Anne Shaffer, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor
  • Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program
  • Clinical Psychology Program
  • Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2008

Family Relationships, Emotions, Stress & Health (FRESH) Lab Website

Research Interests

My research currently focuses on the sequelae of maltreatment and family stress, including the phenomena of emotional maltreatment and parentification. I approach psychological research and practice from a developmental psychopathology perspective, which is informed by the simultaneous consideration of both competence and psychopathology, and emphasizes developmental processes of risk and resilience in pathways to adaptation or maladaptation. To this end, I am interested in identifying contextual factors at multiple levels of analysis that may mediate or moderate the effects of adversity on outcomes in childhood and adulthood.

Selected Publications

Obradovic, J., Shaffer, A., & Masten, A. S. (in press). Risk in developmental psychopathology: progress and future directions. In L. C. Mayes & M. Lewis (Eds.), A developmental environment measurement handbook.

Shaffer, A., Egeland, B., & Wang, K. (2010). Risk and resilience among children referred to protective services: A longitudinal investigation of child well-being in multiple domains. In M. B. Webb, K. Dowd, B. Jones Harden, J. Landsverk, & M. Testa (Eds.), Child welfare and child well-being: New perspectives from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (pp. 83-106). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Shaffer, A. & Yates, T. M. (2010). Identifying and understanding risk factors and protective factors in clinical practice. In M. T. Compton (Ed.), Clinical Manual of Prevention Principles in Mental Health (pp. 29-48). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Shaffer, A., Burt, K., Obradovic, J., Herbers, J., & Masten, A. S. (2009). Intergenerational continuity in parenting quality: the mediating role of social competence. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1227-1240.

Shaffer, A., Yates, T. M., & Egeland, B. (2009). The relation of emotional maltreatment to self-esteem and peer competence in early adolescence: Developmental processes in a prospective study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33, 36-44.

Shaffer, A., Huston, L., & Egeland, B. (2008). Identification of child maltreatment using prospective and retrospective methodologies: a comparison of maltreatment incidence and relations to later psychopathology. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 682-692.

Masten, A. S. & Shaffer, A. (2006). How families matter in child development: Reflections from research on risk and resilience. In A. Clarke-Stewart & J. Dunn (Eds.), Families count: Effects on child and adolescent development (pp. 5-25). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Shaffer, A. & Sroufe, L. A. (2005). The developmental and adaptational implications of generational boundary dissolution: Findings from a prospective, longitudinal study. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 5, 67-84.

Dr. Shaffer will be reviewing applications for the admission of a graduate student for fall 2012