Masculinities and Mental Health (Michael Addis)
This group, led by Dr. Addis, examines intersections between the social construction and social learning of masculinities and the mental health of people of all genders. Current studies focus on depression, sexual scripts, emotional silence and invisibility, fathering in the African context, and the development of critical awareness of masculinity.
Mental Health, Culture, and Community Research Program (Esteban Cardemil)
In the United States, well-documented mental health care disparities disproportionately affect individuals from low-income and cultural minority backgrounds. Our lab’s mission, carried out by faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, is to help reduce these scientific and service utilization gaps through a combination of basic and applied research that focuses on urban, cultural minority children, adults, and families. The research conducted by lab members covers a range of areas relevant to mental health care disparities, including developmental psychopathology, treatment-seeking services research, and intervention development. In all areas, a central focus is the elucidation of the role of cultural variables and processes. We’re currently active in these areas: Understanding Treatment-Seeking Behavior, Sociocultural Influences on Psychological Processes, Examining the Role of Culture in Psychotherapy, and Depression Prevention.
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Center for Couples and Family Research at Clark University (James Cordova)
The Center for Couples and Family Research at Clark University is a team clinical research effort consisting of faculty, doctoral, and undergraduate students. Our goal is to produce cutting-edge research on intimate relationships and on the development of focused interventions to promote relationship and marital health.
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Research on Diverse Families and Sexualities (Abbie Goldberg)
Abbie Goldberg’s research examines diverse families, including LGBTQ-parent families and adoptive-parent families, as well as the experiences of marginalized groups such as trans youth. A central theme of her research is the decentering of any “normal” or “typical” family, sexuality, or gender, to allow room for diverse families, sexualities, and genders. For the past 20 years, she has been conducting a longitudinal study of lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive families. In addition, she is currently conducting several studies examining the effects of state and federal legislation (e.g., regarding LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights) on LGBTQ people and families.
Motivation and Development Lab (Wendy Grolnick)
This lab, directed by Wendy Grolnick, studies children’s motivation and adjustment and the environments that facilitate or impede them. A focus of the work is predictors and effects of parents’ provision of autonomy support, structure, and involvement, which, from a self-determination theory perspective, are crucial to children’s movement toward greater self-regulation and competence. Current projects focus on the “how” of parent involvement, parenting and children’s anxiety disorders, and parenting and children’s chronic pain. The team is conducting a preventive parenting intervention (the Parent Check-In) to promote motivationally facilitative parenting.
Please note: Dr. Grolnick is no longer accepting new graduate students.
Child and Family Research Group (Amy Heberle)
Our lab is interested in studying the influence of social structures such as class and racial structures on young children’s mental health and development. We are interested in how children think about their and others’ social identities, how they understand the function of these identities within social structures, and how others (parents, teachers, and peers) socialize children with respect to their identities. All of these questions are motivated by an interest in the downstream impacts of identity beliefs and socialization on children’s emotional and social functioning. Recent work in the lab has focused on critical consciousness as a protective factor for children who are socially marginalized. Other recent work examines anti-racist and anti-classist parental socialization of young children with racial and/or class privilege.
Emotion Regulation Research Lab (Kathleen Palm Reed)
Kathleen Palm Reed directs this research group of graduate and undergraduate students in examining the role of emotion regulation (e.g. distress tolerance, psychological flexibility) in psychopathology and substance use disorders. Some of the lab’s ongoing and future projects include research on reducing stigma related to substance use disorders, and developing prevention programming for sexual assault and interpersonal violence among sexual and gender minorities.