The SAMPL Lab is working on developing a battery of theoretically and empirically grounded measures of temperament/personality across the lifespan to increase understanding of how temperament/personality traits contribute to the development of psychopathology, internalizing spectrum in particular. Existing parent-report measures of child temperament may not be providing the information they were intended to provide as indicated in Dr. Kotelnikova’s past publications (see Kotelnikova et al., 2016, 2017). Further, additional statistically rigorous research is needed to understand the nature and structure of observed child temperament (e.g., Kotelnikova et al., 2013). As a result, our team is working on filling this gap in the extant literature. In particular, we are using a rigorous, evidence-based approach to develop an informant-report measure of temperament in preschoolers and carefully selecting corresponding cognitive/behavioral tasks for validation of this measure. Given the large scope of this project, all graduate trainees in the SAMPL lab contribute to this project. Multiple studies comprise this project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant, American Psychological Foundation John and Polly Sparks Early Career Grant for Psychologists Investigating Serious Emotional Disturbance, and Faculty of Education Support for the Advancement of Scholarship (SAS) Operating Grant to Dr. Kotelnikova. This project was approved by the U of A Human REB#2 Pro00134961. Data collection is currently ongoing.
Middle childhood or early adolescence (10-13 age range) is a time when youth experience many biological and physical changes (e.g., brain development, puberty), discover their identity, place greater importance on peer relationships, and explore risky behaviors (e.g., substance use). Self-regulation refers to one’s ability to modulate their behavior and emotions (e.g., expression of anger). It is a skill set that rapidly develops at this stage. Delays in developing self-regulation can result in negative short-and long-term outcomes for youth (e.g., school difficulties, troubles with friends, substance use disorders). In the current study, youth completed cognitive-behavioural tasks (i.e., ‘brain games') and their caregivers completed a novel questionnaire and other existing informant-report measures of self-regulation. 220 families participated in our study (220 primary caregivers and 220 10-13-year-olds, N=120). By conducting advanced statistical analyses with these data, we will be able to develop a better understanding of the nature and structure of self-regulation in 10-13-year-olds. We will be able to gain further insight into how self-regulation develops in late middle childhood/early adolescence. In this study, we have also piloted a new caregiver-report measure that can help identify youth at risk for delays in developing self-regulation skills. Improved identification of at-risk youth will help with securing timely educational and social-emotional supports before self-regulation concerns become more challenging. We also hope that our findings will advance the training of mental health professionals and educators. This project was funded by the Killam Research Fund - Killam Cornerstone Grant to Dr. Kotelnikova. This project was approved by the U of A Human REB#2 Pro00146675. We have now completed data collection for this study. We would like to thank all families in Alberta who helped us with this study! Stay tuned for upcoming presentations and publications!
Workplace satisfaction is an important factor in understanding the stress levels, productivity, and job performance of staff in different settings, including libraries. Libraries, both public and academic, have been noted as particularly dysfunctional workplaces with multiple publications recently produced on this subject; therefore, gaining a better understanding of library staff workplace needs may facilitate the overall improvement of the work culture. There are numerous benefits to understanding what components foster a positive workplace, such as mitigating poor outcomes that are associated with workplace dissatisfaction, including high turnover and absenteeism. This study involves the development and validation of a multi-domain measure with the goal of accurately measuring the factors of job satisfaction that are important to library workers across Canada. In the current study, participants completed a novel questionnaire and other existing self-report measures of job satisfaction, personality, and wellness. We have now completed data collection with 617 participants from across Canada. Data analysis is currently underway. This project is a personal interest of one of our graduate trainees, Kiranpreet Ghag, who has spent many years working in the Canadian public library system. This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Explore Grant and the Faculty of Education Support for the Advancement of Scholarship (SAS) Operating Grant to Dr. Kotelnikova. This project was approved by the U of A Human REB#2 Pro00145639. We would like to thank all library workers across Canada who helped us with this study! In April-May, 2025, Kiranpreet presented preliminary results of this study at the 39th Annual Royce Conference in Psychology and the Annual University of Alberta Graduate Conference in Education. Stay tuned for upcoming presentations and publications!
