Dr. David Watson

My research focuses primarily on subjectively-experienced moods and emotions--that is understanding how and why people feel the way they do. This work can be further subdivided into three related lines of research. The first involves the influence of situational and environmental factors on mood. To date, we have investigated such factors as stressful life events, various types of social activities, exercise and physical activity, the weather, and food, caffeine and alcohol consumption. The second line of work examines recurring cycles or ''rhythms'' in mood. For instance, we have conducted a number of studies examining how mood varies over the course of the day, across the days of the week, and as a function of the sleep/wake cycle. The third lineof research examines general individual differences in emotionality and temperament. This work seeks to identify why some individuals are generally happy, whereas others are typically tense and anxious, and so on. We also are exploring how these general differences in temperament relate to a variety of other phenomena, such as health and somatic complaints, clinical syndromes (especially the mood and anxiety disorders), job stress and satisfaction, divorce and marital satisfaction, drug and alcohol use,academic performance, and dissociated states of consciousness.

In addition to my basic mood research, I also study a variety of psychological disorders. In particular, my lab has been conducting a number of studies investigating the interrelations among the mood disorders (especially unipolar depression), the anxiety disorders (including obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, and the specific phobias), dissociation, and schizotypy. We have created a number of new measures to improve the assessment of these syndromes. I currently have a grant to develop a new multidimensional measure of depression.