publications
recent publications
Booker, J., McCarty, S., Pacqué, K., & Liskey, M. (2024). Evaluating an integrated promotion and prevention bystander approach: Early evidence of intervention benefits and moderators. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2024.2313383
Bullying victimization remains a pressing concern to the health and development of U.S. adolescents. Victims of bullying face threats to their safety and education. Hence, interventions are needed to prevent bullying and equip others to intervene in bullying situations. Prior research has examined preventive interventions with little consideration of promotion-tailored, peace-encouraging, interventions. Further, there is a need to test whether people’s motives toward preventive and promotive actions may fit with certain intervention tracks. Here, we tested an upstander approach consisting of a universal assembly presentation with promotion-oriented education (Promote Caring) and prevention-oriented education (Say Something), as well as a tailored 150-minute workshop (Upstanding for Promotion-Prevention). High school students (n = 388; 53.9% girls) participated in the study with a control group (n = 335) and intervention group who self-selected to experience upstanding for peace promotion (n = 15) or upstanding for bullying prevention (n = 35). Students in the prevention-tailored track reported stronger safety beliefs (violence prevention beliefs and care promotion beliefs) than students in the control group and endorsed using more defending actions than control-group students. Students’ gain, non-gain, and loss motivations moderated ties between upstanding track involvement and post-test safety beliefs, barriers to upstanding, and defending behaviors.
McCarty, S., *Liskey, M., George, D., Cook, N., & Metzl, J. (2023). Toward a moral reckoning on structural racism: Examining structural factors, encouraging structural thinking, and supporting structural intervention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71(1-2),33-42. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12642
The racial reckoning of 2020 involved the largest social movement protest in U.S. history, but support for the Black Lives Matter movement declined shortly after. To advance a moral reckoning on structural racism that dismantles racialized structures and redresses racial inequities, we call on activist scholars within the field of community psychology to realign their own practices by a) examining structural factors; b) encouraging structural thinking; and c) supporting structural intervention for racial justice. Two structural factors–political determinants and commercial determinants–maintain the status quo of structural racism, undermining efforts for racial equity. As a result, we encourage the development of structural thinking, which provides a structural analysis of racism and leads to support for structural intervention. With an intersectional race and class perspective, we detail how structural thinking could be developed among the professional managerial class (through structural competency) and among the oppressed class (through critical consciousness). Finally, we discuss structural intervention factors and approaches that can redress racial inequities and produce structural change. Ultimately, we provide a pathway for community psychologists to support activists building a multi-racial, multi-class coalition to eliminate structures and systems of racial, political, and economic injustice.
McCarty, S. & Dunsmore, J. (2022). Adolescents’ perceptions of helping and aggressing at school: Salience of benefit-harm, extent of impact, and collective dyadic power. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03806-4
Aggressing, bullying, and helping occur within the social context and their impact may be determined by the nature of the dyadic relationship between the agent and the recipient of the behavior. This study tests a theoretical model of power-relevant interpersonal behavior which proposes two bipolar continua: beneficial to harmful impact and relative power imbalance between dyad members. From a bystander perspective, adolescents rated similarity of paired vignettes, which varied based on intensity of beneficial to harmful impact, relative power between agent and recipient, and power type (academic or social). Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analyses were conducted separately for girls and boys according to type of power to test whether the proposed theoretical model of power-relevant interpersonal behavior is supported. The first proposed dimension, beneficial–harmful, emerged in all four sets of MDS analyses (boys, academic power; boys, social power; girls, academic power; boys, academic power). The secondary proposed dimension, relative power, only emerged for girls regarding social power, as the fourth dimension in that solution. Thus, results suggest that relative power is not a salient concept in adolescents’ thinking about helping and aggressing. Rather, dimensions of extent of impact and collective power of the dyad (combined status of agent and recipient) empirically emerged. These results may inform a taxonomy of interpersonal behavior, conceptualization of bullying, and promotion-prevention programs that promote helping and prevent aggressing among adolescents in schools.
