Pathways of Risk and Resilience Lab (Chassin)

Pathways of Risk and Resilience Lab (Chassin)
Keywords
Keywords: alcohol; cigarette smoking; longitudinal studies; intergenerational transmission
Lab Area
Clinical Psychology
Lab Director
Laurie Chassin, PhD
Actively Recruiting Undergraduate Researchers
No

The Chassin lab conducts research on developmental pathways of risk and resilience from childhood to adulthood. Our projects include longitudinal studies of the origins of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use and the mechanisms through which these behaviors are transmitted across multiple generations.

Current projects:

  • Pathways to Desistance: Our laboratory participates in the Pathways to Desistance Project, which is a multi-site study of the pathways out of criminal offending.
  • The IU Smoking Survey: The Indiana University Smoking Survey is a long-term longitudinal study of trajectories of tobacco use from adolescence through midlife and the intergenerational transmission of cigarette smoking. This project includes studies of implicit attitudes toward smoking and the effects of the proposed FDA graphic warning images on implicit attitudes.
  • The Adult and Family Development Project: AFDP is a genetically informed, 20-year longitudinal study of three generations that examines the development of alcohol and drug use and substance use-related problems as well as protective factors that promote healthy development.

Lab Director & Principal Investigator:  Laurie Chassin, PhD, Regent's Professor

Dr. Chassin’s research focuses on substance use disorders and the pathways by which they are transmitted across generations. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Charter Fellow of the American Psychological Society. Dr. Chassin received the ASU Alumni Association Faculty Achievement Research Award in 2006 and was named a Regents Professor in 2007. She also received the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Association Faculty Award. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of Journal of Abnormal Psychology and a Field Editor of Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Her past Associate Editorships include Psychology of Addictive Behaviors and Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Lab Faculty

Kit Elam, PhD, Assistant Professor, Indiana University School of Public Health.

Kit is a former NIMH T32 post-doctoral fellow at the ASU REACH Institute. The goal of his research program is to identify modifiable family processes within developmental cascades that contribute to poor socio-emotional, behavioral, and health outcomes across childhood and adolescence. Within this framework, Kit’s research examines the interplay between children’s genetic risk and negative family processes that contributes to psychopathology later in life, with particular emphasis on genotype-environment correlations. By using innovative genetic designs, his research (1) examines the role that children’s genetic risk may play in evoking stressful early life experiences including negative parenting behavior and (2) is able to detect early family environmental influences (e.g., hostile parenting, interparental conflict) on children’s psychopathology absent of common genetic influences, which can inflate estimates of parent-child associations. This approach confirms findings of past research and offers new insight into stressful family processes early in life that are amenable to preventive interventions in an effort to disrupt harmful developmental cascades. 

Doctoral Students

​Danielle Pandika, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology. Danielle is currently working with Dr. Chassin on the Adult and Family Development Project. She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include understanding the etiology and development of substance use disorders and externalizing behaviors, with a particular focus on identifying mechanisms of genetic influence. She has been awarded a T32 pre-doctoral fellowship from NIDA to receive training in Drug Abuse/HIV Prevention. 

Ariel Sternberg, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology. Ariel is currently working with Dr. Chassin on the Adult and Family Development Project. Her main interests are the etiology and development of substance use disorders in adolescence, focusing on the risk pathways that lead to the development of disorder and how these pathways could inform effective prevention and intervention strategies.  Ariel was previously awarded a T32 pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to receive training in substance abuse and prevention science. Her dissertation research is supported by a National Service Research Award Individual Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Leena Bui, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology. Leena earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently works with Dr. Chassin on the Adult and Family Development Project, a three-generational longitudinal study of familial alcoholism, and the Pathways to Desistance Project, a study of serious juvenile offenders. Her research interests include the development of substance use disorders and related externalizing problems. Prior to her work as a graduate student, she worked as a research coordinator for a longitudinal study examining the personality of Veterans undergoing substance use treatment at the Menlo Park VA in Palo Alto, CA.

