Prof. Krzysztof Kaniasty

Prof. Krzysztof Kaniasty

United States of America

Research work

Professor Krzysztof (Krys) Kaniasty's research encompasses a wide range of topics related to social support, resilience, and coping with stressful and traumatic life events. He has extensively studied social support exchanges at both individual and community levels, focusing on various stressors such as criminal victimization, unemployment, bereavement, disasters, acts of terrorism, political crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Prof. Kaniasty has developed models to estimate the role of social support and other resources as moderating and mediating factors in the stress-adjustment process. He has also investigated the determinants of psychological hardiness and resilience in individuals and communities facing crises, including extreme stress. Additionally, his work examines cultural influences on helping behavior, social support, and coping with stress, as well as the influence of political events on well-being. Prof. Kaniasty applies social psychological principles, such as social cognition and attribution, to examine coping processes in the face of stressful life events. Furthermore, he explores the mental health implications of politics and political behaviors.

 

Professional experience

 

Professor Krzysztof Kaniasty teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in research methodology, social psychology, and stress and coping at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he is a Professor of Psychology. He is also a research professor in the Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warszawa, Poland). He conducted and collaborated on several large-scale longitudinal studies investigating social support exchanges, individual and communal coping, and psychological well-being following natural disasters and other major traumatic stressors in the US, Mexico, China, New Zealand, France, Israel, and Poland. He is the past editor of Anxiety, Stress and Coping: An International Journal, and past president of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society (STAR). His main research focus has been on postdisaster social support, having authored or co-authored numerous empirical and theoretical articles, chapters, and reports on the topic. Kaniasty’s scholarship has been recognized with several prestigious honors including the Individual Award from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education for his book about the 1997 Polish Flood (2003), STAR´S Lifetime Career Award (2011), and Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s 2014-15 Distinguished University Professor.

 

Education

 

Professor Krzysztof Kaniasty earned his M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, in 1981. He continued his academic pursuits by obtaining a Ph.D. in Social/Community Psychology from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, in 1991.

Areas of interest & scientific knowledge

United States of America

  • Place of affiliation

Resilience and Wellbeing

  • Coping with Stress
  • Sociocultural Determinants
  • Individual, Community and National Resilience

Psychology

  • Disaster Psychology
  • Political Psychology

Emergency and Disaster Management

  • Health and Psychosocial Interventions
  • Community Interventions
Selected Publications

 

  • Kaniasty, K. & Urbańska, B (2024). Social support mobilization and deterioration following disasters resulting from natural and human-induced hazards. In R. Williams, V. Kemp, K. Porter, T. Healing, & J. Drury (eds.). Major Incidents, Pandemics and Mental Health: The Psychosocial Aspects of Health Emergencies, Incidents, Disasters and Disease Outbreaks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kaniasty, K., Baran, M., Urbańska, B., Boczkowska, M., & Hamer, K. (2023). Sense of danger, sense of country's mastery, and sense of personal mastery as concomitants of psychological distress and subjective well‐being in a sample of Poles following Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Prospective analyses. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being.  https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12483
  • Zanbar, L., Dekel, R., Ben-Tzur, N., Kaniasty, K., & Possick, C. (2022).  How does parenthood moderate paths between personal and community resources and distress following collective trauma? Journal of Child and Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02492-x
  • Guilaran, J., De Terte, I., Kaniasty, K., & Stephens, C. (2021). Received social support and post-traumatic stress symptoms in New Zealand and Philippine emergency responders. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 40(2), 153-174. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2021.40.2.153
  • Kaniasty, K., de Terte, I., Guilaran, J., & Bennett, S. (2020). A scoping review of postdisaster social support investigations conducted after disasters that struck the Australia and Oceania continent. Disasters, 44, 336-366. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12390
  • Shang, F., Kaniasty, K., Cowlishaw, S., Wade, D., Ma, H., & Forbes, D. (2019). Social support following a natural disaster: A longitudinal study of survivors of the 2013 Lushan earthquake in China. Psychiatry Research, 273, 641-646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.01.085
  • Zanbar, L., Kaniasty, K., & Ben-Tzur, N. (2018). Engagement in community activities and trust in local leaders as concomitants of psychological distress among Israeli civilians exposed to prolonged rocket attacks. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 31, 431 – 446. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2018.1460747
  • Goodwin, R., Kaniasty, K., Sun, S., & Ben-Ezra, M. (2017). Psychological distress and prejudice following terror attacks in France. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 91, 111–115. 
  • Felix, E., Kaniasty, K., You, S., Canino, G. (2016). Parent–child relationship quality and gender as moderators of the influence of hurricane exposure on physical health among children and youth.  Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 41, 73 – 85. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsv038
  • Jakubowska, J., & Kaniasty, K. (2015). Predictors of political participation in Poland: Gender and period effects in the context of political transformation, Československá Psychologie, vol. LIX, Supplement 1, 71-83. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/53650/1/cspsych_supplement2015.pdf#page=82
  • Kaniasty, K. & Jakubowska, U. (2014). Can appraisals of common political life events impact subjective well-being? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44, 751-767. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12265
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