Research Interests

My research is now focused on the well-springs, assessment, outcomes, and enhancement of gratitude in children and adolescents. I'm eager to conduct interdisciplinary research with fields such as anthropology,
sociology, philosophy, and religion in hopes of better understanding gratitude. I'm also interested in the development and outcomes of materialism in youth. I'm excited about studying interventions for materialism such as voluntary simplicity hoping to help children flourish by fulfilling their psychological needs of competency, autonomy, and relatedness. I also love researching happiness.

In the Media

“Thanks to Gratitude!,” Positive Psychology News Daily, November 5, 2009.

“Fishful Thinking: Cultivating Gratitude in Youth” and the accompanying materials for the "Gratitude Works" program that I helped create, NASP Communiqué, November 2009.

“Daily Thanksgiving: Recipe for a Happy Family,” Western New York Family, November 2009.

“Grateful Kids are Happier Kids,” Times Colonist, October 9, 2009.

“Why Emotional Intelligence Matters,” Scholastic, August 2009.

“Happiness,” WHRU’s Hofstra’s Morning Wake-Up Call
[Hofstra University’s radio station], February 10, 2009.

“Here’s Some Currency to Count Upon,” The Times, Trenton, December 2, 2008.

“Reaping The Health Benefits of Gratitude with the Science of Thankfulness,”
WNYC’s The Takeway [a national morning news program], November 27, 2008.

“Giving Thanks,” Better Homes and Gardens, November 2008.

“Gratitude Check,” Family Circle, November 1, 2008.

“The Benefits of Gratitude,” The Providence Journal, November 24, 2007.

“Many Ways to Show Gratitude in Holiday,” The Herald-Sun, November 21, 2007.

“Thank You,” Metro Parent, November 2007.

“Raising Grateful Children,” Newsday, September 17, 2007.

G.K. Chesterton (1908): Orthodoxy