Joseph Cohen

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Qualitative research highlights the importance of perceived social support for well-being in juvenile justice-involved youth, but to date, little quantitative research has tested the generalizability of these findings. We sought to address this gap by utilizing a person-centered approach to articulate (a) common interpersonal profiles in justice-in...

Developing accurate and equitable screening protocols can lead to more targeted, efficient, and effective, teen dating violence (TDV) prevention programming. Current TDV screening protocols perform poorly and are rarely implemented, but recent research and policy emphasizes the importance of leveraging more trauma-focused screening measures for imp...

Gains in holistic approaches to adult mental health have been associated with increasing interest in understanding psychological wellbeing (PWB) among adolescents. Empirical examination of measurement models for PWB in adolescence is lacking. Thus, the current study examined PWB in a longitudinal, diverse sample of 433 adolescents (non‐Latinx Black...

Family functioning may serve as protective or risk factors in the development of youth psychopathology. However, few studies have examined the potentially reciprocal relation between child psychopathology and family functioning. To fill this gap in the literature, this study tested for time-ordered associations between measures of family functionin...

Adolescent suicide continues to rise despite burgeoning research on interpersonal risk for suicide. This may reflect challenges in applying developmental psychopathology research into clinical settings. In response, the present study used a translational analytic plan to examine indices of social well-being most accurate and statistically fair for...

ARTICLE FREE TO ACCESS AT: https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2022.2158842. In this editorial statement, we briefly delineated a series of observations, guidelines, and directions for future research focused on the most common outcome of multi-informant assessments of youth mental health. Discrepancies commonly occur between estimates of youth mental...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts adolescents. Loneliness is a particularly salient pandemic psychosocial outcome to understand; however, research to date on this outcome is sparse and largely cross-sectional. In response, we examined pre-pandemic risk factors for pandemic loneliness. Further, we...

Objective: Despite increasing depression and suicide rates in justice-system-involved youth, little is known about depressogenic risk factors in this population. Therefore, we explored how levels of and changes in hopelessness and perceptions of procedural justice predicted depressive and suicidal outcomes in justice-system-involved youth. Hypoth...

Background Research suggests adolescent depression is increasing and certain adolescents may be uniquely vulnerable. However, limited conceptualizations of identity and time, as well as the reliance on unitary conceptualizations of depression, inhibits a nuanced perspective on these trends. In response, we examined how adolescent depressive symptom...

Increasingly, adversity-focused assessment tools are being introduced into preventive mental health screening protocols. However, few studies have explicitly examined whether use of these instruments serves as equitable, clinically useful measures of mental health risk in adolescents. In response, the present study examined whether an adverse child...

The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) is a self-report measure designed to assess anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, two facets of anhedonic predispositions. Despite its widespread use, the factor structure of the TEPS has yet to be tested in adolescents, who are at increased risk for psychopathology and undergoing rapid changes in...

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) has received much attention as a potential low-cost, peripheral indicator of depression. Despite theoretical support, however, results have been mixed as to whether indices of the ANS reliably index depression. In response, the present study sought to clarify the relation between ANS activity and depression by exa...

Given the risk of substance use (SU) among adolescents in the child welfare system, identification of risk for prospective impairing SU behaviors is a significant public health priority. We sought to quantify the incremental validity of routine multi-informant assessments of adolescent psychological distress (i.e., the Child Behavior Checklist and...

Positive adaptation manifests differently in the aftermath of traumatic events. Methodological limitations, however, impede the ability to test conceptualizations of resilience that emphasize the multifaceted nature of these responses. In response, an approach that synthesized a residualized and person‐centered conceptualization of resilience exami...

Anxiety and depressive symptoms frequently co-occur in adolescence and confer greater distress compared to experiencing either symptom alone. A causal model (anxiety symptoms predicting depressive symptoms), a correlated liabilities model (vulnerabilities interacting with stressors to predict both symptoms), and a diathesis-anxiety model (vulnerabi...

