Professor
Area: Social

Contact information:
Email: vh2e@andrew.cmu.edu@cmu.edu
Psychology office: 335B Baker Hall
Psychology phone: 412-268-2624
Fax: 412-268-8280

Director, Gender, Relationships, and Health Lab
Lab Link: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/psychology/gender-relationships-health

Research Interests:

My research interests focus on:

(1) How people adjust to chronic illness, including heart disease, cancer, and most recently diabetes

(2) The implications of gender-related traits (agency, communion, unmitigated agency, unmitigated communion) for relationships and health.

Adjustment to Chronic Illness

I have studied how people adjust to chronic illness for over 20 years. The key feature of chronic illness is that it lasts, it is susceptible to recurrences, relapses, disease progression, and disease complications. I have studied how personality characteristics, specifically gender-related traits (see next section) and perceptions of control, influence psychological adjustment and physical health as well as the role of social environmental variables (i.e., relationships with friends, family, and peers). I have conducted support interventions that aim to enhance support from peers facing the same illness. I also have examined how people construe benefits from the trauma of being diagnosed with a chronic illness and the implications of benefit-finding for psychological and physical well-being. In my early work, I focused on adults with heart disease, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. I am currently studying people with diabetes.

More on Diabetes

From a behavioral medicine perspective, diabetes is a fascinating illness to study. Behavior plays such a prominent role in managing the disease, but the behavioral regimen that one must execute is complex. I have been conducting a longitudinal study of children with diabetes for nearly 10 years. Youth were enrolled in the study when they were average age 12 and are now average age 20. We examined the transition to adolescence in the Teen Health Study and identified psychosocial factors related to psychological well-being, self-care, and glycemic control. We have been particularly interested in the role of peers in facilitating or impeding disease adjustment. We are currently examining the transition to emerging adulthood in the Transition Times Study, which focuses on vocational transitions (college, work), relationship transitions (change in location, new friends, romantic relationships), and health care transitions (transition out of the pediatric health care system into the adult health care system). In the next phase of the study, we will evaluate the period of young adulthood. Future research plans include the study of adult couples in which one person has been newly diagnosed with diabetes to examine ways in which the spouse influences diabetes outcomes.

Gender

I teach a course on the Psychology of Gender, part of which focuses on my research interest in the area of "gender and health." I am not interested in sex differences, per se, but in how we socialize women and men in ways that have implications for their health. Specifically, I have studied the personality traits of agency and communion, as well as their unmitigated counterparts. Unmitigated agency represents a focus on the self to the exclusion of others and is characterized by hostility, arrogance, and self-absorption. Unmitigated communion represents a focus on others to the exclusion of the self and is characterized by over involvement in others' problems and self-neglect. I examine the implications of these gender-related traits for relationships and health and identify the processes that link these traits to outcomes.
 

Publications:

Helgeson, V. S., Cohen, S., Schulz, R., & Yasko, J. (1999). Education and peer discussion group interventions and adjustment to breast cancer. Archives of General Psychiatry, 56, 340-347. PDF

Helgeson, V. S., Reynolds, K. A., & Tomich, P. L. (2006). A meta-analytic review of benefit finding and growth. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 797-816. PDF

Helgeson, V. S. Escobar, O., Siminerio, L., Becker, D. (2007). Unmitigated communion and health among adolescents with and without diabetes: The mediating role of eating disturbances. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 519-536. PDF

Helgeson, V. S., Snyder, P. R., Escobar, O., Siminerio, L., Becker, D. (2007). Comparison of adolescents with and without diabetes on indices of psychosocial functioning for three years. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32, 794-806. PDF

Helgeson, V. S., Reynolds, K. A., Siminerio, L., Escobar, O., & Becker, D. (2008). Distribution of parent and adolescent responsibility for diabetes self care: Emerging impact of shared responsibility. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 33, 497-508. PDF

*Click HERE for a Complete list of Publications

 

Assistant to Dr. Helgeson:

Pam Snyder,  ps3x+@andrew.cmu.edu
Abigail Vaughn,  akunz@andrew.cmu.edu
Jamie Vance,  jvance@andrew.cmu.edu

Current Graduate Students:

Dianne Palladino,  dkpalladino@cmu.edu

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Related Links:

Curriculum Vitae (pdf file)

Gender, Relationships, and Health Lab

Transition Times Sudy

CMU Directory Information

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