Dr. Keller is a member of the Developmental Psychology Program 

At the most general level, my research concerns how family stress (parental problem drinking, marital conflict, etc.) contributes to children’s risk for physical and mental health problems. More specifically, I study how family stress affects children’s psychological and physiological regulation, which in turn is associated with emotional, behavioral, and other problems. For example, my research has explored children’s emotional security about the family as a mechanism of risk in the context of parental problem drinking and parental depression. I have also studied how maladaptive stress response by the autonomic nervous system makes children more susceptible to the negative effects of marital conflict. Recently, I have developed an interest in the role of family functioning for children’s sleep quality and amount, and problems with sleep regulation as an additional explanatory variable linking family stress and adverse child outcomes. I have a grant pending that will examine the effects of parental problem drinking on child sleep, which I hope to be starting up this Spring.

A secondary line of my research involves causes and consequences of marital and other romantic relationship problems for adult functioning. For example, I have studied links between problem drinking and marital conflict and aggression. My work in this area has focused on establishing the direction of effects, but I am also interested in the possible processes accounting for these relations, at both the psychological and physiological level. Further, I have an ongoing study of the bidirectional associations between romantic relationship problems and sleep.

I am affiliated with the Children at Risk Research Group. More information about this group is available here http://www.uky.edu/~rlorch/CAR.

I am currently looking for talented and hard working graduate students to join my laboratory for the 2010/2011 academic year.

• Keller, P. S., & El-Sheikh, M. (in press). Salivary alpha-amylase as a longitudinal predictor of children’s externalizing symptoms: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a moderator of effects. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

• Keller, P. S., Cummings, E. M., Peterson, K. M., & Davies, P. T. (in press). Marital conflict in the context of parental depressive symptoms: Implications for the development of children’s adjustment problems. Social Development.

• Keller, P. S., El-Sheikh, M., & Buckhalt, J. A. (in press). Children’s attachment to parents and their academic functioning: Sleep disruptions as moderators of effects. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

• Keller, P. S., El-Sheikh, M., Keiley, M., & Liao, P. (in press). Longitudinal relations between marital aggression and alcohol problems. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

• El-Sheikh, M., Kouros, C. D., Erath, S. A., Keller, P. S., Cummings, E. M., & Staton, L. (in press). Marital conflict and children’s externalizing behavior: Interactions between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

• Keller, P. S., Cummings, E. M., Davies, P. T., & Mitchell, P. M. (2008). Longitudinal relations between parental drinking problems, family functioning, and child adjustment. Development and Psychopathology,20, 195-212.

• Keller, P. S., Cummings, E. M., Davies, P. T., & Lubke, G. (2007). Children’s behavioral reactions to marital conflict as a function of exposure to parents’ conflict behaviors and alcohol problems. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 4, 157-177.

• El-Sheikh, M., Keller, P. S., & Erath, S. A. (2007). Marital conflict and risk for child maladjustment over time: Skin conductance level reactivity as a vulnerability factor. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 35, 715-727.