Health Status, Age, and Emotion Regulation Among People with a Spinal Cord Injury
In our Spinal Cord Injury Study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, we are addressing stressor reactivity in a nationwide sample of adults with spinal cord injury. This understudied population is receiving substantially more attention in research because medicine has afforded them longer and more satisfying lives than in the past.
Stressor Reactivity Among Spousal Caregivers: Linking Psychological and Physiological Processes
In our Caregiver Study in collaboration with Dr. Sally Dickerson, we are assessing stressor reactivity among women over 65 who are caregivers for their husbands with Alzheimer’s disease. This group is particularly vulnerable because of their age and the fact that for many people, caregiving provides a background of chronic stress.
This study will include both a laboratory session and an eight-day diary component. Data gathered during the laboratory segment will include social-evaluative cognitive performance, psychosocial reactivity, physiological reactivity via an immunologic and neuroendocrine assessment (blood and saliva samples), and more global assessments of general psychological functioning and self-reported health. The eight-day diary component will include nightly interviews assessing daily stressors as well as cognitive appraisals and affective response to these stressors. On four of the interview days, saliva samples will be collected to assess how psychosocial stressors – and cognitive appraisals of the stressors – influence cortisol levels over the course of the day.
Work-Family Spillover ~ Behavioral Genetics Study
Emotional experiences at work, both positive and negative, can carry over and influence experiences at home. For example, stress in the workplace can translate into sleepless nights at home, or a success at work often forecasts an evening of celebration. The carryover of emotional experiences also moves in the opposite direction, where experiences in the home may give rise to experiences at work of similar emotional valence. These phenomena are referred to as spillover, where experiences of an emotional valence (positive or negative) from one domain of life transfer to another domain of life. The current study is among the first to explore the extent to which genetic factors and environmental factors explain the associations between the negative and positive spillovers across work and family domains. We predict that each spillover construct is influenced by both genetic and environmental influences, and we hypothesize that genetic effects are partially responsible for the association between spillover constructs similar in emotional valence (e.g., positive work-to-family and positive family-to-work). Moreover, we hypothesize that both genetic and environmental influences linking these spillover constructs will be shared with neuroticism and extraversion.
Affective Well-Being in Very Late Life
In collaboration with Drs. David Almeida, Carol Ryff, and Burton Singer, we are assessing stressor reactivity among women who relocated and then have been followed longitudinally. With Dr. Almeida, we will also be analyzing similar processes in a large nationwide study (The MIDUS study) of about 1,000 men and women funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
Interpersonal Tensions and Coping Strategy Motivations
Also using data from the MIDUS study, we are examining age differences in coping with interpersonal tensions (e.g., arguments and disagreements) and motivations for using these strategies. The motivations for endorsing the use of certain coping strategies may explain whether the coping strategies will be effective for reducing emotional reactivity.