Congratulations to Jess Kopitz who received the Provost Student Research Award! Her project title is “Redefining negative personality traits and coping techniques after impacts of stress and trauma in veterans.”
First year graduate lab member, Jess, recently presented her master’s thesis proposal. In her research, Jess is focusing on redefining negative personality traits and behaviors as helpful in coping with trauma. In her review of the literature she discussed the link between maladaptive coping and negative personality traits following trauma, and demonstrated that traditionally deemed negative personality traits occur on a spectrum, and thus should not necessarily be classified as positive or negative. Therefore, the overarching purposes of Jess’s master’s thesis research are to demonstrate links between “negative” personality traits, maladaptive coping, and trauma, as well as to uncover positive implications of such occurrences in order to work toward redefining and de-pathologizing negative personality traits and maladaptive coping. Currently, she is working on conducting interviews with veterans who have been exposed to combat while on deployment because veterans in particular have the potential to benefit greatly from this research. If you know of someone who fits this description, and who may be interested in participating in this valuable research, please have them contact Jess Kopitz at jkopitz@oakland.edu.
FF-PTG LAB 