My research interests generally involve aspects of marital and family functioning, and I currently am working with Dr. Teresa Herzog to develop the Family Relationships Lab at Francis Marion University.

Specifically, I am interested in the parenting alliance and various aspects of individual and marital functioning that enhance or impede the development and maintenance of the parenting alliance, as well as associations between child well being and the parenting alliance. For information about the longitudinal study of marital and family functioning at the University of Tennessee, click here to visit Kristi Gordon's web page. We collected longitudinal data from over 100 families (married parents with a child between 11 and 16 years old), including reports of betrayal and forgiveness, depressive symptomatology, relationship functioning, parent-child relationships, parenting alliance, and child functioning. A subset of the families participated in videotaped interactions, which we coded using both micro- and macro-analytic coding systems.

A line of research that I am currently developing involves traumatic symptoms and their associations with various indices of individual and family functioning, including relationship violence, drug and alcohol abuse, family of origin violence, parenting, and child well being. This line of research was inspired by clinical observations of the impact of trauma on individual and relationship functioning and extant empirical support for associations between traumatic stress and relationship violence (cf. Dutton, 1995). I am collaborating with Gregory Stuart, Todd Moore, and John Parsons at Brown University to analyze de-identified data collected as part of court-referred custody reunification evaluations. In addition, we also are examining data collected from women who have been court-referred for domestic violence treatment.

An additional interest of mine involves power dynamics in dating and marital relationships, and I have developed a brief self-report measure of relationship power dynamics for use in dating relationships. We (myself, Samantha Litzinger, Becca Furr, and Kristi Gordon) are currently collecting additional data at the University of Tennessee to further develop this dating power measure and explore how individuals’ perceptions of power affect their abilities to negotiate issues such as conflict and sexuality in relationships, including tendencies toward the overt expression of power (i.e., through the use of force or violence). Further, we are examining how college students are at risk for various types of coercion and violence within the context of their romantic relationships and are exploring variables already known to be associated with these power dynamics (e.g., depression, satisfaction). I will be expanding this line of research at Francis Marion University as well.