research
My program of research advances the science of promotion and prevention. Prevention and promotion are the two upstream approaches to any problem: prevention stops or reduces harm, ill-health, and violence, while promotion enhances care, wellbeing, and peace. I study the pair wherever and whenever it appears: as indicators of complete health for individuals, schools, and communities, measuring wellbeing alongside the absence of ill-health; as prosocial mindsets, the motivation to promote care for others and to prevent harm to them; as conceptions of problems and their complementary aspirations; as program design tracks that promote protective factors and prevent risk factors to improve holistic safety and mental health; and as the promotion-prevention scientific paradigm for advancing community health and safety. Across those uses, my work spans six levels of analysis: behavioral, relational, motivational, programmatic, community, and sociostructural.
promotion-prevention science across levels
Across settings and methods, my program of research aims to make a specific contribution: it identifies fields organized solely around prevention and introduces a complementary promotion approach. At the behavioral level, where bullying had been addressed top-down through discipline and adult supervision, we reinforced student-to-student prosocial recognition. At the relational level, where bystander intervention had focused exclusively on preventing harm, we added promotion opportunities to affirm caring. At the motivational level, where regulatory focus theory had described promotion and prevention as self-regulation, we extended it to prosocial motivation, a focus on promoting care for others and preventing harm to them. At the program level, where disaster recovery had focused on adult-led treatment for trauma recovery, we developed youth-led resilience promotion. At the community level, where safety had been framed through fear, we examined whether care-based conceptions of safety shape support for violence intervention. At the sociostructural level, where mental health had been reduced to screening and treatment, we countered commercial narratives with public-focused promotion and prevention strategies on the social determinants of mental health, and where racism had focused on implicit bias and interpersonal racial discrimination, we affirm calls for structural thinking and structural intervention. Over fifteen years this program of research has moved upstream, from individual behavior to sociostructural determinants, and the sections below trace that progression level by level in the same colors.
relational level: dyads and triads
At the relational level, I ask how people lay conceptions of social behavior between two people and what moves a bystander to act. A theory of power-relevant dyadic helping and aggressing proposed two continua, beneficial to harmful impact and relative power, and tested them with a mixed-methods design (McCarty, 2016). Multidimensional scaling of adolescents’ similarity ratings found that benefit-harm organizes their thinking while relative power does not, with extent of impact and the collective power of the dyad emerging instead (McCarty & Dunsmore, 2022). Using shinylive, we create an app that visualizes patterns of social behavior based on adolescents’ conceptions; you can explore helping and harming behaviors by power type and gender (click benefit-harm app and wait 20 seconds for the app to load).
That work led to a broader theory of triads: bystander intervention. The classic bystander model is prevention-only. A bystander notices harm, interprets it as an emergency, assumes responsibility, chooses a strategy, and acts. Drawing on promotion science, motivation science, and behavioral science, we revised the model to add a promotion pathway in which upstanders also notice opportunities to affirm safety-promoting and health-promoting behavior (McCarty, Arnold, Booker, Pacqué & Liskey, 2022).
program level: youth-led promotion & prevention
At the program level, I design, implement and evaluate promotion/prevention programs, which are most often youth-led and delivered through community-academic partnerships. After the Chardon High School shooting, twenty college student trainers delivered universal, targeted, and indicated resilience promotion to more than a thousand students, and student leaders formed a youth-led club; six years of lessons learned became the Youth-Led Resilience Promotion framework (McCarty, Pacqué, Gatto, Hill & Charak, 2022; see also Teie, McCarty & Cea, 2013). My youth-led work started as a student leader of the AC4P movement at Virginia Tech (McCarty, Mullins, Geller & Shushok, 2013).
The Upstanding for Promotion-Prevention (UPP) program turns the revised bystander model into a workshop with a promotion track and a prevention track, designed through intervention mapping (McCarty, Pacqué, Booker, Liskey & Arnold, 2021). Its first evaluation with 388 high school students found that the prevention-tailored track strengthened safety beliefs and defending actions, with students’ gain, non-gain, and loss motivations moderating the effects (Booker, McCarty, Pacqué & Liskey, 2024). In a concurrent embedded mixed-methods study of school climate and student adjustment in a single high school yields three different school climate perception profiles – authoritative, peer neglectful, and adult neglectful – that reinforce the importance of peer-led vs. adult-led approaches for school climate improvement (Booker et al., in prep). Now, we are revising the UPP program and youth-led promotion/prevention (YL2P) to address population mental health on the Binghamton University campus, evaluating these approaches transparently.
community level: care & fear
At the community level, I examine community-engaged research, community-based change, and the psychological beliefs that shape what a community invests in. My FRI students have been examining how students and residents conceive of safety and which approaches to violence intervention they are willing to support. Specifically, we test whether care-based and fear-based conceptions of safety are salient in a college and community sample, because those conceptions influence whether a community invests in care or in fear (Raposo et al., 2026), and whether fixed versus growth mindsets align with individual versus structural solutions to violence (Vo et al., 2026).
sociostructural level: determinants, thinking, and solutions
At the sociostructural level, I examine the psychological factors and mainstream narratives related to structural, commercial, and political forces. A recurring finding is that commercial agents promote commercial-oriented conceptions of problems: popular-psychology solutions reinforce individualistic fixes rather than sociopolitical intervention, biological attributions crowd out lifestyle approaches and public policies, and a school security industry sells bulletproof backpacks and glass rather than programs that prevent violence and promote safety for all.
