1. Please briefly
describe your current research.
As both a social psychologist and
a clinical psychologist, I enjoy several areas of research. My current project explores relationships
between political affiliation and trust in sources of information for health care.
Other recent work has looked at topics such as the effectiveness of juvenile
mental health courts, workplace incivility/bullying, and other areas of
social/relational aggression.
2. How did you come to be in this area of
study?
My most recent project regarding political
affiliation and trust in source of health care information arose from my
curiosity, and then review of the literature, related to how public response to
national healthcare needs or other health initiatives (such as responding to
the Zika virus, use of vaccines, recommendations for tests, such as mammograms)
may be frustrated by political distrust.
In terms of background, in
2003, Americans considered the government a highly trusted source of health
information. Federally-based/-funded entities, such as the Office of the
Surgeon General, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease
Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as state-level
public health agencies, often are the front line in addressing major public
health crises and/or leading the way for other public health research,
policies, and resources.
However, major shifts in health care
policies (for example, the Affordable Care Act) have prompted political
polarization of Americans’ attitudes. While party affiliation (PA) predicts
individuals’ attitudes towards health care reform, no previous research has
examined PA and individuals’ trust in governmental sources of health
information within the current climate.
Motivated social cognition theories
would predict approach/avoidance of information in accordance with needs and
interests, including political affiliation. Resistance to or avoidance of
health care information, as well as policies, from governmental sources could
have dangerous implications for dealing with public healthcare within our
social system. Thus, understanding
relationships between PA and trust in sources of health information would
appear of high importance at this time.
My results will be presented in August at the 2016 Annual Convention of
the American Psychological Association.
My research often is in response to
current needs and events. For example,
my research on juvenile mental health courts grew out of being asked to serve
as a consultant to do a program evaluation for a juvenile mental health
court. I also did similar consultation
to explore the integration of lay family advocates into county- and state-level
policy-making boards (which were comprised of professionals). Prior to that, I was very curious about the
impact of the 2007 financial crisis on clinical populations. My research on
aggression goes back to the early 2000s when I was asked by a healthcare system
to head up a community initiative to address youth aggression. As part of that
project, I became a research associate with Bowling Green State University and
did research, as well as program development and evaluation, with a team of
faculty and graduate students which focused on youth aggression. Our work targeted bullying within schools. After leaving Ohio, I transferred my interest
in bullying among children to bullying among adults, such as in the
workplace. I have listed some sample
publications at the end of this interview if you are interested.
3.
What do like best about doing research?
For me, it is like finding a
puzzle and the challenge to try to solve the puzzle. In addition to the intellectual thrill, I
really enjoy working on problems that have social and/or clinical significance
and possible real world applications. I enjoy all phases and LOVE to get data
in my hand to begin to see what I found.
4.
What do you dislike the most about doing research?
One thing that continues to be
more and more of a frustration for my survey research is being able to achieve
desirable response rates. Without
adequate response rates, the results of a study may be questioned due to
possibly biased sampling, that is, ending up with a nonrepresentative sample of
the population you are trying to study.
In fact, this problem led me to look for recent, publicly available
archival data for my research on political affiliation and trust in sources of
healthcare information. I found one!
Writing up results and submitting
for publication can be a very frustrating process. In addition to trying to
boil down a lot of information to about 20-25 pages (double spaced) in the
manuscript, other frustrators may, at times, be the turnaround time to receive
any feedback on a submission; this may be at least 6 months for some of the
higher tier peer-reviewed journals.
Also, just as dissertation students find critical feedback to be
deflating, journal reviewers may, at times, seem unnecessarily nit-picky and
“dense” (Didn’t s/he read what I had?) or dismissive. However, even if not accepted, reviews from
competent reviewers actually can offer astute feedback to help me with
revisions in my write-up or ideas for ways to redo the study to address some of
the limitations that were noted. We all pray that if the manuscript isn’t
accepted outright, at least they will give us a chance at a rewrite,
incorporating the feedback from the reviewers.
5.
Advice for new researchers who would like to be published?
In terms of publishing in
professional journals, take advantage of publications and online sites that
give attention to this.
Here are some recommendations
from the American Psychological Association:
Get Published. http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2005/01/published.aspx
How to Publish Your Journal
Paper. http://apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
Here are some guidelines from
Sage Publications:
If you have a journal in mind,
carefully follow the instructions that are provided (either in the journal or
on the journal’s website) for prospective authors regarding the focus of the
journal, types of articles the journal accepts, format rules, etc., etc.
Here is a website with links to
web sites which provide instructions to authors for over
6,000 journals in the health and life sciences: http://mulford.utoledo.edu/instr/
Remember, it is our job to match the publication’s expectations,
not the other way around J
Sample
publications since 2004
Heretick, D. M. L., Russell, J. A. (2013). The
impact of juvenile mental health court on recidivism among youth. Journal of
Juvenile Justice, 3(1), 1-15. http://www.journalofjuvjustice.org/JOJJ0301/epub.htm
Heretick, D. M. L. (2013). Clinicians’ reports of the impact of the
2008 financial crisis on mental health clients. Journal of Social,
Behavioral, and Health Sciences, 7(1). http:// www.
publishing.waldenu.edu/jsbhs/vol7/iss1/
Heretick, D. (2011, Oct. 19). Recognizing and confronting workplace
bullying. APA Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program Good Company
Newsletter. http://www.phwa.org/resources/goodcompany/newsletter/
Boxer, P., Musher-Eizenman, D., Dubow, E.F., Danner, S., & Heretick,
D.M.L. (2006). Assessing teachers' perceptions for school-based aggression
prevention programs: Applying a cognitive-ecological framework. Psychology
in the Schools, 43(3), 331-344.
Boxer, P., Goldstein, S.E., Musher-Eizenman, D., Dubow, E.F., &
Heretick, D.M.L. (2005). Developmental issues in school-based aggression
Prevention from a social-cognitive perspective. The Journal of Primary
Prevention, 26(5), 383-400.
Musher-Eizenman, D., Boxer, P., Danner, S., Dubow, E.F., Goldstein, S.E.,
& Heretick, D.M.L. (2004). Social-cognitive mediators of the relation of
environmental and emotion regulation factors to children’s aggression. Aggressive
Behavior, 30, 389-408.
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