Children’s emotional challenges unfold in everyday moments—during homework struggles, sibling conflicts, and daily disappointments—often before young children have the cognitive flexibility to manage frustration on their own. In the MRI-funded project Regulating Together: Cueing Parents to Reframe Negative Emotions for Their Children, Principal Investigator Dr. Cora Mukerji and Co-Investigator Ariana Orvell (Bryn Mawr College) examine whether prompting caregivers to use specific regulatory strategies during children’s distress leads to measurable changes in children’s emotional responses. The study focuses on cognitive reappraisal, a reframing strategy linked to adaptive outcomes but still cognitively demanding in early childhood, highlighting parents’ potential role in scaffolding regulation. Using a randomized experimental design with children ages 5–7, dyads are assigned to parent cueing conditions involving reappraisal prompts, emotional validation, or non-intervention while children complete a frustrating task. By integrating parent and child reports, behavioral coding, and performance indicators, the project advances a mechanistic understanding of co-regulation with direct translational relevance for parenting programs and school-based supports.

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Much of relationship science has focused on major relational events—conflict episodes, disclosures, transitions, and stressors—but everyday coordination may be just as consequential for long-term satisfaction. Couples constantly manage prospective memory demands: remembering future tasks, delegating responsibilities, and following through on shared plans, and when these intentions fail, partners often assign relational meaning to the lapse. In the MRI-funded project Shared Remembering in Romantic Relationships: A Mixed-Methods Diary Study of Intention Communication, Dr. Gabriel Cook (Claremont McKenna College) investigates how married partners coordinate prospective memory in naturalistic contexts. Using a four-day online diary design, participants record intentions for themselves, intentions delegated to a partner, and intentions communicated by a partner, tracking whether each was completed, reprioritized, canceled, or forgotten—and how it was remembered (e.g., alarms, spontaneous recall, partner prompting). The study also assesses relationship satisfaction, communication quality, perceived memory functioning, and transactive memory systems to test whether stronger “shared remembering” structures are linked to fewer breakdowns and greater relational well-being. By combining human coding with natural language processing to examine how intention wording signals support-seeking versus responsibility transfer, the project reframes remembering as a dyadic process—revealing how small coordination moments can shape trust, fairness, and the feeling of being on the same team.

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The perinatal period is a developmentally sensitive time, and when severe depression, anxiety, or related conditions arise, the consequences can extend beyond individual distress to the earliest patterns of parent–infant connection. In the MRI-funded project Clinical Outcomes of an Intensive Mother–Baby Program for Perinatal Mental Illness, Dr. Gretchen Buchanan (Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute) evaluates outcomes associated with the Redleaf Center for Family Healing in Minnesota, a model that intentionally integrates psychiatric care with relational support. The study uses a retrospective cohort design spanning approximately 2,000 patients who received services between 2013 and 2025, allowing examination of service utilization and outcomes across pre- and post-COVID healthcare shifts. Outcomes include validated patient-reported measures of depression (EPDS), anxiety (GAD-7), maternal functioning (BIMF), and bonding (PBQ), paired with demographic and diagnostic information from electronic health records. Analyses will map changes in patient characteristics over time, identify predictors of retention and dropout, and test whether improvements observed in earlier program evaluations are sustained across the broader cohort and multiple levels of care. Ultimately, this work aims to strengthen implementation-informed perinatal mental health services by clarifying where engagement barriers emerge and how intensive mother–baby programming can better support both psychiatric recovery and relational well-being.

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We often assume we understand our partner’s emotional world—but everyday emotional life moves quickly, and perception isn’t always precise. In the MRI-funded project Seeing Clearly or Seeing Through Tinted Glasses: How Accurate and Biased Perceptions of Emotions Influence Romantic Relationships, Jenny D. V. Le (University of Rochester) examines how romantic partners perceive each other’s emotions in daily life, and how both accuracy (tracking emotional changes) and bias (systematically over- or underestimating emotions and influence) relate to relationship satisfaction.

Using a two-phase design, the project followed 197 cohabiting couples through a 14-day daily diary and then conducted a five-year follow-up with a substantial subset. Results show that partners generally track daily emotional shifts well, but tend to underestimate both their partner’s emotional intensity and their own emotional influence. These patterns matter: underestimating a partner’s negative emotions predicts lower next-day partner satisfaction, while accurately tracking negative emotions predicts higher next-day partner satisfaction. Over time, a modest view of one’s emotional influence is linked with greater partner satisfaction, suggesting that humility about impact may support sustained engagement and connection.

