Active Research Projects
Emotion Regulation & Self-Harm
- Deliberate self-harm (DSH; e.g., cutting, burning, severe scratching) is intentional behavior that can damage bodily tissue, but that people do without suicidal intent (e.g., Gratz, 2003; Pattison & Kahan, 1983). DSH is common in the general population, and it is especially relevant to groups of people who struggle with mental health concerns (e.g., depression, borderline personality disorder). A popular theory for understanding why people engage in DSH asserts that it is used to regulate unwanted emotional states (for a review, see Chapman et al., 2006).
- The purpose of this study is to examine the motivational role of specific emotions in self-harm behavior among women.
Past Research Projects
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Interpersonal Disclosure & Shame Regulation
Personality & Emotions among NFL Fans
Effectiveness of Self-Acceptance Group Therapy
Emotion & Thinking Styles
Effectiveness of Community-Based Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Because people who are experiencing shame are often afraid of further exposure of their flaws and the possibility of social rejection, this emotion motivates socially avoidant behavior (e.g., Lindsay-Hartz et al., 1995). Unfortunately, this likely only maintains shame over time, whereas talking to people and receiving empathy likely helps to reduce shame (see Brown et al., 2011; Rizvi et al., 2011).
- The purpose of this study is to examine whether interpersonal disclosure helps reduce shame among individuals who are currently hospitalized for psychiatric reasons.
Personality & Emotions among NFL Fans
- More than 60% of Americans are sports fans, and football has been the most popular sport in the U.S. since the early 1970s (Gallup Poll, 2012). Team performance (e.g., wins and losses) even has an impact on fans' behavior before and after games; for example, some fans have game-time rituals and superstitions (e.g., Wilson et al., 2013) and people have been found to eat more, as a city, after their local team loses (Cornil & Chandon, 2013).
- The purpose of 2016 regular season study is to examine fan "traditions" and accuracy at making game-related predictions.
Effectiveness of Self-Acceptance Group Therapy
- Shame can be a debilitating emotion that people experience when they view themselves as somehow "not good enough" (Lewis, 1971). Because shame creates urges to withdraw from, avoid, or otherwise keep other people away, it is associated with a wide range of unwanted outcomes and distress (e.g., depression, social anxiety, borderline personality disorder; Beck & Alford, 2009; Clark & Wells, 1995; Schoenleber & Berenbaum, 2012). However, the development of treatments specifically for shame is in its infancy.
- The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral group intervention that teaches skills for improving shame resilience and shame coping.
Emotion & Thinking Styles
- On the one hand, most people do not like experiencing unpleasant emotions (e.g., anger). On the other hand, only some people develop maladaptive ways of responding to unpleasant emotions. And it is not always the case that experiencing these emotions more often or more strongly predicts the development of maladaptive coping. For example, ruminating on the causes & consequences of an unpleasant emotion may decrease effective coping (e.g., Peters et al., 2014). Additionally, who we think of as responsible for causing our unpleasant emotions may influence both emotion type and how we respond to our emotions (e.g., Stuewig et al., 2010).
- The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of how people think about and/or relate to specific unpleasant emotions to elevations in those emotions and how people respond to them.
Effectiveness of Community-Based Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- In a partnership with the DBT clinic at the American Foundation for Counseling Services in Green Bay, Wisconsin, we are examine the helpfulness of DBT for individuals with elevated emotion dysregulation. DBT (Linehan, 1993) is an evidence-based, empirically supported treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD; e.g., Kliem et al., 2010). Information is being used to track patient outcomes and determine ways to make information about a patient's outcomes more accessible and digestible for the patient.
- The primary purpose of this study is improve clinic functioning and patient outcomes, as well as the accessibility of information to patients about their personal outcomes.
- A secondary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of DBT in a community-based setting, as well as examine moderators of treatment-related change in BPD symptoms.