Background Extant research and theory posit that emotional abuse and emotional neglect-exposure is uniquely harmful during adolescence. Yet, these findings are mostly based on mono-informant, retrospective studies with unselected adults that examine emotional maltreatment in the aggregate. This prevents inferences concerning the unique, prospective...

Anhedonia, defined as deficits in positive affect and approach related behaviors, remains an understudied trauma response. As anhedonic responses to interpersonal violence are associated with a more severe course of psychopathology that is more difficult to treat, an increased focus on risk factors for anhedonia is necessary. The present study soug...

Objective: Given the severe consequences associated with maltreatment, establishing an understanding of pathways to resilience among trauma-exposed youth is a critical public health aim. Longitudinal research has either examined short-term or long-term responses to traumatic events, which prevents testing for a) individual differences between resil...

Emotional maltreatment is a risk factor for adolescent depression. Yet, it remains unclear whether commissions and omissions of emotional maltreatment (a) confer vulnerability via distinct mechanisms and (b) demonstrate similar risk across adolescent subpopulations. The present, multiwave study examined whether school engagement and peer relationsh...

Background: Hundreds of thousands of individuals visit the emergency department (ED) every year, with many visits occurring following alcohol misuse. Parent–child relationship factors are associated with alcohol-related outcomes. For example, offspring choice to self-disclose information about their lives to parents, rather than parents actively so...

The identification of robust, psychophysiological markers of trauma-related distress is critical for developing comprehensive, trauma-informed, mental health assessments for youth. Thus, the present study examined the clinical utility of cardiac autonomic balance (CAB) and cardiac autonomic regulation (CAR), two composite indices of the sympathetic...

Background Universal depression screening in youth typically focuses on strategies for identifying current distress and impairment. However, these protocols also play a critical role in primary prevention initiatives that depend on correctly estimating future depression risk. Thus, the present study aimed to identify the best screening approach for...

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether dating violence victimization (psychological, physical, and sexual) and substance use (alcohol and marijuana) predicted sexual behaviors that increase risk for poor outcomes from ages 15-19. Adolescents (N = 1042; 56% female) were recruited from high schools in Southeast Texas in 2010 and fo...

Few studies have examined the incremental validity of multi-informant depression screening approaches. In response, we examined how recommendations for using a multi-informant approach may vary for identifying concurrent or prospective depressive episodes. Participants included 663 youth (AgeM = 11.83; AgeSD = 2.40) and their caregiver who independ...

Past research indicates that a history of depression and exposure to abuse and neglect represent some of the most robust predictors of depression in emerging adults. However, studies rarely test the additive or interactive risk associated with these distinct risk factors. In response, the present study explored how these three risk factors (prior d...

This study examined the concurrent associations linking youths’ parasympathetic nervous system activity, specifically baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity (RSAR; vagal withdrawal), with youth depression risk in a community sample of young adolescents. Youth gender was examined as a moderator of ass...

The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) represents the most widely used protocol for mental and behavioral health screening in the Child Welfare System (CWS). However, because past studies have (a) relied on the self- or parent report, (b) focused on the internalizing subscales, (c) focused solely on current or prospective depr...

Intimate-partner violence (IPV) in adolescent and young-adult dating relationships is a prevalent and serious public health problem. The measurement of IPV across adolescence has most commonly relied on the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationship Inventory (CADRI; Wolfe et al., 2001), which postulates 5 distinct yet related types of IPV (i.e., t...

Objective: Maltreatment exposure is a robust predictor of adolescent depression. Yet despite this well-documented association, few studies have simultaneously examined how maltreatment subtypes relate to qualitatively distinct depressive symptoms. The present multiwave longitudinal study addressed this gap in the literature by examining how differ...

