Rebecca L Brock

University of Nebraska at Lincoln | NU · Department of Psychology

Mutually responsive orientation (MRO) reflects a system of reciprocity between members of a dyad (Kochanska, 2002), and MRO observed in parent-child relationships is a robust predictor of child development (Kim, Boldt, & Kochanska, 2015; Kim & Kochanska, 2012; Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007; Kochanska, Forman, Aksan, & Dunbar, 2005). The goal of the...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic has precipitated substantial global disruption and will continue to pose major challenges. In recognition of the challenges currently faced by family scientists, we share our perspectives about conducting family research in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic. There are two primary issues we address...

Sexual objectification (i.e., reducing a person to their appearance, body, or sex appeal and functions) is a significant risk factor for negative health outcomes. In the present investigation, we examined multiple manifestations of objectification (i.e., objectification of others, objectification of self, and objectification by others) in an interp...

Despite multiple theories and treatment modalities emphasizing the importance of individuality in couple relationships, the field is lacking a reliable and valid measure of this construct. In the present study, we developed the Individuality in Couples (ICQ) questionnaire and demonstrated its strong psychometric properties across two samples of par...

Pregnancy represents a unique time during which women’s bodies undergo significant physical changes (e.g., expanding belly, larger breasts, weight gain) that can elicit increased objectification. Experiences of objectification set the stage for women to view themselves as sexual objects (i.e., self-objectification) and are associated with adverse m...

Background: Randomized controlled trials of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and other psychotherapies for depression have required strict adherence to protocol and do not allow for clinical judgment in deciding frequency of sessions. To determine if such protocols were more effective than allowing therapists to use their clinical judgment, we com...

Free copy of the Individuality in Couples Questionnaire (ICQ) with scoring instructions.

Background: Although deprivation has been consistently shown to increase risk for psychopathology through impaired executive control, the unique effects of other dimensions of early adversity, such as unpredictability, on executive control development are poorly understood. The current study evaluated whether deprivation and/or unpredictability ea...

The current study investigated the extent to which interparental support reduced pregnancy stress and subsequent postpartum bonding impairments with infant. We hypothesized that receiving higher quality partner support would be associated with decreased maternal pregnancy-related concerns, and less maternal and paternal pregnancy stress which, in t...

There is heightened risk for maternal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the perinatal period. However, it is unclear whether pregnancy and childbirth uniquely contribute to PTSD symptoms above and beyond elevations in negative affectivity that commonly occur among postpartum women (e.g., irritability, fatigue, depressed mood) and past tra...

Social anxiety disorder is common among emerging adults and is associated with serious functional impairment. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective intervention for social anxiety. An online version may increase access but low completion rates limit utility. This study investigated a self-guided, internet based CBT (ICBT) with peer coa...

The present study aimed to characterize the immediate impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on families with preschool age children and to identify pre‐pandemic factors that explained unique family experiences. We leveraged an ongoing longitudinal study of relatively well‐resourced community families who had reported on family functioning prior to the p...

Recent work indicates that a general factor, often referred to as the p-factor, underlies nearly all forms of psychopathology. Although the criterion validity and utility of this general factor have been well supported, questions remain about the substantive meaning of the p-factor. The purpose of the present longitudinal study was to empirically t...

Emerging research suggests that trait neuroticism is associated with enhanced attention to and perception of negative emotional stimuli, increasing the risk for multiple forms of psychopathology including depression and anxiety. However, modifiable factors such as certain forms of emotion regulation have the potential to weaken this association. In...

The current study aimed to examine the test–retest reliability and sensitivity of the Trans Collaborations Clinical Check-In (TC3) in a 3-month period with four assessment points at baseline, 1, 2, and 3 months to examine its utility as a clinical progress monitoring measure. This study builds on the initial validation study conducted by Holt et al...

Background Child temperament styles characterized by increased emotionality or pleasure seeking may increase risk for less healthful eating patterns, while strong executive control (EC) may be protective. The interaction of these characteristics with longitudinal outcomes has not yet been examined. Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the...

Pregnancy, while often marked by joy, may pose considerable risk for depression among parents. Against a backdrop of adverse life events, expectant parents may be even more vulnerable to developing symptoms of depression during the prenatal period. Thus, it is critical to identify sources of resilience that might facilitate a successful transition...

While the literature has shown that sexually objectifying women leads to negative outcomes for the target and perceiver, measures of objectification perpetration are often adaptations of measures designed to assess targets' self-objectification or reported experiences of objectifying behaviors. In the present article, we introduce the Objectificati...

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious consequences, particularly during high-risk periods such as pregnancy, which poses a significant risk to maternal mental health. However, it is unclear whether IPV presents a broad risk for psychopathology or is specific to distinct diagnoses or symptom dimensions (e.g., panic, social anxiety...

