studies & articles

The Blog

One of the many pleasures of being a professor was feeling the need to stay on top of the research in psychology. When I first learned about the half-life of knowledge, the literature typically said it was 3-5 years in technical fields. As a retired professor, I am still a member of the American Psychological Association and subscribe to a service that delivers abstracts and open-source articles from a large number of journals. As an alumna of Harvard, I also get information from them and I have the time to peruse multiple sources. This is a pleasure most professionals don’t have, especially if they value
work-life balance.

I still love research and, when I was asked to write the blog, I enthusiastically agreed. I try to select articles based on their relevance to practitioners, but also to capture both emerging themes and important corrections. I am hopeful that, moving forward, we will have ways to enable readers to easily engage in conversations with me and each other.

-Dr. Karen Nelson

Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Cultural socialization and ethnic-racial pride 

Livas Stein, Christophe, Castro-Schillo, Alvarado & Robins (2023) published “Longitudinal links between maternal cultural socialization, peer ethnic-racial discrimination, and ethnic-racial pride in Mexican American youth” in Child Development. This article is available as full text so I am dramatically editing it here:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Mothers’ parenting self-efficacy, attachment, and parenting

I have indicated before that I like research on attachment. This is an important paper. Cao, Zhou & Leerkes (2023) published “Primiparous Mothers’ Parenting Self-Efficacy in Managing Toddler Distress: Childhood nonsupportive emotion socialization, adult attachment style, and toddler temperament as antecedents” in Emotion.

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Whole person care

I have written before about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The story of ACEs began with physicians recognizing that personal experiences had medical consequences. The approach described here takes the opposite approach – will people with behavioral health problems benefit from having medical services at the same site? Chambers, Thomas, Brimmer, Butcher & Griswold (2023) published “Whole Person Care: Outcomes from a 5-year care model integrating primary care into a behavioral health clinic” in Families, Systems, & Health. Here’s the impact statement and abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Behavioral Inhibition and loneliness

This is a long one because I haven’t found a lot on loneliness and I have been intrigued by behavioral inhibition since Kagan first talked about it. Verhagen, Derks, Roelofs & Maciejewski (2022) published “Behavioral Inhibition, Negative Parenting, and Social Withdrawal: Longitudinal associations with loneliness during early, middle, and late adolescence” in Child Development. Here’s an edited version of the article with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Reducing peer victimization

I am presenting two articles today, each aimed at reducing bullying, the first focusing on teachers, the second on peers. Cheon, Reeve, Marsh & Jang (2023) published “Cluster Randomized Control Trial to Reduce Peer Victimization: An autonomy-supportive teaching intervention changes the classroom ethos to support defending bystanders” in American Psychologist. Here’s the first abstract with Bold for important findings:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Perceived parental social support for LGBTQ+ children

McCurdy & Russell (2023) published “Perceived Parental Social Support and Psychological Control Predict Depressive Symptoms for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Questioning Youth in the United States” in Child Development. I have edited both the abstract and the article and added bold for major findings:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Working with gender diverse clients

Here, I address two recent studies dealing with gender diverse populations. First, Valentine, Smith, Miller, Hadden & Shipherd (2023) published “Considerations and Complexities of Accurate PTSD Assessment Among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adults” in Psychological Assessment. Here’s their abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Neuropsychological correlates of theory of mind in chronic migraine

Raimo, d'Onofrio, Gaita, Costanzo & Santangelo (2022) published “Neuropsychological correlates of theory of mind in chronic migraine” in Neuropsychology. I found this study fascinating because chronic migraine is one of the conditions that draws people to therapy as one part of a treatment plan. Here’s the abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Two studies of shyness

Today, I offer two studies of shyness that seem to me to have quite similar implications. First, Bekkhus, McVarnock, Coplan, Ulset & Kraft (2023) published “Developmental Changes in the Structure of Shyness and Internalizing Symptoms from Early to Middle Childhood: A network analysis” in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Two studies of parenting efficacy

Today, I am presenting two studies of parenting. The first a positive approach and the second focused on predictors of harsh parenting and recommended interventions. First, Resnik, Garbacz, Stormshak & McIntyre (2023) published “Family-centered Prevention to Enhance Proactive Parenting and Parental Self-Efficacy During Early Elementary School” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Strengthening Parental Self-efficacy and Resilience

I am presenting here an edited version of an article that I think is important to anyone dealing with immigrant clients. Eltanamly, Leijten, van Roekel, Mouton, Pluess & Overbeek (2002) published “Strengthening Parental Self-efficacy and Resilience: A within-subject experimental study with refugee parents of adolescents” in Child Development. It is longer than usual but may be helpful:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Lived experience and psychotherapies

Schleider (2023) published “The Fundamental Need for Lived Experience Perspectives in Developing and Evaluating Psychotherapies” in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. I like this approach because it integrates criticism of research on therapies with new tools that can potentially help therapists work more efficiently and successfully. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Interpersonal violence, mental disorders, and attempted suicide in bisexual women

Here, I present information from a well-designed study of bisexual women. Cavanaugh & Wismar (2023) published “Examining Whether the Impact of Different Types of Interpersonal Violence and Mental Disorders on Attempted Suicide is Greater for Bisexual Women” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here’s the edited impact statement and abstract with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Upregulating positive emotion in GAD

Here, again, I am presenting a second post related to the last one. LaFreniere & Newman (2023) published “Upregulating Positive Emotion in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A randomized controlled trial of the SkillJoy ecological momentary intervention” In Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Lucas (Luc) LaFreniere has a long history of research on anxiety and worry; he specializes in developing and researching ecological momentary interventions for anxiety and worry. I am beginning with the edited authors’ perspective then the abstract with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Growth mindset interventions, shared positivity, and well-being

The two articles I present here relate to well-being. First, Burnette et al. (2022) published “A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Growth Mindset Interventions: For whom, how, and why might such interventions work?” in Psychological Bulletin. Here’s the edited impact statement and abstract with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Parental burnout, emotion suppression, and sleep

I am presenting abstracts of two studies related to exhaustion and sleep. In the first, Blanchard, Hoebeke & Heeren (2023) published “Parental Burnout Features and the Family Context: A temporal network approach in mothers” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Making Schools a Welcoming Place for Immigrant Students

Ross (2023) published “Making Schools a Welcoming Place for Immigrant Students: How educators can help newcomers in the classroom” in Harvard Graduate School of Education’s (HGSE) Usable Knowledge. I am presenting the article with minimal editing because it is very important and offers helpful links to other resources:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Predictors of aging well

Here, I present two studies, each attempting to better understand what predicts aging well. First, Bergman & Bodner (2022) published “Aging Anxiety in Older Adults: The role of self-esteem and meaning in life” in GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry. Here’s their abstract:

Read More
Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Reading and inequity

Here, I present two abstracts of research related to reading and inequity. Clemons, Mason & O’Donnell (2023) published “Language and self-regulation: Interrelated sources of disparities in reading achievement and opportunities for reducing inequity” in School Psychology. Here’s the edited impact statement and abstract:

Read More