Prof Daryl O'Connor

Daryl O'Connor is Professor of Psychology at the School of Psychology, University of Leeds and Institutional Lead for Open and Reproducible Research. He is a registered health psychologist with strong research interests in psychobiology and currently leads the Health and Social Psychology Research Group in the School as well as heads up the Group's Laboratory for Stress and Health Research (STARlab; https://sites.google.com/site/doconnorlab/). Daryl’s current research focuses on: i) investigating the effects of stress and psychological interventions on physical and mental health outcomes (e.g. suicide behaviour, eating behaviours, cortisol levels, wellbeing, burnout), and ii) exploring the effects of interventions on the uptake of cancer screening behaviours. Daryl is a past Chair of the British Psychological Society’s (BPS) Division of Health Psychology and the BPS Psychobiology Section, Chair of BPS Research Board and Chair of the European Federation of Psychology Associations (EFPA) Board of Scientific Affairs, was a Trustee of the BPS between 2015 and 2021 and is the President-Elect of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine. He is Editor-in-Chief for Cogent Psychology and Associate Editor at Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. Daryl is an elected Fellow of the American Psychosomatic Society, Academy of Social Sciences, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, Royal Society of Arts, European Health Psychology Society, a Distinguished International Affiliate of the American Psychological Association's Division 38 (Health Psychology) and was elected an Honorary Life Member of the British Psychological Society in 2021. Daryl is also a regular studio guest on BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind. 

Keynote Presentation - Stress: The Quiet Killer 

This talk will argue that stress may indirectly contribute to health risk and reduced longevity to the extent that it produces deleterious changes in diet and/or helps maintain maladaptive health behaviours as well as directly by influencing biological processes across the life span (e.g., blood pressure, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning). Studies investigating the relationship between chronic stress, work strain, perseverative cognition (worry and rumination), the cortisol response, eating behaviour, sleep and health outcomes, will be presented. The second half of the talk will describe work investigating the effects of childhood trauma and the role of HPA axis responses to stress in vulnerability to suicide as well as recent daily process studies exploring the role of stress, sleep and health behaviour in suicide risk. The importance of studying the effects of stress across the life course, developing stress management interventions and considering inequalities will also be highlighted.