Austin Blake, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology. Austin currently works with Dr. Laurie Chassin on the Adult and Family Development Project. Her research interests include the intergenerational transmission of substance use, effects of caregiver transitions and other family disruptions, and patterns of familial relationship functioning across generations in families affected by substance use disorder. She received her B.A. with highest honors in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2016. Prior to her work as a graduate student, she worked as a research coordinator for UCLA TIES for Families, a program that studies risk and protective factors for adjustment in children adopted from foster care

Jack Waddell, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology. Jack is currently a member of both Dr. Chassin and Dr. Corbin’s research labs. Jack’s main research interests lie in the subjective experience of substance use, and how individual risk factors such as expectations and impulsivity play a role in one’s decision making, substance use, and future problems. Prior to his work as a graduate student, Jack received Bachelors Degrees Psychology and Journalism at the University of Missouri, where he worked as a research assistant under addiction faculty conducting similar research.

Where are they now?

Former Doctoral Students and Research Assistants:

Frances Wang, Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Andre Mansion, Mental Health/ Psychological Services Subject Matter Expert (Research, Policy), IDF Psychological Health Center of Excellence Defense Health Agency
Moira Haller, Assistant Clinical Professor, University of California San Diego
Kaitlin Bountress, Assistant Professor, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University
Matt Lee, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Center for Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University
Iris Beltran Richardson, Clinical Psychologist, Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health, Orange County
Elizabeth Handley, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Rochester
Kevin King, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle
Ryan Trim, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, UCSD
Jenna Gosling (Masters chair), Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan
Eileen Leuthe, Clinical Psychologist, Private Practice
Christian Delucia, Associate Professor of Psychology, NOVA University
Michael Marshal, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh
Andrea Hussong, Professor of Psychology, UNC-Chapel Hill
Craig Colder, Professor of Psychology, SUNY Buffalo
Patrick Curran (Masters chair, Dissertation co-chair), Professor of Psychology, UNC-Chapel Hill
Brooke Molina, Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
Adam Carle (Masters chair), Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati
Jennifer Weller, Research Director, Child Psychiatry Division of the Maricopa Integrated Health System   (MIHS) and District Medical Group of Arizona (DMG)
Claire McGrath (Masters chair), Senior Neuropsychologist, Bancroft,
Aaron Belz, Psychologist, Olympia Washington
Kris Cooper, Psychologist, Banner Good Samaritan, Phoenix Arizona
Christine Tetzloff, Clinical Psychologist Payson, Arizona
Sheri Zatz, Clinical Psychologist, Coral Springs, FL
John Barton, Director, ASU Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology Center, Training Director, Internship Program, Phoenix Children’s Hospial

Former Post-doc Trainees:

Kathy Modecki (co-mentor), Senior Lecturer, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Michelle Little (co-mentor), Northrup Grumman Army Analytics Group
Jeff Stuewig, Research Associate Professor, George Mason University
Mindy Dahl, Senior Research Scientist, Wyoming Department of Health
Jon Macy, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington
Jen Rose, Professor of Practice, Wesleyan University
Dave Flora, Associate Professor, York University
Barbara Rose, Staff Psychology, ASU Counseling and Consultation
Alexandra Loukas, Professor of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas-Austin
Steve Pitts, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland-Baltimore County
Melodie Fearnow-Kenney, Vice President of Research and Development, Prevention Strategies
Fred Rogosch, Associate Professor of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester

Select Publications

Below are a sample of recent publications from Dr. Chassin's research. A more complete listing may be found in Dr. Chassin's curriculum vitae.

2019

Rothenberg, W. A., Sternberg, A., Blake, A., Waddell, J., Chassin, L., & Hussong, A. (2019). Identifying adolescent protective factors that disrupt the intergenerational transmission of cannabis use and disorder. Psychology of addictive behaviors: journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors.

Macy, J. T., O'Rourke, H. P., Seo, D. C., Presson, C. C., & Chassin, L. (2019). Adolescent tolerance for deviance, cigarette smoking trajectories, and premature mortality: A longitudinal study. Preventive medicine119, 118-123.

