OPUS Spring 2017
Letter from the Editor
Staff Articles
- Managing Mental Health in the Primary Care Sector
- An Interview with Dr. Joshua Aronson
- An Interview with Dr. Elise Cappella
- Childhood Emotional Abuse and Borderline Personality Disorder
- Split: A Review and Its Unexpected Merit
- The Influence of Leadership Style on Individuals’ Satisfaction on Small Teams
- The Impact of Postpartum Depression on the Mother-Child Relationship
- Don’t Worry, But Don’t Just Be Happy
- Teachers’ Use of Positive and Negative Feedback: Implications for Student Behavior
Siddhi Patel
Dr. Elise Cappella is a clinical and community psychologist whose research combines child education and psychology. She received her undergraduate degree at Yale University and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Capella’s research strives to identify factors that stimulate and hinder the socio-emotional and academic success of children from low-income backgrounds. Dr. Cappella has worked with colleagues at the Chicago Institute for Juvenile Research in order to implement and evaluate a mental health model that focuses on the process of learning for low- income children. Dr. Cappella also studies the social relationships among children in school in an effort to develop peer leaders and create supportive school environments that foster learning and development. In an interview with Dr. Cappella, she described why she pursued a Ph.D. in Psychology, her greatest accomplishments, and what she has learned in her career.
Who inspired you to pursue psychology?
I worked four years prior to attending graduate school. Three of the four years I worked in the research division of the company that makes Sesame Street. My division worked with children all over the country. They also put together panels of scholars that would guide them when they needed more information for the development of new products. Dr. Dan Anderson, an expert in educational television and child development, asked me what I wanted to do in the future, and I said I wasn’t sure. He then urged me to go to graduate school and I realized that in order to do higher levels of work I would have to go back to school.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your career?
I get a lot of satisfaction from visiting a school or an agency that I have worked with before and seeing them continue to do the work we started together. I feel most content when I see a teacher in a school use peer-assisted learning techniques from an intervention, when I see an after school leader group students together to maximize integration across the diversity in the program, or when I see a mental health practitioner go into classrooms and partner with teachers rather than students to support the classroom climate and children with behavioral difficulties.
What qualities make for successful interventions?
Effective interventions are co-developed with members of the community and capitalize on resources and strengths within communities. Also critical are strong theories and principles that act as the foundation of the intervention and remain constant across implementation contexts.
What words of wisdom do you have for students wanting to work in psychology?
I’ve learned that it is a marathon and not a sprint. I believe incremental change is important, and incremental knowledge building is how science moves forward. I encourage students to take their time and observe the world, to work and gain experience, rather than rushing back to school. This will be more rewarding and advantageous in the long run. I also recommend that students find good, kind, and smart people to spend time with and learn from, regardless of what they are studying, because it is those people that will inspire them and help them grow. sexually objectifying point of view (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Szymanski et al., 2011). Media’s vast reach ensures that women and girls of all ages, socio-cultural backgrounds, and geographical locations are affected by these images (Augustus-Horvath & Tylka, 2009; Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Szymanski et al., 2011). The sexual objectification of women extends into all corners of culture and society in the U.S.
Dr. Capella’s reading recommendations for students:
Dr. Cappella encourages students to read Andrew Solomon, who mostly writes about clinical problems, and Paul Tough, who has written about children’s social-emotional development. She also urges students to read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, which examines the clash between the medical world and culture; Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, about cognitive biases in thinking; and Beyond the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, which describes a community of people living in a poor settlement in India.