• PhD, University of Pittsburgh

I am broadly interested in the role of psychosocial factors in the etiology, maintenance and recovery from depression, as well as how depressive conditions impact people’s lives in terms of health-related behavior (such as treatment adherence among HIV+ patients) and social rejection. A number of my past research projects have examined how labile self-esteem, insecure attachment style, and ruminative coping contribute to risk for depression. Recent studies have focused on implicit self-esteem, biases in interpersonal perception, deficits in executive control and autobiographical memory. My lab is also developing procedures to assess how rumination is experienced in daily life and examining contextual factors that may signal when repetitive thinking about one’s mood is maladaptive.

• Roberts, J.E., Yanes-Lukin, P. & Kyung, Y.  (2018). Distinctions between autobiographical memory specificity and detail: Trajectories across cue presentations. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 342-351.
• Sova, C.C. & Roberts, J.E. (2018). Testing the cognitive catalyst model of rumination with explicit and implicit cognitive content. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 59, 115-120.
• Moritz, D. & Roberts, J.E. (2018). Self-other agreement and metaperception accuracy across the big five: Examining the roles of depression and self-esteem. Journal of Personality, 86, 296-307.
• Roberts, J.E., Porter, A.J., & Vergara-Lopez, C. (2016). Implicit and explicit self-esteem in previously and never depressed individuals: Baseline differences and reactivity to rumination. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 40(2), 164-172.
• Vergara-Lopez, C. Lopez-Vergara, H., & Roberts, J.E. (2016).Testing a “content meets process” model of depression vulnerability and rumination: Exploring the moderating role of set-shifting deficits. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 50, 202-208.
• Kyung, Y., Yanes-Lukin, P.K., & Roberts, J.E. (2016). Specificity and detail in autobiographical memory: Same or different constructs? Memory, 24, 272-284.
• Hoorens, V., Takano, K., Franck, E., Roberts, J. E., & Raes, F. (2015). Initial and noninitial name-letter preferences as obtained through repeated letter rating tasks continue to reflect (different aspects of) self-esteem. Psychological Assessment, 27, 905-914.
• Vergara-Lopez, C., Kyung, Y., Detschmer, A., & Roberts, J.E. (2014). Testing the Cognitive Catalyst Model with idiographic content: Rumination moderates the association between self-discrepancies and depressive symptoms. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 5, 351-362.
• Gamble, S.A., Chronis-Tuscano, A. Roberts, J.E., Ciesla, J.A., & Pelham, W.E. (2013). Self-esteem reactivity among mothers of children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): The moderating role of depression history. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 37, 1233–1242.
• Yanes, P.K., Morse, G.D., Hsiao, C.B., Simms, L.J., Roberts, J.E. (2012). Autobiographical memory specificity and the persistence of depressive symptoms in HIV-positive patients: Rumination and social problem solving skills as mediators. Cognition & Emotion, 26 (8), 1496-1507.
• Vergara, C. & Roberts, J.E. (2012). Self-discrepancies in vulnerability to depression: The role of feared self-guides. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36, 847–853.
• Kashdan, T.B. & Roberts, J.E. (2011). Comorbid social anxiety disorder in clients with depressive disorders: Predicting changes in depressive symptoms, therapeutic relationships, and focus of attention in group treatment. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 49,875-884.
• Ciesla, J.A., Felton, J.W., & Roberts, J.E. (2011). Testing the Cognitive Catalyst Model of depression: Does rumination amplify the impact of cognitive diatheses in response to stress? Cognition & Emotion, 25, 1349-1357.
• Prisciandaro, J.J. & Roberts, J.E. (2011). Evidence for the continuous latent structure of mania in the Epidemiologic Catchment Area from multiple latent structure and construct validation methodologies. Psychological Medicine, 41, 575-588.
• Prisciandaro, J.J. & Roberts, J.E. (2009). A comparison of the predictive abilities of dimensional and categorical models of unipolar depression in the National Comorbidity Survey. Psychological Medicine, 39, 1087-1096.