Sternberg, A., Hill, M. L., Suk, H. W., Meier, M., & Chassin, L. (2019). Exploring cannabis-specific parenting as a mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of cannabis use and cannabis use disorder. Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs80(1), 32-41.

2018

Elam, K. K., Chassin, L., & Pandika, D. (2018). Polygenic risk, family cohesion, and adolescent aggression in Mexican American and European American families: Developmental pathways to alcohol use. Development and psychopathology30(5), 1715-1728.

Rogers, A. A., Elam, K. K., Chassin, L., Sternberg, A., & Bui, L. (2018). Proximal and Distal Effects of Sensation Seeking and Parenting Environments on Alcohol Use Trajectories from Early Adolescence to Early Adulthood. Journal of youth and adolescence47(10), 2206-2219.

Sternberg, A., Pandika, D., Elam, K. K., & Chassin, L. (2018). The relation of parent alcohol disorder to young adult drinking outcomes mediated by parenting: Effects of developmentally limited versus persistent parent alcohol disorder. Drug and alcohol dependence188, 224-231.

Rothenberg, W. A., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2016). Intergenerational continuity in high-conflict family environments. Development and psychopathology28(1), 293-308.

Hill, M., Sternberg, A., Suk, H. W., Meier, M. H., & Chassin, L. (2018). The intergenerational transmission of cannabis use: Associations between parental history of cannabis use and cannabis use disorder, low positive parenting, and offspring cannabis use. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors32(1), 93.

Rothenberg, W. A., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2018). Intergenerational continuity in high-conflict family environments: Investigating a mediating depressive pathway. Developmental psychology54(2), 385.

Wang, F. L., Chassin, L., Bates, J. E., Dick, D., Lansford, J. E., Pettit, G. S., & Dodge, K. A. (2018). Serotonin functioning and adolescents' alcohol use: a genetically informed study examining mechanisms of risk. Development and psychopathology30(1), 213-233.

Wang, F. L., & Chassin, L. (2018). Negative urgency mediates the relation between genetically influenced serotonin functioning and alcohol problems. Clinical Psychological Science6(1), 106-122.

2017

Chassin, L., Presson, C. C., Macy, J. T., & Sherman, S. J. (2017). Cigarette Smoking from Adolescence to Adulthood. Alcohol Use Disorders: A Developmental Science Approach to Etiology.

Menary, K. R., Corbin, W. R., & Chassin, L. (2017). Associations between early internalizing symptoms and speed of transition through stages of alcohol involvement. Development and psychopathology29(4), 1455-1467.

Elam, K. K., Chassin, L., Eisenberg, N., & Spinrad, T. L. (2017). Marital stress and children's externalizing behavior as predictors of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting. Development and Psychopathology29(4), 1305-1318.

Jensen, M., Chassin, L., & Gonzales, N. A. (2017). Neighborhood moderation of sensation seeking effects on adolescent substance use initiation. Journal of youth and adolescence46(9), 1953-1967.

Burns, A. R., Hussong, A. M., Solis, J. M., Curran, P. J., McGinley, J. S., Bauer, D. J., ... & Zucker, R. A. (2017). Examining cohort effects in developmental trajectories of substance use. International journal of behavioral development41(5), 621-631.

Rothenberg, W. A., Solis, J. M., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2017). Profiling families in conflict: Multigenerational continuity in conflict predicts deleterious adolescent and adult outcomes. Journal of Family Psychology31(5), 616.

Elam, K. K., Chassin, L., Lemery‐Chalfant, K., Pandika, D., Wang, F. L., Bountress, K., ... & Agrawal, A. (2017). Affiliation with substance‐using peers: Examining gene‐environment correlations among parent monitoring, polygenic risk, and children's impulsivity. Developmental psychobiology59(5), 561-573.

Wang, F. L., Chassin, L., Lee, M., Haller, M., & King, K. (2017). Roles of Response Inhibition and Gene–Environment Interplay in Pathways to Adolescents' Externalizing Problems. Journal of Research on Adolescence27(2), 258-277.