This study is a collaboration between the SAMPL lab and the Mechanisms Underlying Sociality (MUS) Lab, under the leadership of Dr. Christopher Harshaw at the University of New Orleans. Joseph Easterly, a doctoral student in Applied Developmental Psychology program at the UNO co-supervised by Dr. Harshaw and Dr. Kotelnikova is taking the lead on this project. We are exploring novel methods of temperament/personality trait assessment across the lifespan that are rooted in biopsychology. Existing methods of capturing individual differences often rely on self- or informant reports or behavioral observations, which show low convergence. Previous research has suggested that underlying neuropsychological processes associated with temperament/personality traits can be observed through physiological means (e.g., galvanic skin response, temperature changes in tympanic membranes, etc.). One such method that has yet to be fully applied to understanding the nature and structure of temperament/personality across development is facial thermography (i.e., generating a “heat map” of different areas of the face). We are currently working to understand how this novel methodology can be used to capture individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation, and how it can be utilized as an assessment tool in developmental psychopathology research. This project was funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund, Research Competitiveness Sub-Program Grant to Dr. Christopher Harshaw. This study was approved by the University of New Orleans Institutional Review Board (IRB). We have now completed data collection for this study, approximately 70 young adults from the New Orleans area participated in this study. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this study! Preliminary results were presented by Joseph Easterly at the 57th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology in October, 2024, and a manuscript is currently being prepared for publication.
This study is a collaboration between the SAMPL lab and the Crescent City Substance Use Lab at the University of New Orleans. Adolescence can be challenging. Depression, delinquency, heavier substance use, and substance abuse often develop following the onset of puberty, making late childhood and early adolescence an important time for research on the development of psychopathology. Importantly, the intersection between child characteristics and environmental circumstances may predict the development of psychopathology in this age range. The development of better prediction models has the potential to improve prevention and treatment of psychopathology. In this project, we were interested in the early development of substance use patterns as well as the development of depression, anxiety, and delinquency. In particular, understanding parenting and peer group factors, such as negative peer dynamics, which precede the onset and escalation of substance use will help improve prevention strategies long before youth are at risk for substance used disorders, comorbid internalizing disorders, and significant functional impairment. We collected data from 120 youth and their caregivers in the greater New Orleans area, and data analyses are currently underway. We would like to thank all families who helped us with this study! This project was funded by the University of New Orleans Office of Research Start-up Grants to Drs. Kotelnikova and Scalco. This study was approved by the University of New Orleans Institutional Review Board (IRB).
How do we make judgements about someone’s personality? The goal of this study was to develop a better understanding of judgements of personality, including both adaptive and maladaptive traits, based on appearance, as well as to create a high-quality set of photographic measures to fill the gap that currently exists in the literature. This research aims to show the broader implications personality judgements can have in higher education, employment decisions, medical scenarios, and interpersonal relationships, as well as the theoretical implications in the fields of personality, industrial/occupational, and social psychology. This project was undertaken by the SAMPL lab during the time when Dr. Kotelnikova held a position of an Assistant Professor in the Applied Developmental Psychology, University of New Orleans. Data collection for this project was completed June, 2021; we collected data from approximately 900 participants, and publications from this project are currently underway. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this study! This project was funded by the University of New Orleans Office of Research Start-up Grant to Dr. Kotelnikova. This study was approved by the University of New Orleans Institutional Review Board (IRB).
This is a study of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. The SAMPL Lab collaborated with the Crescent City Substance Use Lab to collect data on adaptive and maladaptive personality traits, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms from participants living in the states that were the most affected by the pandemic as of April, 2020. Some of the questions that we tried to answer included the following:
How does the stay-at-home order and its removal affect patterns of depressive and anxious symptoms? How do OCD symptoms (i.e., obsessions and compulsions related to cleanliness and safety) change as a result of being confined to one’s home and after the restrictions are lifted?
How do maladaptive personality traits (e.g., disinhibition, sensation seeking, detachment) impact coping styles and mental health during this stressful time? How do the specific traits impact changes in depressive, anxious, OCD, and substance use symptoms and their comorbidity?
Are parents, especially those taking care of more than one child, particularly at risk for experiencing an increase in mental health difficulties during the stay-at-home order?
Data collection for this study was completed in June, 2020; we collected data from approximately 1,000 participants. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this study! Since then, we have teamed up with researchers from the University of Notre Dame, University of Pittsburgh, and SUNY University at Buffalo, producing a series of publications (some currently in submission) on the Comprehensive Assessment of Traits Relevant to Personality Disorders (CAT-PD; Simms et al., 2011), including the Structure of Pathological Personality Traits through the Lens of the CAT-PD Model published in 2023. This project was funded by the University of New Orleans Office of Research Start-up Grants to Drs. Kotelnikova and Scalco. This study was approved by the University of New Orleans Institutional Review Board (IRB).