Three lines of research consider the structural forces of racism, commercialization, and political partisanship. To advance racial justice, we called on community psychologists to advance a moral reckoning on structural racism by examining structural factors, encouraging structural thinking, and supporting structural intervention, and we named political and commercial determinants as the two structural factors that maintain the status quo (McCarty, Liskey, George, Cook & Metzl, 2023). To build on this work, we designed curriculum aimed as improving structural thinking. In the Public Health stream’s three-semester course-based undergraduate research experience, we developed and evaluated curricular elements to advance a structural analysis of racial health inequities: weekly positionality reflections, a debate on individualistic versus deterministic thinking, lectures, and lab activities on the determinants of health, theory construction, and the social construction of race. At the start and end of the course, students read two mortality case studies, explained the causes of death in their own words, and drew conceptual models of their lay theories of health; two independent raters coded the responses for biological, lifestyle, social, and sociostructural attributions and for cognitive complexity (Burton et al., 2026). On mental health, we applied the commercial determinants of health framework to the dominant narratives that frame the mental health crisis as an individual problem, encourage screening, and support commercialization, and we offered alternative narratives that span promotion and prevention, treatment, and recovery (Cosgrove et al., 2026). On politics, we are examining partisan affiliation as a determinant of social and economic zero-sum beliefs (Khan, Hei, John & McCarty, in prep); future work tests whether those beliefs inhibit support for universal health care coverage and structural change. In a different study, we test whether avoidance of health information about colorectal cancer differs by partisan affiliation (Orom et al., in prep).
treemap of my research
A treemap of my published and in-progress papers by level of analysis, method, and topic using Claude.
research by level
behavioral
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
relational
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, 42(31), 27153–27166. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03806-4
Booker, J. A., McCarty, S., Mitchell, A., Johnson, C. L., Mitchell, M., & *Pacqué, K. (2026). Similar stressors, different appraisals of the school climate: Discordance by gender between adolescents’ general climate ratings and specific accounts of a recent peer stressor.
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]
motivational
*Hei, Z., *Giallella, J., *John, J., *Khalap, I., Booker, J., Pacqué, K., *Rualo, G., & McCarty, S. (2026). Health promotion and prevention as mindsets: A mixed-methods analysis of prosocial motivations. Poster presented at the APHA 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo. [abstract]
program
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 & Intervention in the Community, 51(4), 352–374. 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., *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. [preprint]
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
community
*Raposo, V., *Suchdeve, S., *Ngo, C., *Vo, K., *Smith, R., & McCarty, S. (2026). Conceptions of care vs. fear-based safety and preferences for violence intervention approaches. Poster presented at the APHA 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo. [abstract]
*Vo, K., *Smith, R., *Raposo, V., *Ngo, C., *Suchdeve, S., & McCarty, S. (2026). Fixed vs. growth mindsets and individual vs. structural solutions to violence prevention: A qualitative analysis. Poster presented at the APHA 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo. [abstract]
McCarty, S., Orom, H., & Acton, B. (in prep). Promotion-oriented and prevention-oriented leadership functions for community-based organizations advancing health equity.
sociostructural
Cosgrove, L., Pelton-Flavin, K., McCarty, S., Baez, A., Abi-Jaoude, E., Cooper, C., & Shaughnessy, A.F. (2026). Commercial-friendly mental health narratives undermine community mental health: A call for action. Community Mental Health Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-026-01659-w
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
Khan, A., *Hei, Z., *John, J., & McCarty, S. (2025). Political party affiliation and zero-sum beliefs: Does subjective social status matter? [preprint]
*Burton, B., *John, J., *Papavangjeli, S., *Kumar, V., *Lyktey, D., *Raposo, V., *Vo, K., Shamoon-Pour, M., Sengupta, E., & McCarty, S. (2026). Developing structural thinking among first-year students in a course-based undergraduate research experience. Poster presented at the APHA 2026 Annual Meeting and Expo. [abstract]
Orom, H., Allard, N.C., *Hei, Z., McCarty, S., & Moss, A. (in prep). Partisan patterns in cancer information avoidance.
recent publications
Cosgrove, L., Pelton-Flavin, K., McCarty, S., Baez, A., Abi-Jaoude, E., Cooper, C., & Shaughnessy, A.F. (2026). Commercial-friendly mental health narratives undermine community mental health: A call for action. Community Mental Health Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-026-01659-w
Community mental health aims to provide effective care to all people, especially those living with serious mental illness. However, commercial influences undermine the ability to provide this needed care. In this commentary, we use the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) framework to analyze dominant mental health narratives that frame the mental health crisis as an individual problem, encourage mental health screening, and support the commercialization of mental health. To counter this intra-individual approach, we offer nuanced narratives that are robust enough to facilitate effective and focused care across the continuum of care: mental health promotion and prevention, mental health treatment, and recovery-oriented solutions.
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 & Intervention in the Community, 51(4), 352–374. 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, 42(31), 27153–27166. 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.
* = co-author is a current or former mentee/research assistant