generosity: You can intentionally redirect some of your attention toward the other people around you and expend mental resources beyond what is absolutely necessary to navigate the social world.

Engaging in psychological generosity doesn’t need to be a heavy lift, nor does it call for any grand gestures. But it will probably take a little more effort beyond the bare minimum it typically takes to get by. In other words, it will likely involve moving from being merely transactional with other people to becoming more relational while navigating interactions with them.

A few simple examples of psychological generosity might include actions such as:

• Tuning in by turning off devices. Rather than default to focusing attention on your phone, try turning off its volume or setting it to airplane mode. See if you notice any changes in how you engage with other people in your immediate environment.

• Making eye contact and small talk. As historian Timothy Snyder writes, eye contact and small talk are “not just polite” but constitute “part of being a responsible member of society.”

• Smiling and greeting someone you don’t know. Take the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” to the realm of social relations, by showing your willingness to welcome other people rather than displaying disinterest and avoidance. Such simple acts may help to foster feelings of belonging and build a sense of community with others.

Among the most cynical, examples like these may initially be written off as reflecting pleas to practice the random acts of kindness often trumpeted on bumper stickers. Yet acts like these are far from random – they require intention and redirection of your attention toward action, like any new habit you may wish to cultivate.

Others might wonder whether potential benefits to society are worth the individual cost, given that attention and effort are limited resources. But, ultimately, our well-being as individuals and the health of our communities grow from social connection.

Practicing acts of psychological generosity, then, can provide you with opportunities to benefit from social connection, at the same time as these acts can pay dividends to other people and to the social fabric of your community.

Linda R. Tropp, Professor of Social Psychology, UMass Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nicole Hassoun, Binghamton University, State University of New York

On March 20, 2025, members of the World Health Organization adopted the world’s first pandemic agreement, following three years of “intensive negotiations launched by governments in response to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The U.S., however, did not participate, in part because of its intention to withdraw from the WHO.

Global health experts are hailing the agreement as a historic moment.

What does the agreement mean for the world, and how can it make everyone safer and more prepared for the next pandemic?

The Conversation asked Nicole Hassoun, a professor at Binghamton University and executive director of Global Health Impact, to explain the pandemic accord, its prospects for advancing global health, and the significance of the U.S.’s absence from it.

What will the pandemic agreement do?

The accord will bolster pandemic preparation within individual countries and around the world.

Countries signing onto the agreement are committing to improve their disease surveillance and grow their heath care workforces, strengthen their regulatory systems and invest in research and development. It encourages countries to strengthen their health regulations and infrastructure, improve communication with the public about pandemics and increase funding for preparation and response efforts.

It also includes new mechanisms for producing and distributing vaccines and other essential countermeasures. Finally, it encourages countries to coordinate their responses and share information about infectious diseases and intellectual property so that vaccines and other essential countermeasures can be made available more quickly.

The agreement will take effect once enough countries ratify it, which may take several years.

Why isn’t the US involved?

The Biden administration was broadly supportive of a pandemic agreement and was an active participant in negotiations.

Prior to Donald Trump’s reelection, however, Republican governors had signed a letter opposing the treaty, echoing a conservative think tank’s concerns about U.S. sovereignty.

The U.S. withdrew from negotiations when President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the WHO on the day he was inaugurated for his second term.

Why could the lack of US involvement be beneficial for the world?

The lack of U.S. involvement likely resulted in a much more equitable treaty, and it is not clear that countries could have reached an agreement had the U.S. continued to object to key provisions.

It was only once the U.S. withdrew from the negotiations that an agreement was reached. The U.S. and several other wealthy countries were concerned with protecting their pharmaceutical industry’s profits and resisted efforts aimed at convincing pharmaceutical companies to share the knowledge, data and intellectual property needed for producing new vaccines and other essential countermeasures.

Other negotiators sought greater access to vaccines and other treatments during a pandemic for poorer countries, which often rely on patented technologies from global pharmaceutical companies.

While most people in wealthy countries had access to COVID-19 vaccines as early as 2021, many people in developing countries had to wait years for vaccines.

How could the agreement broaden access for treatments?

One of the contentious issues in the pandemic agreement has to do with how many vaccines manufacturers in each country must share in exchange for access to genetic sequences to emerging infectious diseases. Countries are still negotiating a system for sharing the genetic information on pathogens in return for access to vaccines themselves. It is important that researchers can get these sequences to make vaccines. And, of course, people need access to the vaccines once they are developed.

Still, there are many more promising aspects of the agreement for which no further negotiations are necessary. For instance, the agreement will increase global vaccine supply by increasing manufacturing around the world.

The agreement also specifies that countries and the WHO should work together to create a mechanism for fairly sharing the intellectual property, data and knowledge needed to produce vaccines and other essential health products. If financing for new innovation requires equitable access to the new technologies that are developed, many people in poor countries may get access to vaccines much more quickly in the next pandemic. The agreement also encourages individual countries to offer sufficient incentives for pharmaceutical companies to extend access to developing countries.

If countries implement these changes, that will benefit people in rich countries as well as poor ones. A more equitable distribution of vaccines can contain the spread of disease, saving millions of lives.

What more should be done, and does the US have a role to play?

In my view, the best way to protect public health moving forward is for countries to sign on to the agreement and devote more resources to global health initiatives. This is particularly important given declining investment and participation in the WHO and the contraction of other international health initiatives, such as USAID.

Without international coordination, it will become harder to catch and address problems early enough to prevent epidemics from becoming pandemics.

