Research

Ongoing Research

Self-perception and Personality in Relation to Youth Behavioral Problems.

This area of research focuses mainly on the behavioral, emotional, and social correlates of adolescent narcissism and callous-unemotional traits. More specifically, we have investigated how different dimensions of narcissism and callous-unemotional traits relate to aggression, delinquency, internalizing problems such as anxiety and depression, as well as peer perceptions. Recent work has also involved implementation of a short-term intervention for improving emotion recognition and perspective-taking skills in adolescents with relatively high callous-unemotional traits.

Social Media Engagement and Behavior in Relation to Self-perception and Mental Health.

We have recent and ongoing studies that examine the link between social media posts (e.g., posting self-images or “selfies”) and self-perception in young adults. In addition, we are interested in the association between parameters of social media use (e.g., number of accounts, frequency of checking) and mental health in adolescents. Additional considerations include an adolescent’s fear of missing out (FoMO) and parental monitoring of social media activity as moderators in the relation between social media engagement and mental health.

Evidence-based Assessment of Youth Conduct Problems.

This work is aimed at informing knowledge and implementation of evidence-based assessment strategies for youth who present with behavioral problems (e.g., symptoms of ODD/CD, aggression, delinquency). Specifically, we are interested in synthesizing the work on psychometric properties and utility of assessment tools into strategies for clinicians.