research

My research lines cover: 1) promotion/prevention programs (with a focus on youth-led change), 2) conceptions of social problems, and 3) promotion/prevention prosocial motivational mindsets.

promotion & prevention mindsets

This line of research focuses on understanding and leveraging promotion and prevention motivation for prosocial action. We are extending “regulatory focus theory” to “prosocial regulatory focus”, conceptualizing prosocial motivation as prosocial promotion motivation wherein individuals aims to promote care for others and prosocial prevention motivation wherein individuals aim to prevent/reduce harm for others. We are developing a measure and piloting it with youth (high school and college students) and professionals (e.g., school administrators, adult allies, school resource officers, officers, health equity scholars, mental health providers, and public servants). We aim to examine how these motivational mindsets influence bystander intervention and upstanding, intervention selection and implementation, and perceptions of social change.

I am intereted in examining motivational mindsets (of prosocial regulatory focus) as predictors of population health conceptions, goals, and strategies in order to construct a middle-range theory of promotion-prevention. Specifically, I am testing whether promotion mindset is associated with promotion-oriented conceptions of problems (e.g., health, safety), promotion-oriented determinants of health (promotive factors), and preferences for health promotion intervention; also, I am testing whether prevention mindset is associated with prevention-oriented conceptions of problems (e.g., ill health, violence), prevention-oriented determinants of health (risk factors), and preventive intervention. My research covers the conceptions of social problems, promotion/prevention prosocial motivation mindsets, and promotion/prevention programs for youth-led change. Ultimately, I want to help leaders think structurally and leverage prosocial promotion motivation and prosocial prevention motivation to advance health equity, population mental health, and school/community safety.

youth-led, promotion-prevention programs

This line focuses on the design and implementation of youth-led programs to promote health, safety, and justice. Using various participatory methods, we have designed and continue to revise youth-led resilience promotion (YLRP) approach, the upstanding for promotion—prevention (UPP) program, youth-led promotion/prevention (YL2P) program, and youth-led analytics (YLA). We have piloted these programs in numerous high schools. We are continuously improving each program and planning for transparent program evaluations.

conceptions of social problems

This lines focus on academic and lay conceptions of social problems, including social behavior, racism, and mental ill health. We have focused on adolescent perceptions of social behavior, identifying an underlying dimension of beneficial – harmful to organize helping and aggressing behavior, respectively. More recent work has focused on an interpersonal vs. structural analysis of racism and biomedical vs. social conception of mental ill health. Related to this line of research is attention to the commercial determinants of health, safety, and justice. Commercial agents facilitate commercial-oriented conceptions of problems that maintain structural racism, facilitate mental distress, and undermine school safety. Commercial determinants may undermine the vision for a moral reckoning on structural racism because commercial-oriented, popular psychology solutions reinforce individualistic solutions rather than sociopolitical intervention. Commercial determinants are facilitating the mental distress crisis by over-emphasizing biological attributions for mental ill health and psychiatric solutions rather than free lifestyle approaches and public-oriented policies. An emerging school security industry consists of corporations individualizing safety and selling protective solutions for individuals (e.g., bulletproof backpacks for kids) and environmental design for schools (e.g., bulletproof glass) rather than programs that prevent violence and promote safety for all.