This work helps refine our understanding of emotional attunement in close relationships and offers practical insight for interventions focused on emotional calibration and responsive support.

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Neighborhood stress doesn’t stay on the street—it can show up at home, shaping mood, sleep, and the way couples support one another.

Neighborhood Stress and Mental Health: The Protective Role of Couple Relationship Functioning in Rural African American Communities is an MRI-funded research project led by Principal Investigator Dr. Man-Kit Lei (University of Georgia). The study examines whether strong couple functioning—such as relationship confidence, communication quality, satisfaction, and perceived partner support—can help buffer depressive symptoms in the face of chronic neighborhood stress.

Using data from 346 middle-aged African American couples who participated in the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) randomized trial, the research team links geocoded residential addresses to neighborhood indicators like economic disadvantage, housing strain, healthcare access, environmental pollutants, and residential segregation. This multilevel approach helps clarify how structural conditions “get under the skin,” and—importantly—how resilience may emerge through supportive romantic partnerships.

By integrating geospatial data with relationship processes, this MRI-funded work aims to inform more context-sensitive, culturally responsive strategies to reduce mental health disparities in rural communities where structural stressors are persistent and difficult to change quickly.

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What happens to recovery when trauma shows up in everyday moments—classrooms, friendships, and family conversations? In the MRI-funded project Developing an Intervention to Improve Social Interactions and Relationships Among Afghan Refugee Adolescents, Dr. Sayed Jafar Ahmadi (Bard College) and collaborators piloted METRA+, a school-based group intervention for Afghan refugee youth ages 10–19 in Quetta, Pakistan. METRA+ integrates relational skill-building with evidence-informed trauma approaches to strengthen communication, emotional regulation, and social functioning in low-resource, post-conflict contexts. The program includes three modules—Compassionate Communication, Written Exposure Therapy, and Memory Specificity Training—delivered by trained facilitators within the school day. Preliminary findings suggest reductions in PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms, alongside reported improvements in emotion regulation and interpersonal communication.

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Mental health care does not unfold outside of social context, particularly for Two-Spirit, transgender, and nonbinary Black and Brown people of color navigating racialized transphobia and systemic oppression. In the MRI-funded project Incorporating Radical Healing and Addressing Internalized Transnegativity in Psychotherapy for Two-Spirit, Transgender, and Nonbinary People of Color: An Open Clinical Trial, Dr. Stephanie Budge of the University of Wisconsin–Madison evaluated a psychotherapy model intentionally designed to address oppression-based stress. The intervention, Healing through Ongoing Psychological Empowerment (HOPE), integrates radical healing principles with strategies to reduce internalized stigma and foster critical consciousness. Findings from the mixed-methods clinical trial identified therapist validation grounded in shared identity and sociopolitical awareness, along with participants’ development of critical consciousness, as central mechanisms of change. By examining not only whether therapy works but how and why it works, this MRI-funded research advances culturally responsive psychotherapy science and strengthens pathways to affirming, intersectionally attuned mental health care.

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Mental health disparities among sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth are well documented, but less is known about how family and school contexts work together to shape different profiles of risk and resilience. In the MRI-funded project Sexual and Gender Diverse Mental Health: The Role of Family Relationships and School Experiences, Dr. Ryan Watson (University of Connecticut) investigates how combinations of family acceptance/rejection and school climate—such as teacher support and safety—relate to stress, anxiety, and depression among LGBTQ+ adolescents. The study harmonizes two large national datasets to increase analytic precision and uses decision-tree methods to identify meaningful subgroup patterns. Findings are intended to inform actionable guidance for families, educators, clinicians, and policymakers to better support SGD youth well-being.

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Cancer doesn’t just change bodies—it changes the emotional rules of the relationship. In the MRI-funded project Emotion Regulation and Psychological Well-Being among Cancer Caregiver–Patient Dyads, Dr. William Tsai (New York University) investigates how caregivers and patients regulate emotions together, and how those strategies relate to mental health and relationship quality over time. Following approximately 175 caregiver–patient pairs across baseline, three months, and six months, the study models how one partner’s efforts to support emotions can affect both their own adjustment and their partner’s. By treating coping as a dyadic process, this work points toward early, relationship-centered interventions that strengthen communication and sustain mutual resilience during treatment and adaptation.

