Research on mental health beliefs and behaviors

My primary line of research applies a cultural sociology lens to contextualize long-term trends in mental health and treatment in the United States. I focus on changing understandings and beliefs at the macro level and how they influence individuals’ behaviors and decision-making.

Much of my research uses computational and qualitative text analysis and custom text datasets from newspapers and social media to analyze how mental health and illness appear and operate in American culture.

In my first book project, Our Mental Health, Their Mental Illness (under contract with Princeton University Press), I use computational text analysis of newspaper and Reddit data to trace how mental health and illness have become widely shared cultural ideas, extending far beyond their medical roots with consequences for social stratification as the American public understands mental health and mental illness as two sides of a social, not just medical, boundary.

My other research on mental health uses the National Health Interview Survey to assess trends in psychological distress and treatment-seeking behaviors.

Research on gender beliefs

In collaborative research conducted with Emily Carian, we explore how young adults’ gender beliefs are informed by cultural ideas of individualism and agency and contribute to persistent gender inequality by directing young adults away from structural solutions. The project, which uses longitudinal interview and survey data, is still ongoing and findings have been published in Social Problems and Sociological Perspectives.