Primary Research Questions

Broadly speaking, our research is aimed at understanding how couple and family relationships ameliorate or perpetuate depression, anxiety, and related indicators of health (e.g., alcohol use, sleep dysfunction, poor diet). Our work is largely focused on couple relationships, investigating how multiple relationship processes (e.g., humanization and respect, support, closeness and intimacy, sexual satisfaction, conflict management strategies) impact partners and their children. However, we also investigate larger family system processes (e.g., aspects of the parent-child relationship, coparenting dynamics) that contribute to health and well-being. We conduct research that has the translational goal of informing interventions that minimize family dysfunction, build healthy couple dynamics, and promote adult and child health throughout the lifespan. There are four primary lines of inquiry we are currently pursuing:

  1. Family resiliency in the context of stress, adversity, and trauma: How do couples and families navigate various forms of stress and adversity (e.g., economic hardship, trauma, discrimination and marginalization stress, major life transitions), and what are sources of risk or resiliency within the family (e.g., partner support, responsive parenting)? The team is currently conducting research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on couples and families with young children, how couples navigate the stress associated with pregnancy and childbirth, and the impact of discrimination and harassment on sexual and gender minority couples living in rural Nebraska.
  2. Regulatory processes linking family processes to health outcomes: How do family relationships contribute to key regulatory processes that, in turn, play a central role in health? The research team is currently investigating how family relationships promote the development of executive functioning in preschoolers, how intimate partners can promote self-compassion and psychological flexibility, and how parents socialize their children around emotions and promote emotion regulation (e.g., through mindful parenting).
  3. Differential susceptibility and sensitivity to family environments. How do adults and children differentially experience and respond to their environments? The team is currently investigating how individuals exhibiting traits indicative of high sensitivity to the environment falter or flourish in the context of different family dynamics.
  4. Measurement of couple and family relationships. We pursue novel and innovative ways of measuring family relationships and systems using multiple methodologies (self-report, interview, behavioral observation). For example, members of the research team have published a behavioral observation coding system for measuring mutually responsive orientation in couple relationships (i.e., the degree of synchronicity, cooperation, and positive emotional expression between partners) along with other measures assessing dimensions of intimate relationships (The Support in Intimate Relationships Rating Scale-RevisedThe Relationship Quality Interview). We also have several scale development projects that are underway.