Interdependence in problem appraisal and strategies for solving everyday problems .
Optimism helps people pay attention to useful negative information.
Collectively, we examine personality, emotional, social, developmental, and environmental or situational factors that influence the goals people choose, how they think about them and pursue them, how they react to difficulties in goal pursuit, and how all of these processes are influenced by other people's opinions and behaviors over the lifespan. That is, we believe that people are both affected by their context and creators of that context. The context can be the physical environment, other people, or even internal states, such as mood. Thus, we focus on affective, cognitive, motivational, and social processes that underlie people's regulation of themselves and others, with a special interest in diverse social and physical environments across the life span. This common focus leads to several active collaborative research programs within and across areas in the department.