Contact Information
Email
Website
(615) 343-8712
315A Hobbs
Research Area
Education
Ph.D. (University of Houston, 1983)
Curriculum Vitae
Advising
David Cole
Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Psychology and Human Development
Chair of the Department of Psychology and Human Development
Professor Cole's research interests center around development psychopathology in general and childhood depression in particular. Working from the premise that the origins and perpetuation of mental illness have large interpersonal components, he studies the relation between childhood depression and patterns of parent-child interactions, peer relations, and competency-based feedback from significant others.
He further suggests that cognitive models of depression must take into consideration the level of the child's cognitive development. His studies imply that adult models of depression need substantial modification when applied to children.
Related interests include the assessment of childhood disorders and the prediction of adolescent suicide. Understanding suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior in the context of adolescent development, is an underlying theme of this research. Other areas of research include developing new methodologies for clinical and psychopathology research, validating clinical assessment instruments, and examining change in non-experimental research designs.
Representative Publications
- Cole, D. A., Cho, S.-J., Martin, N. C., Youngstrom, E. A., Curry, J. F., Findling, R. L., Compas, B. E., Goodyer, I. M., Rohde, P., Weissman, M., Essex, M. J., Hyde, J. S., Forehand, R., Slattery, M. J., *Felton, J. W., & *Maxwell, M. A. (in press). Are increased weight and appetite useful indicators of depression in children and adolescents? Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
- *Tran, C., Cole, D. A., & Weiss, B. (in press). Testing reciprocal longitudinal relations between peer victimization and depressive symptoms in young adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
- *Weitlauf, A., & Cole, D. A. (in press). Cognitive development masks support for attributional style models of depression in children and adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
- *Tilghman-Osborne, C., Cole, D. A., & *Felton, J. W. (in press). Inappropriate and excessive guilt: Instrument validation and developmental differences in relation to depression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
- *Maxwell, M. A., & Cole, D. A. (in press). Development and initial validation of adolescent responses to body dissatisfaction. Psychological Assessment.
- Maxwell, S. E., Cole, D. A., & *Mitchell, M. A. (in press). Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation: Partial and complete mediation under an autoregressive model. Multivariate Behavioral Research. [Feature article with responsive commentaries]
- Cole, D. A., Cai, L., Martin, N. C., Findling, R. L., Youngstrom, E. A., Garber, J., Curry, J. F., Hyde, J. S., Essex, M. J., Compas, B. E., Goodyer, I. M., Rohde, P., Stark, K. D., Slattery, M. J., & Forehand, R. (in press). Structure and measurement of depression in youth: Applying Item Response Theory to clinical data. Psychological Assessment.
- Cole, D. A., *Jacquez, F. M., *LaGrange, B., *Pineda, A. Q., *Truss, A. E., *Weitlauf, A. S., *Tilghman-Osborne, C., *Felton, J., Garber, J. Dallaire, D. H. Ciesla, J. A. *Maxwell, M. A., & Dufton, L. (in press). A longitudinal study of cognitive risks for depressive symptoms in children and young adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence.
- *LaGrange, B., Cole, D. A., *Jacquez, F., Ciesla, J., Dallaire, D., *Pineda, A., *Truss, A., *Weitlauf, A., *Tilghman-Osborne, C., & *Felton, J. (2011). Disentangling the prospective relations between cognitive style and depressive symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120(3), 511-527.
- Cole, D. A., *Maxwell, M. A., Dukewich, T. L., & *Yosick, R. (2010). Targeted peer victimization and the construction of positive and negative self-cognitions: Connections to depression in children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 39, 421-435.
* Indicates student co-authors