My research interests lie at the intersection of personality and clinical psychology. Specifically, I study individual differences in coping and mood regulation processes and their implications for emotional well-being. My primary line of research is on generalized expectancies for negative mood regulation, defined as people’s beliefs about their ability to do something to feel better when they feel upset (Catanzaro and Mearns, 1990). Dr. Jack Mearns and I developed and validated the NMR Scale, a self-report measure of NMR expectancies. The NMR Scale is used by researchers all over the world and has been translated from English into the following languages: German, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Spanish, Turkish, and Swedish. Higher scores on the NMR Scale predict a variety of positive outcomes. Research shows that increases in NMR expectancies early in treatment predict better outcomes later in treatment for individuals suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. More information is available at the NMR Research Website maintained by Jack Mearns.
I have also collaborated with Drs. Jeff Laurent and Thomas Joiner on research examining the assessment of affect (emotion) among children. We have developed self-report measures of affect for children, based on the pioneering work of Watson, Clark, and Tellegen that led to the tripartite model of anxiety and depression. These measures, the PANAS-C and the PH-C, are widely used and can help differentiate between anxious and depressed states in children.