It will also be imperative for member countries to provide funding to support the agreement’s goals and secure the innovation and access to new technologies. This requires building the basic health infrastructure to ensure shots can get into people’s arms.

Nicole Hassoun, Professor of Philosophy, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jason P. Joseph, University of Florida

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. But what does it mean for this type of cancer to be called aggressive?

As a urologic surgeon who specializes in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer, I often explain to my patients that aggressiveness isn’t based on a single factor. Instead, it comes from understanding how abnormal the cancer cells look, known as the tumor’s grade; how far they’ve spread, known as the tumor’s stage; and their genetic fingerprint.

Grade: Decoding cancer cell appearance

One key piece of the puzzle is the cancer’s grade, which indicates the tumor’s potential to grow. After a prostate biopsy, a doctor specializing in examining tissues – a pathologist – grades the tumor by comparing the appearance of its cancer cells with that of normal prostate cells.

Imagine healthy prostate cells as organized workers in a factory, each performing specific tasks. In contrast, high-grade cancer cells appear chaotic, growing and dividing rapidly.

For prostate cancer, doctors use what are called grade groups that range from 1 (least aggressive) to 5 (most aggressive). These groups are a simplification based on an older classification called a Gleason score. Biden’s Gleason 9 cancer falls into grade group 5, indicating the cells appear extremely abnormal with a strong potential for rapid growth and spread.

While the cancer’s grade helps indicate how tumor cells might behave, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Some high-grade cancers can remain confined to the prostate for months or even years.

To understand where the cancer is and how far it has advanced, doctors determine its stage.

Stage: Mapping cancer location and spread

A tumor’s stage describes if, and how far, cancer has spread beyond where it first formed. Doctors use physical exams, imaging scans and lab tests to stage prostate cancer.

Medical professionals usually use a detailed system called TNM – short for tumor, nodes, metastasis – to classify a tumor’s stage. But prostate cancer stage can be broadly understood as:

• Localized (stages 1-2): The cancer is only within the prostate. Think of a weed confined to a small garden bed. Many localized cancers, particularly if low-grade, may not be deemed aggressive and can often be safely monitored.

• Locally advanced (Stage 3): The cancer has spread out from the prostate and is growing in very nearby tissues, like a weed sending roots into the surrounding lawn.

• Metastatic (Stage 4): The cancer has spread to distant parts of the body. For prostate cancer, this often means lymph nodes, bones – as in Biden’s case – liver or lungs. This is like the weeds spreading seeds down the street and across town.

A Stage 4 prostate cancer is considered advanced and aggressive because it has shown that it can travel and form new tumors.

A tumor’s stage heavily influences treatment options and goals. For localized or some locally advanced cancers (Stage 1 to Stage 3), treatments such as surgery or radiation may aim for a cure. For metastatic cancer, a cure is usually not possible. Treatment focuses on controlling growth, managing symptoms and maintaining quality of life.

Many prostate cancers rely on hormones called androgens as fuel for their growth. Therapies that block these hormones can be effective for some time – in most cases, years – especially for hormone-sensitive cancers like Biden’s.

Fortunately, thanks to improved screening options and increased awareness, about 69% of prostate cancers are found when they are still confined to the prostate (Stage 1 to Stage 2). About 8% of new cases are metastatic at diagnosis.

Genetics: Uncovering cancer’s DNA blueprint

In addition to grade and stage, doctors are increasingly using a cancer’s genomic profile – its specific genetic makeup – both for deeper insights into its aggressiveness and potential treatment pathways.

DNA acts like a detailed instruction manual for cells, dictating how they should grow and function as well as when they should stop dividing or die. In cancer, mutations act like typos in this genetic instruction manual, causing cells to ignore these normal controls, grow and spread.

Genomic testing can identify these specific genetic alterations. This can be performed on the tumor tissue itself to identify changes called somatic mutations that occurred after you were born. Or it can be carried out through blood or saliva samples to detect changes you inherited called germline mutations.

For men with early-stage prostate cancer, certain genomic tests on the tumor can help clarify the risk of the cancer progressing. This information is valuable in deciding whether active surveillance – closely monitoring the cancer without immediate treatment – is a safe approach, or whether more immediate treatment is warranted.

In advanced or metastatic prostate cancer, identifying specific mutations is particularly critical. For instance, mutations in genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2 – more commonly associated with breast and ovarian cancer risk – can also occur in prostate cancer. These mutations can make the cancer more aggressive but also potentially susceptible to a specific type of drug called a PARP inhibitor, especially if the cancer becomes resistant to hormone therapy.

National guidelines now recommend genomic testing for all men with metastatic prostate cancer to look for these “actionable” mutations. This move toward personalized medicine means treatments can be increasingly tailored to the unique fingerprint of a patient’s cancer.

Understanding cancer ‘aggressiveness’

It’s essential to understand that “aggressive” isn’t just a simple label for cancer, but rather a multilayered evaluation. An aggressive-looking cancer caught early and confined to the prostate (Stage 1 and Stage 2) can have a nearly 100% five-year relative survival rate. However, if the same high-grade cancer has already spread widely (Stage 4), five-year relative survival drops significantly, to around 38%.

This stark difference in survival rates highlights a critical point. To obtain the clearest picture of a cancer’s potential threat, a comprehensive assessment combines insights from multiple qualities of a tumor to help patients and their health care teams make informed decisions.

Thankfully, advances in genomics, imaging and targeted therapies continue to improve how aggressiveness is defined, how its behavior is predicted and how treatment is personalized. This progress offers growing hope for better outcomes, even for patients with the most aggressive prostate cancers.

Jason P. Joseph, Assistant Professor of Urology, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.