Despite findings demonstrating the importance of parental present-centered awareness, factors undermining mindful parenting have received less attention. Increasingly, evidence points to parental psychopathology as a salient risk factor for parenting difficulties. Thus, the goal of the present study was to investigate specific dimensions of parenta...

Objective The purpose of the present study was to investigate perceived difficulties in affective communication as a key mechanism linking attachment anxiety and avoidance during pregnancy to the quality of postpartum support received by partners. Background During the postpartum period, partner support has the potential to promote family well-bei...

Objective: Posttraumatic stress symptoms related to sexual assault have been linked to greater suicidal ideation, yet little is known about protective factors that may weaken this link and reduce thoughts of suicide in the context of posttraumatic stress. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions and prior research, psychologica...

Objective The objective of the current study was to examine associations between daily subjective stress and relationship satisfaction as a function of two protective factors—partner support and connection (i.e., intimacy, passion, and commitment)—among couples during pregnancy. Background Stress brought into the intimate relationship by each part...

The current paper leveraged a large multi-study functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) dataset (N = 363) and a generated missingness paradigm to demonstrate different approaches for handling missing fMRI data under a variety of conditions. The performance of full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation, both with and without auxiliar...

Millions of couples navigate the transition from pregnancy to postpartum in a given year, and this period of change and adjustment in the family is associated with elevated risk for intimate relationship dysfunction. Self-compassion has the potential to promote skills that are essential for healthy adaptation (e.g., emotion regulation, greater open...

In this study, we explore the role of perceived identity change as it relates to chronic illness and psychological well-being. Individuals with chronic illnesses (N = 345, Mage = 34.08, SD = 11.23) completed a questionnaire assessing their diagnosis, perceived identity change, and psychological well-being. Results demonstrated significant differenc...

Although posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with negative family outcomes, including parenting challenges, little is known about the biological and emotional processes that might underlie this association. The present project addressed this gap by examining associations between maternal PTSD and parenting behaviors in a lab setting....

Existing research suggests that childbirth may be a significant trigger of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). The current study examined whether subjective birthing experiences and objective childbirth characteristics mediated the association between predisposing psychosocial factors measured during pregnancy (e.g., fear of childbirth, history o...

Objective: Women who have experienced trauma report high rates of heavy episodic drinking (HED) and sleep problems. Prior work suggests that poor sleep exacerbates heavy alcohol use; however, potential mechanisms for this association are unclear. Consistent with the self-medication model, one possibility may be that women with a history of trauma a...

Consistent with objectification theory, the primary goal of the present study was to investigate the role of perceived humanization from one’s intimate partner as a predictor of depression (i.e., symptom severity), eating disorders (i.e., body dissatisfaction), and sexual dysfunction (i.e., dissatisfaction with quality of the sexual relationship) d...

Women’s bodies are frequent sites of stigmatization. The internalization of negative attitudes toward the body can have negative implications for women’s sexual wellbeing. In the current study, we examined the relationships between young women’s internalization of body stigma—including body shape, genitals, and menstrual periods—and sexual satisfac...

Negativity bias is not only central to mood and anxiety disorders, but can powerfully impact our decision-making across domains (e.g., financial, medical, social). This project builds on previous work examining negativity bias using dual-valence ambiguity. Specifically, although some facial expressions have a relatively clear negative (angry) or po...

Purpose The negative impact of stress on the mental health of perinatal woman is well-established. Prior research using data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) confirms three distinct stress domains: financial, relationship, and trauma. In 2013, an item assessing perceived racial discrimination was added to the Iowa PRAMS....

Internalizing stigma toward the body can have negative implications for women’s sexual health. In the current study, we examined how young women’s internalized stigma toward their body shape, genitals, and menstrual periods are associated with their use of preventative healthcare services for sexual health. Additionally, we tested two mechanisms th...

Purpose To evaluate how sexual pain influences changes in sexual frequency from the pregnancy to postpartum transition, and to examine how couple’s sexual communication interacts with sexual pain during pregnancy. Methods We explored data following 159 mixed-sex couples across the transition from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum. Couples completed...

Objective The present study examined the protective role of partner support in reducing daily experiential avoidance (EA) associated with trauma symptoms in a sample of 154 couples during pregnancy. Background Although psychological distress during pregnancy may hinder the developing bond between parents and infants after birth, high quality intim...

Research demonstrates the central role of mother-child relationships in child socioemotional development; however, families are complex systems and the unique roles of multiple family subsystems in early infant development have received less attention. In the present study, we investigated the role of multiple family relationships (interparental, m...

Sleep is a critical health behavior with important implications for child development. This chapter discusses the effects of sleep problems on early child executive functioning (EF), with an emphasis on individual differences that might moderate this relationship. Specifically, we (1) provide a brief background on sleep and EF in early childhood; (...

Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identi...

Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identi...

Victims of sexual assault often disclose their victimization experiences to friends and family members in the hope of gaining support. However, a number of factors may influence the manner in which these confidants respond to the disclosure (e.g., severity of the victim’s assault). The purpose of this study was to examine the role of two unique fac...

Purpose: Maternal trauma has been linked with problematic parenting, including both harsh and permissive behaviors. However, little is known about mechanisms accounting for this association. The current study examined the potential impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and emotion regulation on dysfunctional parenting behaviors in a sampl...

Interpersonal objectification shapes women’s sense of self, increasing self-objectification. While objectification is theorized to occur with consequences for self-objectification in romantic relationships, little research has examined this possibility. This experiment sampled 61 heterosexual couples to examine effects of objectification in relatio...

Sexual objectification is a subtle manifestation of sexist discrimination and violence against women that involves seeing and treating women as sex objects of male sexual desire. The primary aim of this research was to connect sexual objectification experiences with heterosexual intimate partner violence. This set of studies examined the impact of...

Feminist scholars have called for gender researchers to consider gene-environment interactions for gender-imbalanced disorders (Salk and Hyde Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36, 395–411, 2012). Responding to these calls, the present study integrates objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173–206, 1997) and...

A common topic for advice given to parents after childbirth – both from relationship experts and popular media – is how to “bounce back” to one’s pre-pregnancy sexuality, with warnings that postpartum declines in sexual frequency will take a serious toll on one’s relationship. However, these admonishments may not accurately reflect the ways in whic...

The primary goal of the present study was to systematically investigate the role of intimate partner support in alcohol use and to examine whether partner support serves a maladaptive function among individuals with a history of alcohol dependence. This goal was pursued in a sample of low-income outpatients because of increased risk for chronic str...

Background: Home visitation is a popular mechanism for supporting parents and their young children. Breastfeeding is often promoted by home visitors due to its health benefits. However, maternal depression may interfere with breastfeeding. Thus, home visitors may be attempting to encourage health-promoting behaviors like breastfeeding, but maternal...

Objective The aim of the present study was to test a unified framework that integrates several theories into a cohesive model to explain the interplay between neuroticism and intimate relationship quality as risk factors for prenatal depression. Background There is a notable spike in risk for depression during pregnancy, and the processes unfoldin...

Sexual objectification is one of most the common manifestations of discrimination against women in Western societies; however, few studies have examined objectification in the context of romantic relationships. The primary aim of the present research was to bring the study of objectification phenomena into the setting of heterosexual romantic relat...

Understanding how couples navigate and negotiate the challenges and demands of pregnancy has important implications for family health. The aim of this study was to apply a multidimensional model of intimate relationship quality in a sample of 154 pregnant, cohabitating couples, to investigate the association between a range of intimate relationship...

Growing research has documented distinct developmental sequelae in insecure and secure parent–child relationships, supporting a model of early attachment as moderating future developmental processes rather than, or in addition to, a source of direct effects. We explored maladaptive developmental implications of infants’ anger proneness in 102 commu...

Substantial research supports bidirectional links between intimate relationship discord and individual psychopathology, including depressive symptoms. However, few studies have utilized daily diary methods to capture the micro-level processes underlying the association between couple discord and depression, particularly among populations that are a...

This vignette study examined perceptions of 237 male and female undergraduate students regarding two severity levels (low and high) of other specified (OSFED) and unspecified feeding and eating disorders (UFED) in their male and female peers. Multilevel modeling showed that female characters received stronger endorsements of eating pathology than m...

Depressive and anxiety disorders are severe and disabling conditions that result in substantial cost and global societal burden. Accurate and efficient identification is thus vital to proper diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. The Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS) is a reliable and well-validated measure that provides dime...

A child’s attachment to his or her caregiver is central to the child’s development. However, current understanding of subtle, indirect, and complex long-term influences of attachment on various areas of functioning remains incomplete. Research has shown that (a) parent-child attachment influences the development of effortful control and that (b) ef...

Everyone should care deeply about statistical power and effect size given that the current estimates of wasted nonreproducible and exaggerated research findings range from 50 to 85%, combined with the mandates from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that proposal reviewers focus on scientific rigor and investigators consider sex as a biologica...

The present study demonstrates the interplay between interparental relationship satisfaction and child plasticity in the origins of internalizing problems in 99 community mothers, fathers, and children. Our cumulative measure of plasticity integrated genetics (5-HTTLPR polymorphism), psychophysiology (skin conductance level), and observed behavior...

Background: The perinatal period is a time of high risk for onset of depressive disorders and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality, including maternal suicide. Perinatal depression comprises a heterogeneous group of clinical subtypes, and further refinement is needed to improve treatment outcomes. We sought to empirically identif...