Rothenberg, W. A., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2017). Modeling trajectories of adolescent‐perceived family conflict: Effects of marital dissatisfaction and parental alcoholism. Journal of Research on Adolescence27(1), 105-121.

Bountress, K., Chassin, L., & Lemery-Chalfant, K. (2017). Parent and peer influences on emerging adult substance use disorder: A genetically informed study. Development and psychopathology29(1), 121-142.

2016

Bountress, K., Chassin, L., Presson, C. C., & Jackson, C. (2016). The effects of peer influences and implicit and explicit attitudes on smoking initiation in adolescence. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly62(4), 335-358.

Elam, K. K., Wang, F. L., Bountress, K., Chassin, L., Pandika, D., & Lemery-Chalfant, K. (2016). Predicting substance use in emerging adulthood: A genetically informed study of developmental transactions between impulsivity and family conflict. Development and psychopathology28(3), 673-688.

Chassin, L., Haller, M., Lee, M. R., Handley, E., Bountress, K., & Beltran, I. (2016). 13 familial factors influencing offspring substance use and dependence. In The Oxford handbook of substance use and substance use disorders (Vol. 1, p. 449).

Sherman, S. J., Chassin, L., Sherman, J. W., Presson, C. C., & Macy, J. T. (2016). Social psychological factors in adolescent and adult smoking: Findings and conclusions from a 30-year longitudinal study.

Wang, F. L., Pandika, D., Chassin, L., Lee, M., & King, K. (2016). Testing the relations among family disorganization, delay discounting, and adolescent alcohol use: a genetically informed study. Alcoholism: clinical and experimental research40(4), 846-856.

Macy, J. T., Chassin, L., Presson, C. C., & Yeung, E. (2016). Exposure to graphic warning labels on cigarette packages: effects on implicit and explicit attitudes towards smoking among young adults. Psychology & health31(3), 349-363.

Mansion, A. D., & Chassin, L. (2016). The effect of race/ethnicity on the relation between substance use disorder diagnosis and substance use treatment receipt among male serious adolescent offenders. Children and youth services review61, 237-244.

Rothenberg, W. A., Hussong, A. M., & Chassin, L. (2016). Intergenerational continuity in high-conflict family environments. Development and psychopathology28(1), 293-308.

Wang, F. L., Chassin, L., Geiser, C., & Lemery-Chalfant, K. (2016). Mechanisms in the relation between GABRA2 and adolescent externalizing problems. European child & adolescent psychiatry25(1), 67-80.

Chassin, L., Mansion, A. D., Nichter, B., & Pandika, D. (2016). Substance use and substance use disorders as risk factors for juvenile offending. In APA handbook of psychology and juvenile justice. (pp. 277-305). American Psychological Association.

Wang, F. L., Chassin, L., Geiser, C., & Lemery-Chalfant, K. (2016). Mechanisms in the relation between GABRA2 and adolescent externalizing problems. European child & adolescent psychiatry25(1), 67-80.

In the News!

Recent story in the Medical Daily ( May 18, 2016) on the effects of marriage on alcoholism cites earlier research by Chassin et.al, Getting Married Might Lead To Reduction In Heavy Drinking Among Young Adults  (Aug 5, 2015).

Doctoral student Frances Wang has been been selected to receive the prestigious  Philanthropic Education Organization Scholar Award. PEO awards "are one-time, competitive, merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada ...who will make significant contributions in their varied fields of endeavor. Priority is given to women who are well established in their programs, study or research."  Congratulations Frances!!  (posted 4/06/16)

Post-doc positions available

Dr. Laurie Chassin also directs a NIDA-funded T32 post-doctoral training program for the Department of Psychology and its REACH Institute. The T32 program focuses on closing the research-practice gap with training through mentored research experience and through individually-tailored programs of coursework in drug abuse, HIV, and implementation science. For further information, visit the T-32 webpage, or the REACH Institute, and/or the department's  jobs page. TO APPLY: interested candidates should electronically send a vita, statement of research and training goals, and 3 letters of recommendation to:  laurie.chassin@asu.edu. Applications are currently being reviewed and will continue until all positions are filled.