Objective: Screening protocols that rely on a single informant are inadequate in predicting pediatric depression. Multi-informant and risk factor screening approaches are potentially more sensitive methods for identifying depression risk, but the incremental validity of these protocols has not been adequately tested. Using a translational analytic...

A large literature documents that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration among adults. However, research on this relationship among adolescents and young adults has been plagued by methodological flaws (e.g., cross-sectional designs). Thus, the purpose of the present study was...

Objectives: With our study we aimed to (1) understand what factors uniquely conferred risk for physical and sexual forms of teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration and (2) create a screening algorithm to quantify perpetration risk on the basis of these factors. Methods: A total of 1031 diverse public high school students living in Southeast Texa...

Despite increased attention on parental intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, a relative paucity of research has examined the developmental consequences of this traumatic experience within a life span approach. The aim of the present study was to examine how parental IPV exposure may relate to mental health during the transition from adolescenc...

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the stability of physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration from adolescence to emerging adulthood among sexual minorities. Methods: Adolescents who identified as a sexual minority (N = 135; 71.1% female; mean age = 15.02, standard deviation=.77; 34.1% African-American/bla...

Traditionally, screening research tests how well a given symptom inventory can identify a concurrent depressive episode. Although developmental psychopathology could inform screening protocols for a myriad of depression outcomes (e.g., prospective depressive episodes), approaches typically used in research make it difficult to translate these findi...

The present study sought to clarify the trajectory (i.e., continuous vs. discontinuous) and expression (i.e., homotypic vs. heterotypic) of anxiety and depressive symptoms across childhood and adolescence. We utilized a state-of-the-science analytic approach to simultaneously test theoretical models that describe the development of internalizing sy...

Research has previously demonstrated that perceptions of peer's teen dating violence (TDV) is associated with one's own perpetration of TDV, although little research has examined whether this relationship is consistent across developmental time periods (i.e., mid-to-late adolescence). The present study examined whether changes in perceptions of pee...

Teen dating violence (TDV) is a serious and prevalent public health problem. TDV is associated with a number of negative health consequences for victims and predicts violence in adult relationships. Thus, efforts should be devoted to the primary prevention of TDV. However, only a few studies have examined when the risk for the first occurrence of T...

Despite being the most prevalent form of child maltreatment, the correlates and consequences of neglect are poorly understood, particularly during early adulthood. The present multi-wave, longitudinal study sought to address this gap in this literature by examining physical and emotional neglect in emerging adults in a diverse community sample. 580...

The purpose of the multi-measure, multi-wave, longitudinal study was to examine the interactive relation between behavioral distress tolerance (DT) and perceived social support (PSS) in 352 tornado-exposed adolescents aged 12–17 years (M = 14.44; SD = 1.74). At baseline, adolescents completed a computer-based task for DT, and self-report measures o...

Background: The present study's aim was to provide the foundation for an efficient, empirically based protocol for depression screening following a natural disaster. Utilizing a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analytic approach, the study tested a) what specific disaster-related stressors (i.e., property damage, loss of basic services) and...

The present study aimed to utilize a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) approach in order to improve clinical decision-making for adolescents at risk for the development of psychopathology in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Specifically we assessed theoretically-driven individual, interpersonal, and event-related vulnerability factors to...

Depression is a debilitating mental illness with clear developmental patterns from childhood through late adolescence. Here, we present data from the Gene Environment Mood GEM) study, which used an accelerated longitudinal cohort design with youth N = 665) starting in 3rd, 6th, and 9th grades, and a caretaker, who were recruited from the general co...

Objective: Exposure to multiple traumatic events (polyvictimization) is a reliable predictor of deleterious health outcomes and risk behaviors in adolescence. The current study extends the literature on the prevalence and consequences of adolescent trauma exposure by (a) empirically identifying and characterizing trauma exposure profiles in a larg...

Objective: The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to estimate the prevalence of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive episode (MDE), and substance use disorder (SUD); and (2) to identify risk factors for patterns of comorbidity among adolescents affected by disasters. Method: A population-based sample of 2,000 adole...

