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

Autonomy and growth mindsets in learning

Here, I present two studies related to children’s learning and one more on autnomy. Park et al. (2023) published “Parental Intrusive Homework Support and Math Achievement: Does the child’s mindset matter?” in Developmental Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

234 Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Eisenstadt (2023) published “Survey of brain cell junctions shows striking similarities between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder” through the Broad Institute at MIT. Here’s the article with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Autistic traits and self-consciousness

I am very interested in ways to diagnose and help children with autistic traits as early as possible. Van Trigt, Colonnesi, Brummelman, Jorgenson, & Nikolic (2023) published “Autistic Traits and Self-conscious Emotions in Early Childhood” in Child Development. Here’s the highly edited article:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Diagnosing and following clients with PTSD

Here, I present two studies related to diagnosing and treating PTSD. First, Rubin et al. (2023) published, “Low Reliability When Determining Criterion A for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from Self-report Descriptions of Traumatic Events: The need for transparent methods” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Poverty and children’s brain development

The Harvard Gazette (May 2, 2023) published “Poverty Hurts Children’s Brain Development but Social Safety Net May Help” Here’s the article with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Phonological working memory and ADHD

This is a fascinating study of children with ADHD. Roberts, Alderson & Bullard (2023) published “Phonological Working Memory in Children with and Without ADHD: A systematic evaluation of recall errors” in Neuropsychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Emotion and PTSD

Today, we’re looking at two studies of emotion processing in PTSD. First, Zhan, Zhang, Gong & Geng (2023) published “Clinical Correlates of Irritability, Anger, Hostility, and Aggression in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. The edited abstract and impact statement are as follows:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Prenatal maternal anxiety or stress and cognitive functioning

I find prenatal research intriguing and have written before about research on its effects. Delagneau, Twilhaar, Testa, van Veen & Anderson (2022) published “Association Between Prenatal Maternal Anxiety and/or Stress and Offspring's Cognitive Functioning: A meta-analysis” in Child Development.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Emotion dysregulation in young people with BPD

These three studies of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) were very helpful to me. First, Aleva et al. (2023) published “Emotion Dysregulation in Young People with Borderline Personality Disorder: One pattern or distinct subgroups? Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Three studies of substance abuse

These studies offer interesting perspectives on substance use by teens. First, Adamsons & Russell (2023) published “Longitudinal Transmission of Risk Behaviors Between Mothers, Fathers, and Adolescents” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract with bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Growing old and emotional well-being 

These two studies both speak to emotional health as people age. First, Charles, Rush, Piazza, Cerino, Mogle & Almeida (2023) published “Growing Old and Being Old: Emotional well-being across adulthood” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Victimization and family support

Both of these studies highlight buffering, the first by school climate and the second by family support. First, Clark, Strissel, Demaray, Ogg, Eldridge & Malecki (2022) published “Victimization and Depressive Symptoms in Early Adolescence: The role of perceived school climate” in School Psychology.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Family climate and threat appraisals

After two long posts, I am presenting some short ones. Fosco, Weymouth & Feinberg (2023) published “Interparental Conflict, Family Climate, and Threat Appraisals: Early adolescent exposure and young adult psychopathology risk” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Family climate and threat appraisals

After two long posts, I am presenting some short ones. Fosco, Weymouth & Feinberg (2023) published “Interparental Conflict, Family Climate, and Threat Appraisals: Early adolescent exposure and young adult psychopathology risk” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Autistic youth challenges

I am presenting two studies of children on the autism spectrum. First, McIntyre, Santiago, Sutherland & Garbacz (2023) published “Parenting Stress and Autistic Children’s Emotional Problems Relate to Family-School Partnerships and Parent Mental Health” in School Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Risk of behavioral inhibition from infancy to age seven

This is a longer than usual post because I find behavioral inhibition fascinating and this study is very well done. Anaya et al. (2023) published “Developmental Trajectories of Behavioral Inhibition from Infancy to Age Seven: The role of genetic and environmental risk for psychopathology” in Child Development. Here’s the edited abstract and article with some key information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

New ideas about intelligence 

This is a longer than usual post because there is an article and two responses. All are available as open text. Unlike some of my posts that try to offer immediately helpful information, this one is more historical and theoretical, but, in my view, has important implications. First, Ackerman (2023) published “Intelligence … moving beyond the lowest common denominator” in American Psychologist. Here’s the highly edited article with some information in bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Universal screening for social-emotional and behavioral risk

I am especially interested in measurement because those who assess individuals need to be wary of trusting instruments because they are available. Izumi & Eklund (2023) published “Universal Screening for Social-Emotional and Behavioral Risk: Differential item functioning on the SAEBRS” in School Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement with some information in bold:

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