Dr. Leslie Frazier, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University, and her colleague Maria Bazo Perez, MS, a doctoral candidate in the same department, studied eating disorder (ED) risk in menopause, funded by an MRI grant. They found that menopause symptoms and body dissatisfaction were associated with higher risk for EDs, reduced resilience, higher levels of dietary restraint, and binging and purging. In contrast, positive perceptions of aging, a resilience influence, were related to reduced maladaptive eating and increased healthy eating. Premenopause was associated with greater risk for disordered eating compared to perimenopause and postmenopause.
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Among U.S. Asian Indians, intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pressing but often understudied issue, particularly when it comes to its impact on family relationships mostly because many Asian Indians do not recognize IPV as trauma and are reluctant to seek help due to cultural values prioritizing family honor.
Dr. Ateka Contractor and Dr. Danica C. Slavish of University of North Texas Foundation, are using an MRI grant to explore how PTSD symptoms and sleep disturbances impact daily family life among Asian Indian adults who have experienced IPV. While trauma and poor sleep can make it harder to manage emotions and relationships, there’s little research on how these challenges play out in real-time within this community.
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Interpersonal dysfunction is a debilitating and difficult to treat, aspect of depression that strongly predicts a chronic course in depressed individuals. At the same time, interpersonal difficulties also increase the risk for depression in close relationship partners of those with depression – including friends and spouses – through a process called ‘depression contagion’.
Lillian Li, PhD, and her colleague, Stewart A. Shankman, PhD, at Northwestern University, using an MRI Grant, are testing the novel hypothesis that neural synchrony during negative and positive emotional contexts will longitudinally predict changes in depression severity and interpersonal stressors in adult close-friend dyads over 3 months. This approach builds upon Dr Li’s experience with EEG time-frequency analysis and her recently funded National Institute of Mental Health grant on neural synchrony during a negative emotional context (problem discussion) between adults with elevated depression symptoms and their same-sex close friend.
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Hannah Volpert-Esmond, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at El Paso used an MRI Grant to measure cardiovascular stress responses of 96 Latinx/Hispanic-identifying individuals while they described their experiences of discrimination either with a person that they brought with them to the lab , or a stranger.
When analyzing the data, results were surprising and unexpected.
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Mentoring training research lags. While most mentors are trained in strategies for building a positive connection, few mentors are specifically trained to meet youth’s emotional and mental health needs.
Dr. Lindsey Weiler, Associate Professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, using an MRI Grant, has taken a critical first step in this line of research by examining the extent to which it is feasible, acceptable, and useful to train mentors in emotion coaching. Emotion coaching is an accessible and impactful relational approach that fosters youth’s capacity to manage stress, emotions, and relationships.
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An MRI grant has funded the research of Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Oakland University. He has extended previous research by exploring the question of whether issues surrounding power mediate the associations that narcissistic personality traits have with indicators of romantic relationship functioning.
Dr. Zeigler-Hill recruited two samples. Sample 1 consisted of 698 participants who provided information about themselves and their romantic relationships, but their romantic partners did not participate. Sample 2 consisted of 350 participants (175 dyads) where both members of the dyad provided their information. All participants were required to be in a committed heterosexual relationship with their current partner for at least 6 months. Participants completed self-report measures of narcissistic personality traits, issues surrounding power in the romantic relationship, and romantic relationship functioning via a secure website.
The researcher expected that narcissistic personality traits and romantic relationship functioning would be mediated by issues concerning power. The results show that…
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Mental Research Institute (MRI) would like to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude…
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Research remains limited on the barriers and facilitators to anti-Black racism advocacy among non-Black individuals. To facilitate greater anti-racism advocacy, narrative storytelling interventions can be a powerful tool.
In this MRI funded study, Dr. Brian TaeHyuk Keum at Boston College, and his team, aim to refine the STOREY intervention by testing whether adding a critical group dialogue after viewing the video would improve the persuasive effect of the storytelling video. Additionally, Dr. TaeHyuk Keum and his team will test the longevity of the effect by assessing whether participants’ intentions and advocacy activities remain sustained one month after the intervention.
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People tend to exhibit health behaviors similar to those around them, especially their romantic partners or spouses. Studies of the inter-spousal correlation in health status among married couples in later life found a tendency to share lifestyle behaviors such as diet, smoking, and exercise. To date, however, research had not examined the romantic relationship context of serious prescription behaviors at the time of the prescription of a new opioid medication, a key medical event that commonly precedes longer-term, problematic opioid use or misuse.
Dr. Lauren M. Papp, Jane Rafferty Thiele Professor in Human Ecology and Professor of Human Development & Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, and her colleagues, used an MRI Grant to study this area of research.
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Dr. Ilana Haliwa, Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department of Salve Regina University, is using an MRI Grant to test the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of a brief interconnectedness meditation in improving perceived social support among college students.
Brief interconnectedness meditations have been found to promote feelings of connection; however, research has yet to explicitly test the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of these among college students. This is critical, as despite reporting high rates of depression and utilization of mental health services, interventions among college students is low, in part due to lack or time and preference for self-help.
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Cathy Cox, PhD, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at Texas Christian University, and her colleagues, are using an MRI grant to explore whether persons scoring high on EI, as compared to their low scoring counterparts, report lower levels of treatment engagement, counselor rapport and satisfaction, and reduced emotional, psychological and social well-being.
Existential isolation (EI) is the feeling of being alone in one’s subjective experience of the world, along with an awareness that no one can completely understand another person’s worldview. Assessed as both a situational state or a dispositional trait, EI is related to diminished physical health and psychological well-being. Existentially isolated individuals, for example, report lower meaning in life, self-esteem, identity loss, less support for communal values and declines in personality traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability.
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Couples raising an autistic child face additional challenges that may compromise both their relationships and their mental health; yet they are often neglected in couples’ research.
Chrystyna Kouros PhD, Professor in the Department of Psychology at SMU, and Naomi V. Ekas, PhD, Professor in the Department of Psychology at TCU, are using an MRI grant to explore the relationships of couples with either non-autistic or autistic children.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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.
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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…
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