Cynthia Mohr, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Applied Social Psychology
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Department of Psychology |
Biography
Dr. Mohr received her B.A. from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1991 and her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1999. Before coming to PSU, she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Alcohol Research Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
Her research concerns psychosocial influences on subjective well-being and physical health and in particular the processes by which positive and negative facets of interpersonal relationships and emotions exert effects on health. To examine these processes, many of Dr. Mohr’s research studies draw on daily process methodology, which are time-intensive investigations where people record experiences, thoughts, moods, and behaviors daily or multiple times a day, for periods ranging from a week to a month. Dr. Mohr has also drawn on dyadic designs and cross-cultural collaborations to examine the nature of interpersonal influence in her research work.
One area of particular focus to Dr. Mohr’s research work has been the area of negative emotional experiences and alcohol consumption, based on motivational models of alcohol consumption that specify the conditions under which people consume alcohol and motivations therein. She has examined the day-to-day fluctuations between positive and negative experiences and subsequent alcohol consumption, and how these relationships vary as a function of social context. Further, she has considered the potential for positive experiences to buffer the effects of negative experiences on drinking.
Dr. Mohr has directed multiple daily process studies examining these influences. She has also developed multiple interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues on related topics. One such collaboration is with Dr. Robert Sinclair from Clemson University (http://bobsinclair.webnode.com) and the Oregon Nurses Association (funded by the Northwest Health Foundation; PI-Sinclair), in which the research team conducted a longitudinal study of positive and negative work factors that predicted longer-term nurse retention (http://onrp.webnode.com). Another collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Dill (http://web.pdx.edu/~jdill), Director of the Oregon Transportation Research & Education Consortium at Portland State University, considers psychosocial models of health behavior as they apply to transit-related behavior (such as walking or bicycling), which have major health implications. She is serving as methodological consultant to Dr. Dill’s current research project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Dr. Mohr has an active team of undergraduate and graduate student collaborators who contribute to this research program.
