Tamara Afifi

Research Overview

Dr. Afifi's research focuses on family and interpersonal communication in two domains: (1) how people communicate when they are stressed and its impact on personal and relational health, and (2) information regulation (e.g., avoidance, privacy, secrets, stress contagion effects). In particular, she examines the theoretical properties of family members’ communication patterns (e.g., conflict, social support, avoidance, verbal rumination, communal coping) across a variety of stressful situations, to explain and predict biological stress responses, resilience/thriving, and personal/relational health. Much of her current research involves testing her new theory called the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load), which brings together multiple, cross disciplinary bodies of literature on stress and relational resilience. Other research focuses on the theoretical properties and functionality of communal coping, the impact of divorce on children, and investigating how and why people manage their private information and its impact on health. Finally, Dr. Afifi is one of only a handful of scholars who studies whole families in such a detailed and innovative manner. She often triangulates data and methods, including unique combinations of surveys with whole families, longitudinal diary data, lab interactions, field studies in families’ homes, observational coding, biological markers (e.g., immune markers, hair cortisol for chronic stress), virtual reality, and qualitative data. Her work often includes community-based populations that are difficult to access (e.g., undocumented immigrants, refugees, residents with Alzheimer’s, families with chronic illnesses).