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

Risk factors and self-harm

Today, I discuss three very different but related articles, all related to self-harm, though this first one also examines violence directed at others. Sheehan, Bounoua, Stumps, Miglin, Huerta & Sadeh (2023) published “Neurobiological Metric of Cortical Delay Discounting Differentiates Risk for Self- and Other-Directed Violence among Trauma-Exposed Individuals” in Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Dissociating the impact of alexithymia and impaired self-awareness after traumatic brain injury.

I previously did a post on impaired metacognition after TBI that included Dockree (Fitzgerald et al. 2022). In addition, two more recent posts (Adamowitcz et al. , 2022, and Ditzer et al., 2023) examined child maltreatment and alexithymia. Here, Dockree et al. look at alexithymia after TBI. Dockree, Ffrench, O'Hara, Carroll, Dockree & McGuire (2023) published “Dissociating the Impact of Alexithymia and Impaired Self-Awareness on Emotional Distress and Aggression after Traumatic Brain Injury” in Neuropsychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Recent studies of parenting and coparenting

The three studies I discuss today all relate to parenting. First, Shalev, Sharon, Uzefovsky & Atzaba-Poria (2023) published “Parental Guilt and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior: The moderating role of parental reflective functioning” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here is the edited abstract:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Discrimination and minority status

The three studies I address today deal with discrimination. First, Liautaud, Rendina & Berke (2023) published “Examining the Impact of Daily Discrimination on Alcohol Use Among Racially Diverse, Trauma-Exposed Sexually Minoritized Adults: A pilot study” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here are the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Intergenerational trends

Today’s articles all related to families. First, Blake et al. (2023) published “Intergenerational patterns of attachment in custodial grandfamilies” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract:

The present study aimed to identify intergenerational patterns of attachment insecurity among grandmothers, adolescent grandchildren, and birth mothers in custodial grandfamilies and to test the relations among triadic attachment patterns and grandchild socioemotional outcomes.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Sense of purpose and work

Today, I address two studies relating to older adults. First, Pfund, Strecher, Kross & Hill (2023) published “Sense of Purpose and Strategies for Coping with Anxiety Across Adulthood” in GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry. Here’s the edited abstract:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Challenging assumptions

Once again, I present three studies on very different topics, but each for me was a helpful correction to my own assumptions. First, Salmerón, Altamura, Delgado, Karagiorgi & Vargas (2023) published “Reading Comprehension on Handheld Devices Versus on Paper: A narrative review and meta-analysis of the medium effect and its moderators” in Journal of Educational Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements with my own added bold:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Interesting interactions

Today, I present three studies that involve important relationships. First, Laugen, Kårstad, Reinfjell & Wichstrøm (2023) published “The Development of Emotion Understanding in Children: The importance of parents, teachers, and peers” in Developmental Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Relative brain age SES and anxiety

Cohen et al. (2023) published “Relative Brain Age is Associated with Socioeconomic Status and Anxiety/Depression Problems in Youth” in Developmental Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

Brain age, a measure of biological aging in the brain, has been linked to psychiatric illness, principally in adult populations.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Three studies of Borderline Personality Disorder

All three studies of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) addressed here are from the same journal. Estimates of the frequency of BPD range from 1.4% to over 5%, with most sources saying that 75% of BPD patients are female, while noting that men with BPD may well be more often diagnosed with PTSD and depression. First, Aleva et al. (2023) published “Emotion Dysregulation in Young People with Borderline Personality Disorder: One pattern or distinct subgroups?” in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Here’s the edited abstract:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Like me and not like me

Today I present two studies of how children respond to others. First, Sehl, Denison & Friedman (2023) published “Local or foreign? Flexibility in children’s preference for similar others” Developmental Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

The power of social relationships

The two studies I address today both relate to benefits of healthy social relationships. First, Sahi et al. (2023) published “You Changed my Mind: Immediate and enduring impacts of social emotion regulation” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

As social creatures, our relationships with other people have tremendous downstream impacts on health

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Effects of household chaos on mothers and children

This is a long summary of an interesting article. Oliver & Midouhas (2023) published “Maternal Psychological Distress and Children’s Adjustment Problems: Mediation by household chaos” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the highly edited article:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Studies of Multiracial and Hispanic youth

Today, I address two studies, the first of multiracial youth, the second of Hispanic youth. Christophe, Atkin, Williams, Quick, Wu & LOVING Study Collaborative (2023) published “Family-Based and External Discrimination Experienced by Multiracial Individuals: Links to internalizing symptoms and familial support” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Unequal selves in the classroom

The article I address today summarizes important research in a context in which many children are encountering much less supportive school experiences than we’d like. Brummelman & Sedikides (2023) published “Unequal selves in the classroom: Nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in children’s self-views” in Developmental Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Helping clients with sleep problems

Poor sleep quality is seen as related to a number of poor mental health outcomes. Here, I address three recent studies using different approaches to collecting data, identifying correlates, and recommending therapeutic interventions. First, Mansolf & Blackwell (2023 ) published “Sleep-Related Items on the School-Age CBCL and the PROMIS Sleep Disturbance 4-item short-form: A psychometric comparison from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program” in Psychological Assessment. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Learning styles as a neuromyth

I found this article to be intriguing. It’s a long post but worth the read. Touloumakos, Vlachou & Papdatou-Pastou (2023) published “’Visual Type? Not My Type’: A systematic study on the learning styles neuromyth employing frequentist and Bayesian statistics” in Mind, Brain & Education. Here’s the highly edited article:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Racism and trauma

Today, I address three recent studies related to racism and trauma. First, Pieterse, Johnson & Carter (2023) published “The Relationship Between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Race-Based Traumatic Stress” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Studies of homeless youth

Today, I present two articles related to youth homelessness. First, So, Davis, Barnes, Freese, Atella & Shlafer (2023) published “Health and Care Utilization among Youth with a History of Parental Incarceration and Homelessness” in Families, Systems, & Health. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

More on cognition and affect

Today, I focus on therapy and two studies examining cognition and affect. First, Stevens (2023) published “Revisiting the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis: Implications for psychotherapy” in Journal of Psychotherapy Integration.  Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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