Lauren B. Alloy, Ph.D., Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology, Joseph Wolpe Distinguished Faculty, Department of Psychology
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Why are some people vulnerable to depression following stressful life events, whereas others never become depressed or suffer only mild dysphoria? My research focuses on understanding the cognitive, psychosocial, developmental, and neurobiological vulnerability factors for and mechanisms involved in the initial onset and course of depression and bipolar disorder (manic depression) in adolescents and young adults. I first became interested in depression in my doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania when we began to apply an animal model of learned helplessness to human depression. And, then my interests expanded to also include bipolar disorder as a faculty member at Northwestern University as I strove to understand how extreme highs and lows of mood, motivation, cognition, and energy could occur in the same person.
Over my 30+ years at Temple University, my research has discovered that negative thinking styles for interpreting the causes and consequences of stressful events and the tendency to ruminate about stressors, as well as low responsiveness to rewards and elevated inflammation following stressors predict first onset of depression in adolescence and a more severe course, particularly in individuals with a history of childhood adversity (e.g., maltreatment). Several of these factors also contribute to sex differences in risk for depression. We also have demonstrated that excessively high responsiveness to rewards and circadian rhythm dysregulation predict first onset of bipolar disorder in adolescence and a more severe course. This body of research has contributed to the development of strategies for early risk identification and interventions for the treatment of mood disorders.
For more information, click here.
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FEATURED PUBLICATION
Teen Moms: Violence, Consent, and Embodied Subjectivity in Middle English Pregnancy Laments
Carissa M. Harris
Prof. Carissa Harris explains the importance of her work:
This article contains three chief elements that characterize my research as a whole: it examines gender and sexuality in medieval songs voiced by women; it reads bleak, misogynist texts in recuperative ways; and it makes transhistorical connections between the Middle Ages and our present cultural moment. It explores consent and violence in medieval English and Scottish songs known as "pregnancy laments," a popular genre voiced by young women who are dealing with unplanned pregnancy in addition to abandonment by their terrible partners. It asks, what can we learn from these songs? How can we read their portrayals of pleasure, coercion, sexual knowledge, and reproductive choice? My article links the medieval pregnancy laments to the contemporary phenomenon of "Teen Mom" reality television programming, which has been a guilty pleasure of mine since grad school, and seeks to understand why popular media about young women facing unplanned pregnancy is so compelling in the Middle Ages as well as in our own time. I was able to develop those transhistorical connections in greater depth for a public audience in this essay for Electric Literature: https://electricliterature.com/teen-mom-reality-entertainment-has-been-around-for-600-years/. I often end up writing public-facing pieces in tandem with academic essays like this, because I get so excited while doing the academic research that I want to share it with everyone.
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AWARD OF THE MONTH
Along with another RSF Visiting Scholar, Jennifer Van Hook, Dr. Bachmeier will co-author a book about whether the U.S. can successfully integrate diverse waves of newcomers. Using census data to track immigrant integration based on educational attainment and other outcomes across three generations, the book will evaluate how assimilation differs across national origin groups and intergenerational mobility within immigrant families to better understand the effects of the expansion of opportunities for women and racial and ethnic minorities after the Civil Rights Era.
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