Peer Relations and Accuracy of Self-Perceptions Project: investigating the link between accuracy of children's perceptions of peer acceptance and the development of aggression and depression; depressive realism and evidence for positive illusions buffering children from symptoms associated with depression; causal models of inflated self-perceptions and aggression in elementary school-aged children.
Helplessness Project: longitudinal investigation of the early emergence of helpless responses to challenge and its impact on later achievement and psychological adjustment (i.e., depression and anxiety); studies of the mechanisms underlying helplessness in early childhood are planned, with an emphasis on goal orientations (e.g., validation-seeking goals) and a sense of contingent worth.
Mentoring Project: working with at-risk at-risk first graders attending a local school; investigating the effects of an empirically supported literacy intervention on achievement and psychological adjustment (externalizing and internalizing behaviors); outcome studies in which interventions to decrease helpless responses to challenge are added to the literacy intervention are planned.
ADHD Project: investigating comorbidity of ADHD and internalizing disorders (anxiety and depression); currently gathering assessment data in two outpatient clinics; focus of research is on moderating effects of internalizing disorders to nature and severity of ADHD symptoms, and on convergence of parent and child reports of internalizing symptoms.
Coping Response Styles Project: investigating how children and adults cope with negative affect; measurement of rumination and distraction as two coping styles of children and older adolescents; prediction of depression and the emergence of sex differences in depression in adolescence.
Kistner, J.A., Ziegert, D.I., Castro, R., & Robertson, B. (in press). Helplessness in early childhood: Prediction of symptoms associated with depression and negative self-worth. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly.
Kistner, J., Balthazor, M., Risi, S., & Burton, C. (1999). Predicting dysphoria in adolescence from actual and perceived peer acceptance in childhood. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 28, 1, 94-105.
Kistner, J.A., Balthazor, M., Risi, S., & David, C. (2000). Adolescents' perceptions
of peer acceptance: Is dysphoria associated with greater realism? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
David, C., & Kistner, J. Do positive self-perceptions have a "dark side"? (2000).
Examination of the link between perceptual bias and aggression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
Ziegert, D., Kistner, J., Castro, R., & Robertson, B. (in press). Longitudinal study of
young children's responses to challenging achievement situations. Child Development.
Perez, M., Pettit, J.W., David, C.F., Kistner, J.A., & Joiner, T.E., Jr. (in press). The
interpersonal consequences of positive illusory bias in an inpatient psychiatric
youth sample. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Lonigan, C.J., Hooe, E.S., David, C.F., & Kistner, J.A. (1999). Positive and negative
affectivity in children: Confirmatory factor analysis of a two factor model and
its relation to symptoms of anxiety and depression. Journal of Consulting and
Clinical Psychology, 67, 3, 374-386.