Independent lines of research illustrate the benefits of social support and the negative consequences of conflict and emotional neglect across family and peer contexts with regard to depression. However, few studies have simultaneously examined negative and positive interactions across relationships. We sought to address this gap in the literature...

The objectives of this study is to examine dating violence perpetration and victimization (physical, psychological, and sexual) and lifetime substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and hard drugs) as longitudinal predictors of adolescents' risky sexual behavior across 1 year and to determine whether predictors varied across adolescents' gender and ethni...

The purpose of this multiwave longitudinal study was to examine the structure of self-complexity, and its relation to depressive symptoms, in 276 adolescents (M = 12.55; SD = 1.04). Self-complexity, depressive symptoms, and negative events were assessed during a laboratory assessment at baseline, and then depressive symptoms and negative events wer...

The present 9-wave, 2-year study examined whether Cole's (1991) theory of self-perceived competence could help explain vulnerability to depressive and anxiety symptoms in a sample of adolescents from mainland China. Participants included 624 adolescents (319 females and 305 males) from an urban school in Changsha (n = 308) and from a rural school i...

The present study examined the prospective relation between two personality predispositions, self-criticism and dependency, and internalizing symptoms. Specifically, it was examined whether self-criticism and dependency predicted symptoms of depression and social anxiety, and if a moderation (e.g. diathesis-stress) or mediation model best explained...

The present study examined the relation between attachment cognitions, stressors, and emotional distress in a sample of Chinese adolescents. Specifically, it was examined whether negative attachment cognitions predicted depression and anxiety symptoms, and if a vulnerability-stress or stress generation model best explained the relation between nega...

Given the frequent comorbidity of anxiety and depression, it is important to study the effects of depression interventions on anxiety and the impact of comorbid anxiety on depression outcomes. This article reports on pooled anxiety and depression data from two randomized trials of Interpersonal Psychotherapy-Adolescent Skills Training (IPT-AST), a...

A major theory of personality predispositions to depression posits that individuals who possess high levels of self-criticism and/or dependency are vulnerable to developing depression following negative life events. The goal of the current study was to test this theory of personality predispositions and the self-esteem buffering hypothesis in a sam...

The present study examined the applicability of the hopelessness theory in children in the third grade. Participants included 206 students (111 boys and 95 girls) whose average age was 8.47 (SD = 0.56) years. Participants completed self-report measures assessing inferential styles at baseline, and negative events and depressive symptoms six times o...

The current study examined enduring vulnerability factors and depression as predictors of stress generation in Chinese adolescents. Participants included 622 adolescents aged 15 to 18 years in both urban and rural mainland China. Participants completed self-report measures of vulnerability factors and depressive symptoms and participated in intervi...

The current study tested the vulnerability and sex differences hypotheses of the response styles theory of depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Participants included 494 tenth-grade students (M = 15.25 years, SD = 0.47) recruited from two secondary schools in Beijing, China. Participants completed self-report measures assessing rumination and neuroti...

Because rumination may allow an idea to stay in one's conscious longer and indecision may result in more time on a given task, it was expected that these two cognitive processes may predict creativity. Self-report measures of rumination, indecision, and creativity were electronically distributed to 85 adults (28 men, 57 women; M age = 32.96 years o...

Given that personality aspects of procrastinators are a consequence of their coping with environmental and social demands, we examined the extent that avoidant procrastination was related to personality styles from the Millon’s personality model. In the current study 1027 Spanish adults self-reported motivational, cognitive and behavioral personali...

The authors examined how time orientation and morningness-eveningness relate to 2 forms of procrastination: indecision and avoidant forms. Participants were 509 adults (M age = 49.78 years, SD = 6.14) who completed measures of time orientation, morningness-eveningness, decisional procrastination (i.e., indecision), and avoidant procrastination. Res...