Background: Research suggests that trauma exposure is associated with perinatal depression; however, little is known about the nature of the relation between trauma history and trajectory of depression, as well as the predictive power of trauma history beyond other risk factors. Additionally, more research is needed in at-risk samples that are lik...

Maternal depression is a prevalent public health problem, particularly for low-income mothers of young children. Intervention development efforts, which often focus on surmounting instrumental barriers to care, have not successfully engaged and retained women in treatment. Task-sharing approaches like Listening Visits (LV) could overcome key instru...

It is important to consider trauma-related sequelae in the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology, namely understudied disorders such as those belonging to the Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum (OCS). This meta-analysis examined the association between past trauma exposure and current severity of OCS disorder symptoms. A systematic literature sear...

Background Universal screening for postpartum depression is recommended in many countries. Knowledge of whether the disclosure of depressive symptoms in the postpartum period differs across cultures could improve detection and provide new insights into the pathogenesis. Moreover, it is a necessary step to evaluate the universal use of screening ins...

Background: Weight loss and depressive symptoms are critical head and neck cancer outcomes, yet their relation over the illness course is unclear. Methods: Associations between self-reported depressive symptoms and objective weight loss across the year after head and neck cancer diagnosis were examined using growth curve modeling techniques (n =...

Young children's disregard for conduct rules (failing to experience discomfort following transgressions and violating adults' prohibitions) often foreshadows future antisocial trajectories, perhaps in part because it elicits more power-assertive parental discipline, which in turn promotes children's antisocial behavior. This process may be particul...

Research has demonstrated consistently that a broad range of personality traits affect intimate relationship quality; however, most of this research has used only self-ratings of personality. More recently, researchers have acknowledged that how partners perceive one another may also influence intimate relationships. The primary goal of the present...

This chapter is divided into two sections. Part 1 summarizes research on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual risk factors for relationship dysfunction, and presents implications of this research for couple interventions. Part 2 provides a review of research clarifying the role of intimate relationships in the mental and physical health of...

Middle childhood is a relative lacuna in behavioral attachment research. We examined antecedents, correlates, and implications of parent-child attachment at age 10 in a longitudinal study of community families from a Midwestern US state (N = 102, mothers, fathers, and children). Dimensions of security, avoidance, ambivalence, and disorganization of...

Each year, hundreds of graduate students fail to match to an internship, preventing students from completing one of the final requirements for receiving a doctorate in professional psychology. Although several leaders in the field have weighed in on this serious issue, the perspectives of many key stakeholders in the internship imbalance—most notab...

Disaster exposure during pregnancy has received limited attention. This study examined the impact of the 2008 Iowa Floods on perinatal maternal depression and well-being, and the role of peritraumatic distress as a possible mechanism explaining this link. Perinatal women (N = 171) completed measures of depressive symptoms and general well-being at...

Drawing from developmental psychology and psychopathology, we propose a new, developmentally informed approach to parenting interventions that focuses on elucidating changes in the unfolding developmental process between the parent and child. We present data from 186 low-income mothers of toddlers, randomly assigned to a child-oriented play group o...

Maternal postpartum depression has been linked to later internalizing and externalizing behaviors in offspring; whereas, the consequences of paternal postpartum depression have received little attention. Further, research has produced inconsistent findings regarding mechanisms accounting for the link between postpartum depression and subsequent chi...

This multi-method multi-trait study examined moderators and mediators of change in the context of a parenting intervention. Low-income, diverse mothers of toddlers (average age 30 months; N = 186, 90 girls) participated in a play-based intervention (Child-Oriented Play versus Play-as-Usual) aimed at increasing children's committed compliance and re...

Up to 20% of women experience postpartum depression (PPD). PPD is associated with anxiety and poor health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Efficacious treatments are critical; many women with PPD prefer complementary therapies. Thus, the current study examined yoga as a complementary therapy for PPD. Fifty-seven postpartum women with scores ≥12 on...

Although the negative impact of marital conflict on children has been amply documented, few studies examined the process of risk in a long-term longitudinal design. We examined parent-child attachment security as a mechanism that may account for the impact of interparental conflict on children’s long-term risk of internalizing problems. Sixty-two c...

An integration of family systems perspectives with developmental psychopathology provides a framework for examining the complex interplay between family processes and developmental trajectories of child psychopathology over time. In a community sample of 98 families, we investigated the evolution of family relationships, across multiple subsystems...

Background Maternal depression in the postpartum period confers substantial morbidity and mortality, but the definition of postpartum depression remains controversial. We investigated the heterogeneity of symptoms with the aim of identifying clinical subtypes of postpartum depression. Methods Data were aggregated from the international perinatal p...