Research Interests and Publications:

My research seeks to identify early sources of psychopathology in childhood, in particular, family processes that adversely influence the development of very young children’s psychobiology. A major focus of our work currently is parental sensitivity, which plays a critical role in shaping infants’ earliest development – both prenatally and neonatally. Within the context of sentive versus neglectful or abusive parent-infant and parent-child relationships, I am particularly interested in how biological systems responsible for the regulation of emotions (autonomic nervous systems, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-cortex) become coordinated with each other and with behavioral self-regulation. New investigations are underway within our lab examining the genetics of early self-regulation as well as pre- and neonatal processes that support the development of self-regulatory systems in children. A second, long standing interest of our lab has been young children’s perceptions of self and others. With the development of the Berkeley Puppet Interview, we have demonstrated that children as young as 4-years of age actually do hold meaningful self-perceptions, that these early views of self develop within close interpersonal contexts, and that they have real-world implications for children’s psychological health.

Selected Publications:

Measelle, J.R., Stice, E., & Springer, D. (2006). A Prospective Test of the Negative Affect Model of Substance Abuse Onset: Moderating Effects of Social Support. Psychology of Addictive Behavior, 20, 225-233.

Measelle, J.R., Stice, E. & Hogansen, J. (2006). Temporal relations among eating, depressive, conduct and substance abuse problems in adolescent girls. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 524-538.

Measelle, J.R., John, O.P., Ablow, J.C., Cowan, P.A., & Cowan, C. (2005). Can young children provide coherent, stable, and valid self-reports on the Big Five dimension? A longitudinal study from ages 5 to 7.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 90-106.

Measelle, J.R. (2005). Children's self-perceptions as a link between family relationship quality and social adaptation to school. In P.A. Cowan, C.P. Cowan, J.C. Ablow, V. Kahen-Johnson, J.R. Measelle (Eds.), The family context of parenting in children's adaptation to school (pp 163-188). Monographs in Parenting. Marc H. Bornstein (Series Editor)., Manwah, NJ: Erlbaum Publishers.