I am interested broadly in the roles of psychosocial stress and emotion in endocrine, immune and cardiovascular function, physiological concomitants of social psychological phenomena, and how relationships among these factors influence health My current focus is on (1) biopsychosocial processes linking emotional expression about stress and health outcomes, and (2) the social stress of impression management and its physiological concomitants.

My work in the first area has developed from substantial behavioral medicine and social psychological research demonstrating associations among verbal and written emotional expression and positive health outcomes. I am particularly interested in the influence of emotional communication about stressful events on subsequent interpersonal processes and physiological responses to stress, and how these responses can influence long-term health indicators and disease-specific health outcomes, such as those associated with cancer. In addition to examining these mechanisms in younger adults, much of my work emphasizes emotional expression and health links in older adulthood.

My work in the second area concerns the physiological concomitants of stressful impression management situations, such as when an individual expects her or his “self” to be evaluated by peers. Using physiological patterns indicative of coping orientations, I am able to examine how opportunities for, or constraints upon, impression management are experienced. These physiological patterns also provide a window into social mechanisms that may bear upon health. I am currently addressing these social psychophysiological processes in romantic partners to examine the interdependent nature of self-presentation in close relationships.