Welcome to the Maine Mood Lab


Research at the Maine Mood Lab is devoted to improving our understanding of the factors that confer vulnerability to persistent negative mood (e.g. loss, depressed mood) and self-injurious behaviors in adults. Specifically, we are interested in the way people respond to transient negative affect and how this pattern of responding relates to the onset, maintenance, and recurrence of depressed mood and self-harm. Research tends to focus on cognitive-emotional factors such as emotion regulation (e.g. cognitive reappraisal, suppression, rumination, decentering), problem-solving and mechanisms associated with the activation of negative affect and self-referential beliefs. More recent research incorporates digital phenotyping and psychophysiological concomitants of mood and stress-mediated reactivity.