McCarty, S., *Pacqué, K., Gatto, A., *Hill, K. & Charak, R. (2022). Youth-led resilience promotion during disaster recovery: A proposed framework, innovative program, and lessons learned. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 14(S1), S32 – S40. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001142 [preprint]
Objective: Disasters, such as a school shooting or a global pandemic, harm psychological health and necessitate recovery. To complement adult-led disaster recovery and trauma-specific approaches, we propose a Youth-Led Resilience Promotion (YLRP) framework focusing on: (a) multitiered change, (b) resilience goals, (c) a promotion mindset, (d) youth strengths, (e) prosocial behaviors, and (f) capacity building through partnerships. The YLRP framework guided the development of a YLRP program in the aftermath of the Chardon High School shooting in Chardon, Ohio, which is detailed in a case study. Method: As part of a Community-Academic Partnership, 20 college student trainers delivered a multitiered, multicomponent resilience promotion intervention: universal resilience promotion to 1,070 high school students; targeted resilience promotion to 200 student leaders through workshops; and indicated resilience promotion to 30 student leaders through mentoring. Results: Student leaders formed a youth-led, after-school club to advance relational resilience through prosocial strategies. Lessons learned from implementing the YLRP program for 6 years (2012–2017) are provided to guide YLRP program developers and program implementers. Conclusion: A youth-led program equipping youth leaders to engage in prosocial strategies may contribute to the psychological resilience and recovery of students after a school shooting, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and other potentially traumatic events.
publications by research line
conceptions of social problems
McCarty, S., *Liskey, M., George, D., Cook, N., & Metzl, J. (2023). Toward a moral reckoning on structural racism: Examining structural factors, encouraging structural thinking, and supporting structural intervention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71(1-2),33-42. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12642
McCarty, S. & Dunsmore, J. (2022). Adolescents’ perceptions of helping and aggressing at school: Salience of benefit-harm, extent of impact, and collective dyadic power. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03806-4
promotion-prevention programs
Booker, J., McCarty, S., Pacqué, K., & Liskey, M. (2024). Evaluating an integrated promotion and prevention bystander approach: Early evidence of intervention benefits and moderators. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2024.2313383
McCarty, S., *Pacqué, K., Gatto, A., *Hill, K. & Charak, R. (2022). Youth-led resilience promotion during disaster recovery: A proposed framework, innovative program, and lessons learned. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 14(S1), S32 – S40. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/tra0001142 [preprint]
McCarty, S., *Teie, S., *McCutchen, J., & Geller, E.S. (2016). Actively caring to prevent bullying: Prompting and rewarding prosocial behavior in elementary schools. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 44(3), 164-176. https://doi.org/gmz8jn
Furrow, C., McCarty, S., & Geller, E.S.(2016). Pay it forward: A field study of indirect reciprocity. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 44(3), 155-163. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2016.1166806
McCarty, S., Mullins, T.G., Geller, E.S., & Shushok, F. (2013). The Actively Caring for People movement at Virginia Tech and beyond: Cultivating compassion and relationships in residence halls. Journal of College and Character, 14, 373-380. https://doi.org/gm2j8h
manuscripts in preparation
promotion-prevention programs
McCarty, S., *Arnold, M., Booker, J., *Pacqué, K., *Liskey, M., & Nickerson A. Bystander interventions for promotion and prevention: Applying promotion science, motivation science, and behavioral science to upstanding.[preprint]
McCarty, S., *Pacqué, K., Booker, J., *Liskey, M., *Arnold, M., & Nickerson A. Designing a promotion-prevention bystander intervention program: Applying intervention mapping to encourage promotion and prevention upstanding.
Conceptions of social problems
McCarty, S., Orom, H., & Acton, B. Promotion-oriented and prevention-oriented leadership functions for community-based organizations advancing health equity.
McCarty, S., *Cooper, C., Giovani, G., Miller, R., Green, C. & Cogrove, L. The commercial determinants of mental health on incidence, prevalence, diagnosis, and intervention.
* = co-author is a current or former mentee/research assistant