Stress Research Network

The Stress Research Network is a collaborative group of psychologists at the University of Denver who examine questions about stress using ecological, social psychological, developmental, psychopathological, and psychobiological frameworks. Specifically, we are interested in questions about contextual and social factors that elicit stress, physiological, psychological, and neuropsychological responses to stress, the short and long-term sequelae of stress exposure, and implications of stress research for prevention and intervention. We work with both clinic-referred and non-referred children, adolescents, and adults to examine a wide range of stressors (e.g., childcare, poverty, trauma exposure). Our research utilizes a broad range of study designs (e.g., field, laboratory, clinical, qualitative) and measurement approaches (questionnaire, behavioral, immunological, endocrine, and autonomic).

The Stress Research Network was founded on the idea that a full understanding of stress and its sequelae requires research across levels of analysis using multi-method approaches. The Network facilitates intellectual interchange and research collaboration of faculty and students across our labs. We have a number of ongoing collaborations and hold a bi-weekly reading group open to students and faculty across the department. Please see below for descriptions of faculty members' ongoing stress-related research and links to our individual web pages.

Network Faculty

Anne DePrince. My research focuses on the relationship between trauma exposure, emotion, cognition, neuropsychological function, and posttraumatic distress. Within the Traumatic Stress Studies Group, I pursue several lines of research with both children and adults. For example, we examine alterations in basic cognition (such as attention and memory) associated with different forms of trauma exposure and clinical symptoms. In addition, we draw on cognitive and social-cognitive models to examine risk for problems post-trauma, such as interpersonal difficulties and revictimization. Further, my program of research examines how appraisals of a trauma (e.g., fear, betrayal, shame, anger) relate to later symptoms and risk.

Iris Mauss. I am interested in emotion and emotion regulation. People's lives are saturated with emotions, including strongly negative ones that can be experienced in response to stressors. Importantly, emotions and stress responses usually don't just happen. Most of the time, people attempt to regulate their emotions in some way. This fact raises a number of questions. For example, why do some people or groups of people experience more negative emotions than others in response to identical stressors? What role does the sociocultural context play in shaping stress and its regulation? What forms of emotion regulation are more versus less adaptive in the long run, for whom, under what conditions, and why? In my lab, we use a number of different methods to understand these questions, including: (a) Emotion experience sampling in laboratory settings; (b) Questionnaires assessing individual differences; (c) Implicit assessment methods; (d) Behavior coding; (e) Measurement of autonomic physiological responses. On my website, my lab's research is described in more detail.

Daniel McIntosh. I study emotions and coping, using survey, laboratory, and psychophysiological methods and typical and clinical (e.g., people with autism, depression, Williams syndrome) populations to understand phenomena in these domains. In my coping research, I study how social and cognitive resources influence emotional adjustment, broadly defined. I am particularly interested in responses to traumatic events, uncontrollability, or high levels of stress, and the role of religion.

Stephen Shirk. My research focuses on the development and treatment of depression in childhood and adolescence. Over the last five years, my research group has conducted longitudinal research on cognitive and interpersonal moderators of the link between stress and depression, and intervention research on the treatment of adolescent depression. In both lines of work we have been keenly interested in the role of psychosocial stress in amplifying risk for depression or undermining treatment response. Most recently, we examined the role of trauma history in treatment response to cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression. In addition, we have been interested in understanding associations among attachment-related cognitions, coping, and depressive symptoms. In our developmental studies we have examined the relation between stress reactivity, measured physiologically, and the development of maladaptive coping strategies. In our treatment research, we are interested in the role of coping skill acquisition as a mediator of treatment outcome. I recently prepared a grant proposal in collaboration with Anne DePrince to develop a new treatment for depressed youth with a history of sexual abuse.

Martha Wadsworth. My research interests fall into the broad categories of stress and coping, and developmental psychopathology. I currently pursue three inter-related lines of research. The first line of inquiry focuses on developmental issues in coping with stress- have conducted number of studies examining the role of development in the stress response system. A second, inter-related area of interest involves the role of low SES and poverty in the development of psychopathology and how SES is related to the emergence of psychopathology over time. As a result, much of my research has focused on examining the extent to which poverty-related stress is a mediator of the effects of low SES on symptoms of psychopathology. A third area of focus in my research is on cultural diversity and the strengths and resources that indigenous cultures bring to the table for coping with stress. My research combines quantitative, qualitative, and laboratory-based methods, and I collaborate with various colleagues within and outside of the Stress Research Network, including Daniel McIntosh and Sarah Watamura.

Sarah Watamura. My research interests involve understanding stress and challenge in young children, including what contextual and personal factors contribute to stress and challenge in the early years, what types of experiences buffer children from stress, and what early exposure to stress and challenge contributes to children's developmental trajectories. I primarily study the developing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress system (the HPA-axis), in combination with laboratory challenges, field observations, parent or teacher report, and assessments of health, including immune system functioning. I collaborate with colleagues within and outside of the Stress Research Network, including Martha Wadsworth.

Network Graduate Students

Network Faculty

Anne DePrince
Iris Mauss
Daniel McIntosh
Stephen Shirk
Martha Wadsworth
Sarah Watamura