Training Youth with Disruptive Behaviors as School-Based Peer Coaches
Stanley Huey, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California, and Katherine Galbraith, doctoral graduate student at University of Southern California, using an MRI grant, took a counterintuitive approach to remediating disruptive behaviors that deemphasizes the youth’s existing problems and focuses instead on training youth to help others. They developed a peer coach training model (PCT) which involves 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 youth serve as coaches for other youth. They built on the work of prior researchers that showed the benefits of “peer therapist training” for delinquent girls. That study found that training girls as “peer therapists” was more effective than alternative approaches at reducing recidivism.
Read More
The relation between prenatal stress and infant negative emotionality: Buffering effects of maternal predictability
Stress exposure during pregnancy can program infants to adverse mental health outcomes later in life. Placental corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH), a stress responsive hormone regulated by the placenta, can be measured as an indicator of stress exposure during pregnancy.
Özlü Aran, MS, a sixth-year developmental psychology doctoral student at the University of Denver, hypothesizes that adverse developmental outcomes can be prevented via predictable and warm relationships with caregivers. She is using an MRI grant to study whether the association between higher levels of placental CRH due to stress and greater negative emotionality in infancy can be buffered through maternal predictability.
This study will be the first to test whether the association between higher levels of stress responsive placental CRH and greater negative emotionality in infancy can be buffered through maternal predictability.
Read More
Integrating psychosis Recovery by Enabling Adult Carers at Home (psychosis REACH) in an early psychosis clinic
Psychosis typically develops during late adolescence and early adulthood. Due to its early onset, as well as the high likelihood of chronicity, psychosis is associated with diagnoses that are considered to be among the most disabling health conditions worldwide. Yet outcomes are greatly improved by intervening at the earliest possible point.
Psychosis REACH (Recovery by Enabling Adult Carers at Home) is a Family Intervention for psychosis that delivers both psychoeducation and evidence-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychosis (CBTp)-informed skills to family caregivers in the community and can be delivered within a CSC setting. This approach was developed at the University of Washington under the leadership of Dr. Sarah Kopelovich in collaboration with leaders in the field of CBTp including Professor Douglas Turkington and Dr. Kate Hardy.
Read More
Does positive parenting improve emotion regulation in at-risk youth across the transition to adolescence?
Rates of adolescent internalizing problems (especially anxiety and depressive symptoms) have increased over 40% in the past decade leading the US Surgeon General to declare a youth mental health crisis. There is an imminent public health need to study processes that mitigate risk for internalizing disorders prior to adolescence, an acute developmental inflection point for increased risk.
Dr. Bridget Callaghan, Assistant Professor, and Dr. Jennifer Somers, Postdoctoral Fellow, in the Department of Psychology at UCLA are using an MRI grant to add an important second year, longitudinal measure to an earlier study measuring youth psychopathology and child interaction in a recovery from conflict task.
Read More
NIH funded research investigates how physicians communicate implicit bias when they interact with Hispanic patients during a clinical visit.
Studies suggest that if negative attitudes and stereotypes are automatically activated when a provider encounters a stigmatized patient, they can affect nonverbal forms of bias like how long the provider spends with the patient, the extent to which the provider dominates the conversation and expresses positive affect (Hagiwara et al., 2020).
Dr. Jeff Stone, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona received support from the Mental Research Institute to conduct research and investigate how physicians communicate implicit bias when they interact with Hispanic patients during a clinical visit.
Read More
Promoting healthy and supportive couple relationships through sustainable, evidence-based program delivery
Maintaining a healthy and supportive couple relationship can be a trying endeavor for many couples, with national estimates suggesting as many as one-third of marriages are distressed, a statistic that may be a conservative estimate at present given the challenges many couples are facing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The presence and prevalence of this distress is nontrivial, as unmitigated relationship distress forecasts a variety of negative outcomes for individuals, their families, and the broader community.
In response to the prevalence of relationship distress across the country and its negative effect on adults and children, a myriad of relationship education and intervention programs have been developed…
Read More
The Nurturing Connections Intervention for Mother-Infant Dyads
The perinatal period is a critical phase in the lives of mothers and infants. Numerous studies have shown that perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) are the most common risks associated with childbirth. PMADs and related psychosocial stressors may result in significant impairment in maternal and infant functioning as well as disturbances in the quality of the mother-infant relationship.
Read More
Thank You
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued interest in MRI and to give you some news on our grants…
Read More
Preventing Postpartum Depression Via an Online, Self-study Approach for Couples at Elevated Risk
Postpartum depression (PPD) affects about 12% of women and is a strong risk factor for paternal PPD, which affects about 9% of men. The negative consequences of untreated parental PPD for infants’ wellbeing persist through childhood and adolescence and include a range of mental health, relational and cognitive problems.
