Robert D. Dvorak, Ph.D., ABPP University of Central Florida

INTRODUCTION

Our lab focuses on health-risk behavior through the lens of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation. Most maladaptive behavior involves strong proximal appetitive drives coupled with weaker distal avoidant drives. Understanding these drives is important for the development of interventions to reduce maladaptive behavior. Many of the behaviors I study are related to late adolescence and/or early adulthood (e.g., alcohol use, drug use, risky sex, impulse control, SITB, etc.). Thus, members of my lab can focus on research with adolescents, adults, or both. My primary areas of interest are:

  • Examining the role of cognitive, affective, and behavioral self-regulation in health-risk behavior.
  • Assessing factors associated with health-risk behavior in real-time through experience sampling methodology.
  • Developing mobile interventions to reduce involvement in risky behavior and increase adaptive goal pursuit.
  • Using advanced statistical models to better understand experiences both within- and between- persons and across time.