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

Predicting Alzheimer's disease

This is another long post with studies utilizing diverse methodologies. First, Frei et al. (2022) published “Can You Find It? Novel oddity detection task for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease” in Neuropsychology. The edited abstract and impact statements follow:

We aimed to develop a measure to specifically assess the functioning of the perirhinal cortex (PRC), a brain structure affected very early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Studies of sibling relationships

Many researchers have observed that the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship an individual has across the lifespan. Here, I present three articles addressing the complexity of sibling relationships. First, van Berkel, Groeneveld, van der Pol, Linting & Mesman (2022) published “Growing Up Together: Differences between siblings in the development of compliance separating within-family and between-family effects” in Developmental Psychology.  Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Recent studies of sleep

This is a longer than usual post because I am presenting four recent studies of sleep. First,

Palmer et al. (2023) published “Sleep Loss and Emotion: A systematic review and meta-analysis of over 50 years of experimental research” in Psychological Bulletin. The first sentence had my attention:

In a largely sleep-deprived society, quantifying the effects of sleep loss on emotion is critical for promoting psychological health.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Childhood maltreatment and maternal sensitivity to distress

Today, I am again looking at parenting of infants. Girod, Leerkes & Zvara (2023) published “Childhood Maltreatment Predicts Maternal Sensitivity to Distress: Negative attributions during the transition to parenthood” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract:

Childhood maltreatment is a predictor of subsequent parenting behaviors; however, the mechanisms explaining this association have been understudied.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Prenatal experience effects on children

Here, I present two studies of the effects of prenatal experience on later child development. First, Tung et al. (2023) published “Prenatal Stress and Externalizing Behaviors in Childhood and Adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis” in Psychological Bulletin. Here are the edited abstract and impact statement:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Research on the MMPI

Today, I present two recent studies of the utility of the MMPI. First, Ambrose, Giarratano, McCue, Brand & Dalenberg (2023) published “Utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 in Differentiating Genuine from Feigned Dissociative Identity Disorder.” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Things to pay attention to at the beginning

Today, I look at three studies of the beginning of therapy. First, Mitchell, Mitchell, Shannon, Dorahy & Hanna (2023) published “Effects of Baseline Psychological Symptom Severity on Dropout from Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A meta-analysis” in Traumatology. Here is the edited abstract:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Longitudinal dynamics between anxiety and depression in bipolar spectrum disorders.

Today, I am examining three studies of adults, each examining trajectories. First, Kim, McInnis & Sperry (2024) published “Longitudinal Dynamics between Anxiety and Depression in Bipolar Spectrum Disorders” in Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

Anxiety and depression are common among individuals with bipolar spectrum disorders (BSDs), with anxiety being a risk factor for depression and vice versa.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Prior knowledge and learning in regular and gifted classes

Sometimes, I present studies that I find disturbing and this one may be a nice follow up to the last one on growth mindset. Matthes, Schneider & Preckel (2023) published “The Relation Between Prior Knowledge and Learning in Regular and Gifted Classes: A multigroup latent growth curve analysis” in Journal of Educational Psychology. Here are the abstract and impact statements

The relation between prior knowledge and learning has been investigated in many studies.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Growth mindset and teen social stress

I’ve written before about growth mindset. Jiang, Fang & Mueller (2023) published “Growth Mindset: An umbrella for protecting socially stressed adolescents’ life satisfaction” in School Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

Research suggests that growth mindset shows positive effects on adolescents’ academic achievement, especially in overcoming academic-related setbacks. It remains unclear, however, how growth mindset functions in the presence of social stress, a risk factor for adolescent mental health.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Changes in resilience in children in the welfare system

Today, I am presenting summary information from a longer article than usual because I think the topic is extremely important. Yoon et al. (2023) published “Can Resilience Change Over Time? Patterns and transitions in resilience among young children involved with the child welfare system” in Child Development. This is a highly edited summary:

This study examined transitions in resilience profiles and the role of caregiver risk and protective factors in resilience transition probabilities over 18 months among children involved with the child welfare system, using latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis. The sample included 486 children (48% female, baseline Mage = 3.49). There were three resilience profiles at Time 1 (19.9% low emotional behavioral, 26.1% low cognitive, 54.0% multidomain) and two profiles at Time 2 (18.9% low emotional behavioral, 81.1% multidomain).

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

New approaches in therapy

The studies I address today all illustrate specific approaches to therapy. First, Palmer et al. (2023) published “Words Count in Psychotherapy: Differentiating language characteristics of cognitive behavioral therapy and focal psychodynamic therapy for anorexia nervosa” in Psychotherapy. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements

It is generally assumed that psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) differ in terms of applied techniques and processes. To date, however, little is known about whether and how such differences can actually be observed at a basic linguistic level and in what the two treatment approaches differ most strongly (i.e., how psychodynamic and CBT therapists differ in what they actually say word-by-word in therapy sessions).

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Teens and inequality

I’m presenting two studies today that I found very troubling. First, Wray-Lake, Alvis, Plummer, Shubert & Syvertsen (2022) published “Adolescents’ Developing Awareness of Inequality: Racial and ethnic differences in trajectories” in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:

To advance knowledge of critical consciousness development, this study examined age-related change in awareness of inequality by race and ethnicity, gender, parent education, generation status, and their interactions.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Important questions for immigrant clients

Today, I present three studies of attachment relationships, each making a valuable contribution to our understanding of the impacts of attachment. The first is the simplest to accept. Dagan et al. (2023) published, “Configurations of Mother-Child and Father-Child Attachment Relationships as Predictors of Child Language Competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis” in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Advice about attachment relationships

Today, I present three studies of attachment relationships, each making a valuable contribution to our understanding of the impacts of attachment. The first is the simplest to accept. Dagan et al. (2023) published, “Configurations of Mother-Child and Father-Child Attachment Relationships as Predictors of Child Language Competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis” in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:

An individual participant data meta-analysis was conducted to test pre-registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Studies of math and reading

Today, I look at three articles, the first on math, then two on reading. I have used work by Gaye before on central executive training for children with ADHD. This time, Gaye et al. (2023) published “Working Memory and Math skills in children with and without ADHD” in Neuropsychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently demonstrate deficits in working memory and in multiple domains of math skills, including underdeveloped problem-solving and computation skills

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Three studies of trauma

Today, each of the studies relates to trauma. First, Gusler et al. (2023) published “Untangling Secondary Traumatic Stress and Vicarious Traumatization: One construct or two?” in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statements:

This study examined whether secondary traumatic stress (STS), defined by the expanded DMS-5-TR’s

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Social and emotional predictors of well-being

Today, I address three studies examining well-being. First, Courtney et al. (2023) published “Social Microclimates and Well-being” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

Emotional well-being has a known relationship with a person’s direct social ties, including friendships; but do ambient social and emotional features of the local community also play a role?

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Three studies of emotion regulation

Raugh & Strauss (2023) published “Integrating Mindfulness into the Extended Process Model of Emotion Regulation: The dual-mode model of mindful emotion regulation” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

Extensive research has been conducted regarding how people manage their emotions. Within this research, there has been growing attention toward the role of mindfulness in emotion regulation. While prior reviews have discussed mindfulness in the context of emotion regulation, they have not provided a thorough integration using the prevailing models of emotion regulation or mindfulness.

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Karen Nelson Karen Nelson

Maternal Aggressive Behavior in Interactions With Teens

Today I summarize an article that I found helpful. Sheeber et al. (2023) published “Maternal Aggressive Behavior in Interactions with Adolescent Offspring: Proximal social–cognitive predictors in depressed and nondepressed mothers” in Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. Here’s the highly edited article:

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