Bullying is a significant problem for students in the U.S., peaking in middle school. The STAC intervention is a brief bullying bystander intervention developed by Aida Midgett, Ed.D. to train middle school students how to defend students who are targets of bullying. STAC stands for the four bullying intervention strategies: “Stealing the Show,” “Turning it Over,” “Accompanying Others,” and “Coaching Compassion.”
Read MoreFindings indicate that virtual services may help Thriving Families reach underrepresented populations even more. With these results, Dr. Rhoades and her team expanded their virtual services beyond the Denver metro area…
Read MoreDr. Papp and her team are working to determine the extent to which partner factors contribute to an individual’s increasing risk of opioid misuse in the short-term following a new prescription. Their hypothesis is that the romantic relationship context is a robust predictor of opioid misuse risk and problematic prescription behaviors. This study will augment an ongoing study of 80 adults (and their partners) who receive a new prescription for non-chronic pain during an emergency department (ED) visit.
Read MoreDr. Harry Reis, Professor of Psychology at the University of Rochester, and his team, have completed their very interesting and important Couples in Everyday Life Study addressing this research deficit. Consistent with MRI’s focus, the project conceptualizes emotion regulation as a dynamic, interactional process. And although the focus of partner emotion regulation appears to be on the target, emotion regulation can be beneficial for both the target as well as the regulator. A regulator’s enthusiastic response to positive emotions can help targets feel more positive emotion, and their effort in alleviating a target’s negative emotions in a stressful situation can help buffer them from also experiencing stress.
Read MoreJames R. Muruthi, PhD, at The University of Oregon, is conducting research that they hope will increase the understanding of the informal support for better psychological health among aging Kenyans by clarifying the significant characteristics of support associated with good health. They will also demystify the pathways through which informal support impacts the relationship between SES induced stress and psychological distress. Such clarification will in the future inform the creation of peer-based intervention to enhance psychological health among aging Kenyans.
Read MoreSuicide is the leading cause of death of youth worldwide and there is evidence that it may be worsening. To help reverse this trend we need new methods to identify teens and pre-teens who are at risk of suicide. Widespread cell phone use among these youth combined with their willingness to divulge personal feelings online often before telling families or anyone else directly make cell phones a potentially valuable tool to identify these troubled youth.
Read MoreBrett J. Peters, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology and Abriana M. Gresham, Ph.D. Student at Ohio University, have shared preliminary findings of the very interesting longitudinal study that they and their team (Drs. Gery Karantzas, Linda D. Cameron, and Jeffry A. Simpson) conducted, “Examining prospective associations between COVID-19 stressors, IPV, and health behaviors.”
The study had two primary hypotheses. The first was that greater COVID-19 stressors (financial anxiety, social disconnectedness, COVID-19 related health concerns, and perceived COVID-19 stress and impact) would predict increases in interpersonal violence (IPV) victimization over time. The second was that increases in IPV victimization would predict residual increases in movement outside the home and substance abuse and decreases in physical and mental health over time. Measurements were taken at two periods of time, described as Wave 1 and Wave 2.
Read MoreDoctor Laura Jobson, from Monash University, one of Australia’s leading universities, was granted $23,300 to explore cultural differences in social support and quality of social networks following adverse life events.
Read MoreAs this year is ending, we would like to thank you for being part of the MRI community. It is our privilege to be able to count you among our friends, supporters, and grantees.
Read MoreThe goal of the program is to address the emotional needs of mothers and infants as well as mother-infant interactions. The curriculum will empower mothers to explore their past relationships and how they may influence their current emotional experiences and interpersonal interactions. It is postulated that when mothers become more emotionally available to and attuned with their infant, stronger mother-infant relationships ensue and form the basis for optimal development trajectories for infants.
Read MoreDr. Jenalee Doom, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Denver, using an MRI grant, is the first to examine whether siblings may buffer stress responses across both childhood and adolescence. She is trying to understand whether sibling relationships may be effective buffers of stress responses. Dr. Doom hypothesizes that siblings may be effective buffers because, unlike peers, there is less pressure to feel accepted and liked by them. As a result, siblings may be more comforting in adolescence than either parents or peers during stressful situations.
Read MoreResearch has shown that psychosis is not only detrimental to the individual, but it is also highly disruptive to the family system. Early comprehensive and evidence-based interventions for psychosis, that target both the individual and their support system, increase the likelihood of long-term positive outcomes.
Read MoreWith an MRI grant Dr. Hardy and his team are comparing how systemic interventions perform against traditional behavioral interventions in couple relationship education. They hypothesize that systemic interventions will more strongly benefit couples around their common conflictual issues to a greater degree than skills training.
Read MoreGregory M. Fosco, PhD is using an MRI grant to develop a mobile application for the delivery of empirically supported family strengthening modules, which may be a critical break-through in universal family-based prevention efforts.
Read MoreDr. Huey is using an MRI grant to further validate his PCT intervention with middle-school youth referred for school discipline problems. PCT deemphasizes the youth’s existing problems and focuses instead on teaching positive skills to youth and encouraging them to influence their peers. The goal is to facilitate the development of new “helper” identities by having target youths serve as coaches for other youths.
Read MoreThe MRI grant is allowing Dr. Stone to analyze audio recordings of interactions between 110 medical residents and 700 Hispanic patients. The research questions are: 1. Does implicit bias predict physician verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal communication patterns? And 2. Do these communication behaviors mediate the relationship between physician implicit bias and patient satisfaction with the clinical care they receive?
This research will provide evidence of how these processes operate in a larger sample of providers, and especially with Hispanic patients who are the fastest growing group of ethnic minorities in the US. Additionally, the results of this research will inform new training and education in medicine.
Read MoreDr. Brian Cole, Assistant Professor and Director of Training in the Department of Educational Psychology, is using an MRI grant to examine this 2020 data to assess the effectiveness of the Hope Through Strengths intervention.
Dr. Cole aims to answer the following questions: Does HTS promote enhanced subjective, social, and psychological well-being? Does HTS relieve psychological symptom distress such as reduced anxiety and depression? Which positive psychological interventions best predict improvements to symptom distress, well-being, and therapeutic alliance? Does HTS promote strengths-based competency, empathy, hope, and reduced burnout of student clinicians?
Read MoreThe CCET-SMS is an innovative relationship education program that focuses explicitly on teaching same-gender couples about sources of sexual minority stress, its impact on individual and relational well-being, while allowing for participants to learn and practice dyadic coping skills found to be beneficial in reducing the deleterious effects of stress.
Read MoreHannah Volpert-Esmond, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at El Paso, is using an MRI grant to better understand the relationship between family support and resilience in the face of discrimination related stress. It is unclear whether and how strong family relationships attenuate the negative effects of discrimination on mental and physical health. This study is addressing this gap…
Read MoreIndia is estimated to have more than 57 million people are affected by depression, making it a major public health concern. The prevalence of depression is especially high among young adults and urban dwellers. Despite its prevalence, there is limited literature examining the factors that contribute to depression in this population, resulting in Indian scholars and practitioners to heavily depend on research conducted in high-income countries. And Pankhuri Aggarwal, a PhD Candidate at Miami University in Ohio, is using an MRI grant to address this gap and to promote culturally informed practices associated with conceptualizing and treating depression.
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