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In many families, childhood anxiety becomes an invisible “third parent,” shaping routines, decisions, and connection. In the MRI-funded project Impact of a Systemic Child Anxiety Intervention on Family Functioning and Relationship Quality, Dr. Rebecca Etkin (Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine) is evaluating whether reducing family accommodation—the reassurance and routine changes parents use to ease distress—can improve both children’s anxiety and families’ relational functioning. Delivered in schools through a partnership with the Howard County Public School System, the project tests a brief, seven-session SPACE-based parent group led by trained school social workers. By tracking parent–child relationship quality, co-parent functioning, and overall family functioning alongside anxiety symptoms, the study advances a more systemic, relationship-centered approach to intervention.

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Parenting research has too often treated white, middle-class norms as the default—leaving culturally grounded parenting styles vulnerable to being misunderstood. In the MRI-funded project Capturing Cultural Socialization Practices of Black American Mothers: Active Direction and Socioeconomic Variability, Dr. Katharine Suma (University of Georgia) investigates whether “Active Direction” reflects socioeconomic strain or a meaningful cultural socialization strategy. By examining mother–toddler interactions across a socioeconomically diverse sample, the work offers a more accurate lens for interpreting how guidance, warmth, and autonomy can coexist in real time. The takeaway is bigger than measurement: when research tools fit cultural realities, educators and clinicians are better positioned to support families with respect—and precision.

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In an MRI-funded project, Dr. Ilana Haliwa of Salve Regina University examined whether a brief, 10-minute interconnectedness meditation could enhance perceived social support and improve emotional functioning among undergraduates. Using a randomized experimental design, the study compared interconnectedness meditation, mindful breathing, and an educational control condition. While students found the meditation practices acceptable and easy to implement, a single brief session did not significantly change perceived social support, emotional reactivity, or attentional bias. These findings provide important guidance for future intervention development, suggesting that greater dosage or sustained practice may be necessary to meaningfully shift socio-emotional processes. This work advances a systems-informed understanding of how perceived connection shapes student mental health.

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Adolescence is marked by rapid developmental change, heightened emotional reactivity, and increased vulnerability to both internalizing and externalizing difficulties. In the MRI-funded project Improving Human Relationships through Youth Mentors’ Use of Emotion Coaching, Dr. Lindsey Weiler at the University of Minnesota examined whether integrating emotion coaching into youth mentoring is feasible and beneficial. Implemented within Campus Connections, a 12-week mentoring program serving youth ages 11–18, the study trained 88 adult mentors in emotion coaching and provided ongoing support during program delivery. Using a sequential mixed-method design, the project assessed feasibility and perceived effectiveness alongside mentor self-efficacy and shifts in emotion coaching versus dismissing responses. Results indicated strong feasibility and meaningful improvements in mentors’ coaching practices and self-efficacy, with decreases in dismissing tendencies. Notably, mentors’ emotion coaching was positively associated with mentoring relationship quality, underscoring emotional responsiveness as a key relational mechanism.

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War disrupts more than physical safety—it can destabilize the relationships that help young people cope and recover. In the MRI-funded project Understanding How Interpersonal Relationships and Social Support During War Promote Resilience and Recovery, Dr. Ann Skinner (Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University) examines how peer, family, and school-based support shapes mental health among Ukrainian adolescents and young adults living through ongoing conflict. Using a multimethod design that pairs self-report data with biological indicators of chronic stress and location-linked records of war-related events, the study aims to clarify how interpersonal resilience operates under sustained threat. Findings are expected to inform trauma-informed, relationship-centered supports for youth during war and in the aftermath.