Yunying (Annie) Le, PhD, Research Assistant Professor in the department of Psychology at the University of Denver, is using an MRI grant to address this gap with an important study. Her project has two research aims.
Read More
Evaluating Promoting Resilience in Self-Management (PRISM) in Community Settings
Drs. Carissa D’Aniello-Heyda, Associate Professor of Community, Family and Addiction Services at Fairfield University, Rachel Tambling, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut and Beth Russell, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut used an MRI grant in a pilot study to test whether the PRISM Program can relieve caregiver anxiety, depression, perceived stress and burden…
Read More
Culturally Adapting Relationship Education for Latino Sexual Minority Men
Latino sexual minority men (LSMM) face mental health, substance use, and sexual health disparities, partially driven by minority stress. They also face significant, intersectional cultural challenges to forming healthy, strong romantic and sexual relationships with other men. These challenges are, in part, related to their intersecting Latino and sexual minority identities (e.g., family rejection, internalized stigma, scarce culturally salient role models for healthy dating, cultural norms regarding race and ethnicity among gay and bisexual men, substance use norms among sexual minority men).
Read More
Narcissism and Romantic Relationship Functioning: The Mediating Roles of Coercive and Collaborative Theories of Power
MRI recently awarded $25,000 to support Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill’ s project titled “Narcissism and Romantic Relationship Functioning: The Mediating Roles of Coercive and Collaborative Theories of Power.” Dr. Zeigler-Hill is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Oakland University in Michigan. The goal of this research was to gain a better understanding of how individuals with narcissistic personality features perceive and respond to issues surrounding power dynamics in their romantic relationships.
Read More
Possible Selves in Midlife Women: Toward a more diverse understanding of social and contextual factors related to risk for disordered eating
Most eating disorders (ED) research has focused on young women. This has left other vulnerable groups largely overlooked, such as middle-aged women and those from minority backgrounds. Leslie Frazier, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University, and her team, are using an MRI grant to address this gap in the literature and to better understand the extent and the nature of eating disorder risk in menopausal women. Their research will develop and test a theoretically driven model of the influences of biopsychosocial, intra- and interpersonal and sociocultural factors that may impact culturally diverse middle- aged women’s self-perceptions, body image, emotional regulation and risk for ED’s.
Read More
Couples in Conflict: Bridging the Systemic Divide
Dr. Nathan Hardy was given a grant from Mental Research Institute to develop and then test a systemic relationship education program against the traditional behavioral-based method of relationship education.
Read More
Hope Through Strengths Results
Results, based upon clinic data from the Summer of 2022, suggest that the Hope Through Strengths protocol successfully reduces psychological distress while simultaneously increasing the hope and well-being of clients. This is a vital step in demonstrating the clinical efficacy of strength-based interventions.
Read More
Dyadic analyses of relational processes among Mozambique couples
Matthew A. Diemer, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Professor of Education at the University of Michigan received an MRI grant to examine relational processes more closely and deeply in couples (i.e., male partner processes impacting female partner processes, and vice versa) in Mozambique, via a dyadic structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Dr. Diemer repurposed existing measures of partner support, trust in medical professionals, and internalized HIV stigma – which were developed and validated in North America – to the Mozambican context. He hypothesized they, along with partner empathy, are likely important mediators of the relationships between the HoPS+ intervention (which emphasizes male partner involvement) and key child and maternal health outcomes. Because Mozambique has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, this work holds the potential to address this critical problem.
Read More
Prenatal Pandemic Stress and Intimate Partner Violence Intervention, Preliminary Results
Laura Miller-Graff, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and Kathryn Howell, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis, used an MRI grant to support additional data collection related to an ongoing NICHD-funded study evaluating the effectiveness of such an intervention. The study is ongoing, but Drs. Miller-Graff and Howell are reporting some very exciting preliminary results.
Read More
Associations between Social Support and Symptoms of PTSD among Malaysian and Australian Trauma Survivors
Laura Jobson, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology at The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and her team have been exploring the cultural differences in social support on the symptoms of PTSD…
Read More
Quantifying Cohesion in Parent-child Relationships
Dr. Kirby Deater-Deckard, Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his team have completed their research, “Quantifying cohesion in the parent-child relationship in a complex family system.” In this project they developed several methods and tools for operationalizing parent-child/teen [3- 16yrs old] cohesion (e.g. closeness, communication) in their relationships, by examining "similarity" in and "consistency" of relational/social behavior to identify patterns that promote or impede cohesion and that may influence mental and behavioral health.
Read More
Testing a Brief Social Belonging Intervention to Improve Social Relationships and Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dr. Jenalee Doom, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Denver, and Dr. Christopher Rozek, Assistant Professor of Education at Washington University in St. Louis, have completed their research developing, testing, and implementing interventions for helping high school students cope with social and emotional problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their research, supported by an MRI grant, has produced interesting and very positive results.
Read More
