Focal Research Areas

Basic Dynamics of Problem-Focused Talk in Interpersonal Relationships: The DRIFT lab studies the affective, social, and physiological consequences of disclosing problems to others and providing support. A through-line of this work is that something good for us in one domain (e.g., the social domain) can be detrimental in another (e.g., the affective domain), and that people vary considerably in how they experience the relative utility of specific support interactions. Much of this line of research centers on co-rumination — a social emotion regulation strategy characterized by a cyclical pattern of talking about problems and focusing on negative feelings with another person — which is often associated with interpersonal benefits but intrapersonal costs. We treat these processes as dynamic and interdependent rather than static, examining how support unfolds over time and across both partners in a dyad. We use diary methods, experiments, and in-lab conversation studies to dissect these interpersonal processes of how people discuss important personal problems.

Discussions of Societal-level and Socio-Structural Issues: The lab also examines how socio-structural contexts shape individual and relational well-being. We examine how people regulate emotions together around issues of societal relevance, such as political events, racial discrimination, and collective stressors, and how strategies that have typically been deemed maladaptive in the literature (e.g., co-rumination) may be perceived as less detrimental, or even adaptive, when it is contextually bound and centered on stressors of large societal relevance.

Work-Related Applications of Relationship and Affective Science: A newer line of research applies our theoretical knowledge of social support, stress, and problem-focused discussion to the work domain. Here we investigate how work and home life are uniquely intertwined, how our personal life can spill over into our work life, which types of support are more or less helpful when work is the source of stress, and whether who the support provider is (e.g., coworker, boss, romantic partner, friend) moderates perceived effectiveness of support. This work is interdisciplinary by design, bridging social and relationship science with industrial-organizational psychology.

Advances in Quantitative Methods: Across all of these themes, the DRIFT lab leverages and advances quantitative approaches to answer complex questions about interpersonal behavior. Our methodological work spans intensive longitudinal (daily diary and experience-sampling) designs, dyadic models — including models for indistinguishable dyads, such as queer couples — and integrative approaches for modeling heterogeneity in physiological synchrony and other dynamic processes. We are committed to open and democratized science: analysis code is made publicly available so these methods can be more readily adopted across the field, and students are involved throughout, learning to value substantive questions and rigorous methods in equal measure.