December 28, 2020
Dr. Williamson has been named Co-President of the ABCT Couples Research and Treatment Special Interest Group, which is the primary professional organization for clinical psychologists who study couple relationships and couple therapy. She will serve a two-year term as leader of this group, alongside Co-President Emily Salivar, Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University.
December 22, 2020
Dr. Williamson has published a new paper, in collaboration with HDFS colleague Dr. Neff, that examines how stress impacts one’s ability to provide support to their partner. Husbands experiencing greater chronic stress were less accurate in their assessments of their partner’s support needs, and even when husbands did notice that their partner desired support, they were less likely to provide support if they were coping with their own stress that day.
November 30, 2020
Dr. Williamson wrote an op-ed piece about the effect of the pandemic on relationships based on her recent publication in Psychological Science. The op-ed was published in various newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
November 5, 2020
Dr. Williamson has published an article about the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on relationships in Psychological Science. The COVID-19 pandemic has called upon couples to spend extended amounts of time together and rely primarily on each other for support during a major stressor that has upended nearly every aspect of daily life. In this study, individuals involved in a relationship were assessed before the start of the pandemic and again two times during the early stages of the pandemic to determine how their relationship changed. Overall, the results of this large, national study indicate that on average people did not change in how satisfied they were with their relationship, but did become more forgiving and less blaming of their partner’s negative behaviors by attributing them less to their partner’s internal characteristics. These results were true irrespective of multiple characteristics, including demographics of the partners, pre-existing characteristics of the relationship, and negative experiences resulting from the pandemic, but did vary based on couple functioning during the pandemic.
Read more about this study here.
July 19, 2020
Dr. Williamson has a new article in press at the Journal of Family Psychology: The development of communication behavior over the newlywed years
June 25, 2020
Earlier this month Dr. Williamson and colleagues Dr. Neff and Dr. Gleason presented a webinar for the UT College of Natural Sciences about ‘Maintaining Household Relationships & Overcoming Conflict in Quarantine.’ You can view the recording here.
May 4, 2020
Junior Biology major Katelyn Golden has spent the last year in the Williamson Lab completing a Connecting Research Experience for the UT Bridging Disciplines Program, where she is completing a certificate in Social Inequality, Health, and Policy. Katelyn’s research project focused on “Longitudinal relationships between newlywed communication about health issues and BMI.” She recently presented this work in a virtual BDP poster session.
May 1, 2020
Undergraduate Psychology major Maria Mohamed completed her Honors Thesis in the Williamson Lab this year. She examined “Marital Satisfaction and Communication among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Couples” and presented her work at a University-wide virtual poster session.
April 8, 2020
We are excited to announce that two new graduate students will be joining the lab in the Fall; Yunzhi Zheng and Nick Chen. We look forward to welcoming you both to UT!
February 28, 2020
Graduate student Thao Nguyen presented her work at SPSP. This paper was recently published in Personal Relationships.