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Dr. Stephanie Irby Coard at the University of North Carolina Greensboro is leading an MRI-funded project, Centering Youth Voices: Humanizing Mental Health Through Lived Experience Storytelling, that asks a powerful question: what changes when adolescents learn about mental health not through statistics, but through peers’ real stories. Grounded in contact-based anti-stigma theory and adapted for youth ages 14–17, the project trains 10 youth storytellers in trauma-informed practices that prioritize boundaries, emotional safety, and agency—not just disclosure. Their stories are shared through moderated school- and community-based sessions designed to do more than build awareness; they aim to shift peer norms around what is “sayable,” survivable, and help-worthy. Using a mixed-methods evaluation with about 200 youth audience members, the team pairs pre–post surveys (stigma, empathy, mental health literacy, and help-seeking intentions) with focus groups, observations, and interviews that examine how conversations unfold and how disclosure impacts storytellers themselves. With intentional attention to elevating voices that are often marginalized in mainstream mental health narratives—and in collaboration with partners like NAMI Wake County—the project is working toward a replicable, sustainable model that schools and youth organizations can carry forward to make support feel less risky and connection more possible.

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Adolescence is shaped by peer relationships, belonging, and identity—yet many teens are reporting increasing loneliness and psychological distress. In this MRI-funded project, Dr. Blake Colaianne (The Pennsylvania State University) is piloting Relate, a student-informed mindfulness and compassion curriculum that treats well-being as something built within relationships and broader social contexts. The study included 52 high school students from 13 Pennsylvania school districts in an eight-week virtual program. Researchers are examining feasibility and perceived relevance, along with changes in perceived interconnection, compassion, and inclusive behavior. Early interest from schools also suggests promising potential for Relate to expand into a semester-long elective.

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Social support is one of the most cited protective factors for postpartum mental health—but “support” is often treated as a vague catch-all rather than a relationship with specific functions and conditions. Dr. Sarah Curci at the University of Denver is leading an MRI-funded project that brings a sharper lens to a frequently overlooked figure in perinatal care: the maternal grandmother. Embedded within an ongoing study of approximately 900 pregnant individuals receiving prenatal care at Denver Health, this mixed-methods research examines how different kinds of grandmother support—emotional, practical, informational, and culturally grounded—relate to postpartum adjustment. The study also considers key context, including relationship quality, proximity, and frequency of contact, to understand when support is protective and when it may be psychologically costly. By combining survey data with in-depth interviews, the project aims to translate family-systems insight into more precise, real-world strategies for perinatal prevention and care.

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Busy families make dozens of small decisions each day—especially around snacks, screen time, and how to handle big emotions in little kids. Dr. Anita Fuglestad at the University of North Florida is leading an MRI-funded project examining how everyday parenting practices with food and screens relate to parent–child interactions and children’s emotional development. Using a mobile, real-time method called Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), parents will complete brief check-ins across two weeks to capture what’s happening in the moment—rather than relying only on memory. The study explores whether using food or screens to manage emotions (for example, calming, distracting, or rewarding) may sometimes replace opportunities for children to build emotion regulation skills through supportive parent–child connection. By identifying patterns in daily life, this research aims to inform practical, family-centered strategies that strengthen relationships and support healthy emotional development in early childhood.

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Romantic relationships can be a powerful source of stability—but when communication and conflict become difficult, the impact on mental health can be significant. Dr. Naomi Ekas at Texas Christian University is leading an MRI-funded project examining how romantic relationship functioning and mental health influence one another for autistic adults. Using a multi-method design with 225 couples recruited through SPARK, the study combines surveys on relationship quality, conflict, intimacy, and depressive symptoms with a recorded Zoom session where couples discuss both challenging and positive topics. These conversations are then coded using established observational systems to capture how partners actually interact in real time. By following couples over six months, the team aims to identify which relationship patterns support well-being—and which may increase risk. This work will help inform more tailored, evidence-based relationship supports for neurodiverse couples.

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Becoming a mother can feel like gaining a new identity—and losing parts of an old one at the same time. Chelsea Cortright (Lehigh University) is leading an MRI-funded study, Lost and Found, to better understand how new mothers navigate this shift and how it relates to the developing mother–infant relationship. Using a mixed-methods approach, the project follows first-time mothers from pregnancy into the postpartum period to examine how different “identity processing styles” shape confidence, self-concept, and well-being after birth. The study also explores whether social pressures—like intensive expectations about what “good motherhood” should look like—make identity changes easier to integrate or harder to cope with. Alongside surveys, in-depth interviews will capture mothers’ lived experiences of change, including moments of growth, loss, and adjustment. Ultimately, this work aims to identify insights that can inform supportive, evidence-based ways to help families thrive during the transition to parenthood.

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