Associate Dean of the Graduate School Professor, Clinical Program, Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program Dr. Shaffer will not be accepting a new graduate student for Fall 2024 admission. Education Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2008 Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science Research Interests I am trained as a developmental and clinical psychologist, and I mentor and train students in both disciplines, and in the intersections of these fields. My research currently focuses on the study of family and close relationships as contexts for risk and protection in development. 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 as pathways to adaptation or maladaptation. Currently, my program of research comprises four major areas, encompassing both developmental research and the application of this research to prevention/intervention contexts: Childhood maltreatment My research focuses on childhood maltreatment broadly as a risk factor for later adaptation, with a targeted focus on emotional maltreatment. Emotion communication and socialization This area of research includes processes of communicating about emotions in close relationships (i.e., parent-child or romantic relationships), both directly and indirectly. Applied work in this area has involved innovative treatments that include a specific focus on emotion communication, for applications in many domains including the treatment of adolescent eating disorders and the prevention of emotional maltreatment. Predictors of parenting I am interested in identifying factors that predict both positive and negative parenting behaviors, including characteristics such as self-regulation, and relevant experiences such as childhood maltreatment. Measurement of parenting My research has also focused on the evaluation of parenting assessment, including a focus on developing novel measures of parents' emotion regulation and considering the use of parenting measures in diverse groups.
