ONGOING: Parenting and Anxiety Study
Our lab's main focus currently is a study investigating transactional processes between children and parents/caregivers in the context of anxiety problems. In particular, this study is exploring the relationship between temperament, parental cognitions, and parenting behaviors in shaping pathways toward childhood anxiety.
COMPLETED: Diversity Recruitment and Retention Project
This study explored efforts to recruit and retain racial/ethnic minority students by doctoral programs in health service psychology. Goals of this study included examining the frequency and effectiveness of diversity recruitment and retention strategies, as well as understanding how programs evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies.
COMPLETED: Inspiring Comfort Project
In collaboration with Dr. Carrie Masia, we completed a pilot study to examine outcomes of the Inspiring Comfort program with a sample of middle school students. The program teaches youth skills for building connections with others, including compassion, empathy, and perspective taking. The goal of the project was to investigate the program's effects on children's emotional health, including self-compassion, emotion regulation, loneliness, social anxiety, and depression.
COMPLETED: Children's Coping Project
The goal of this short-term longitudinal study was to explore risk factors of anxiety and depressive symptoms in late elementary school-age children, an important time period for the onset of internalizing disorders.
A sample of fourth and fifth graders, along with their parents, completed measures assessing a range of variables, including temperament, emotion regulation, coping strategies, stress, and parenting styles. A subset of these families completed the same measures the following year.
COMPLETED: Procedural Anxiety Study
The goal of this study was to examine predictors of children’s anxiety before, during, and after a voiding cystourethrogram. This procedure, better known as a VCUG, is a fluoroscopic study of the urinary tract that may be used to assess risk of kidney infections in children with recurrent urinary tract infections. Though not considered painful, the VCUG may elicit anxiety and discomfort in patients given its invasiveness.
Children and parents completed various measures before and after the procedure. Ratings of children’s procedural anxiety were obtained from children, parents, examining medical staff, and independent observers.
Director: Jeremy K. Fox, Ph.D.
Lab: Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue
Dickson Hall 125
Montclair, NJ 07043
Email: foxjer@montclair.edu