Kevin L. Rand, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Research
Emphasis: Health
Current research interests
I’m a generalist interested in how people deal with life. My research can be broadly described as focusing on self-regulation and coping. In other words, I’m interested in how people pursue their goals and how they cope when things go wrong. I’m curious about psychological phenomena occurring at the intersection of social psychology, personality psychology, and clinical psychology, and I actively resist the pressure to specialize.
Within our doctoral program, I am aligned with the clinical health psychology training emphasis. In that capacity, I collaborate with researchers studying various health-relevant concerns, including cancer, pain, and pelvic-health concerns (e.g., dysmenorrhea, pelvic organ prolapse, menopause). I’m interested in understanding how people cope with illness, continue pursuing their life goals, and how these self-regulation and coping efforts influence psychological adjustment (especially symptoms of depression and anxiety), communication with others, and treatment decisions. I’m also interested in quantitative measurement of symptoms and coping behaviors (e.g., measuring hot flashes and sleep disturbance among breast cancer survivors).
My research also focuses on human strengths (i.e., ‘positive psychology’). Specifically, I’m interested in the influences of hopeful and optimistic thinking on people’s behaviors and mental and physical health. Previous research suggests that both hope and optimism confer benefits across a variety of life domains, including physical health, psychological well-being, academic and athletic performance, and interpersonal relationships. One of my goals is to synthesize the research on these concepts in order to better understand their common and unique effects on human behaviors and adjustment. In addition, I’m interested in understanding possible negative effects of hope and optimism on people’s well-being.
I’m interested in people’s responses to normal life stressors, such as taking exams and managing relationships, as well as extraordinary stressors, such as coping with cancer or losing a loved one. Hence, I’m interested in conducting research with diverse populations, including college students, athletes, cancer patients, people experiencing clinical pain, and individuals struggling with severe and persistent mental illness.
Within the realm of clinical psychology, I’m interested in the vulnerability to and recovery from depression. Specifically, I examine how people differ in their appraisals of and reactions to stressors and how these differences might confer protection from or vulnerability to developing depressive symptoms. In addition, I’m interested in studying the efficacy of interventions aimed at elevating people’s hope and optimism in treating depression.
FOrTELOs Lab
The Future Oriented Thoughts, Endeavors, and Life Outcomes (FOrTELOs) lab studies how people think about their futures, pursue important life goals, cope with goal-interfering stressors, and the sequelae of these processes. We are interested in how people’s beliefs about the future (hope and optimism) guide their self-regulation and coping strategies, affect their chances of achieving their goals, and influence their psychological and physical well-being. We are interested in examining these processes in healthy populations (e.g., students pursuing grades in a college class) as well as in clinically-relevant populations (e.g., patients seeking treatment). Areas of research for the lab include: trait and state expectancies, goals, self-regulation, stress and coping, psychological health outcomes, and physical health outcomes.
Graduate students who are a good fit with my lab
I welcome graduate students who are generally curious about how people regulate themselves to deal with life across a wide variety of circumstances, especially with regard to health-related concerns (e.g., cancer, pain, women’s pelvic health). If you have interests in understanding self-regulation and coping, we could work together. My lab is best-suited for generalists who are interested in developing skills in quantitative measurement and data analysis (e.g., structural equation modeling) and are willing to apply these skills to a variety of life situations. Basically, I'm looking to collaborate with people who have solid quantitative and reasoning abilities and who are willing to research a variety of psychological phenomena with open-minded skepticism.
Current graduate students
- Naheeda Ahamadeen
- Ian Fischer
- Sarah Rogers
- Mackenzie Shanahan
Education
- 1996 Bachelor of Architecture, University of Cincinnati
- 2000 B.A. Psychology, Northern Kentucky University
- 2002 M.A. Psychology, University of Kansas
- 2006 Clinical Psychology Internship, Duke University Medical Center
- 2006 Ph.D. Clinical Psychology, University of Kansas
Publications & Professional Activity
Carpenter J. S., Heit M., Chen C.X., Stewart R., Hamner J., & Rand K. L. (In press). Validating the PSR13 as a measure of perceived postoperative recovery following laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy. Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery.
Carpenter, J. S., Heit, M., & Rand, K. L. (In press). Development and psychometric properties of a measure of catheter burden with bladder drainage after pelvic reconstructive surgery. Neurology and Urodynamics.
Rand, K. L., Banno, D. A.*, Shea, A. M.*, & Cripe, L. D. (2016). Life and treatment goals of patients with advanced, incurable cancer. Supportive Care in Cancer. DOI: 10.1007/s00520-016-3113-6
Hullmann, S.E., Robb, S. L., & Rand, K. L., (2016). Life goals in patients with cancer: A systematic review of the literature. Psycho-Oncology, 25, 387-399.
Otte, J. L., Carpenter, J. S., Manchanda, S., Rand, K. L., Skaar, T. C., Weaver, M., Chernyak, Y., Zhong, X., Igega, C. & Landis, C. (2014). Systematic review of sleep disorders in cancer patients: Can the prevalence of sleep disorders be ascertained? Cancer Medicine, epub, doi: 10.1002/cam4.356
Rock, E. E., Steiner, J. L., Rand, K. L., & Bigatti, S. M. (2014). Dyadic influence of hope and optimism on patient marital satisfaction among couples with advanced breast cancer. Supportive Care in Cancer,22, 2351-2359. DOI 10.1007/s00520-014-2209-0
Otte, J. L., Rand, K. L., Carpenter, J. S., Russell, K. M., & Champion, V. K. (2013). Factor analysis of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index in breast cancer survivors. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 45, 620-627.
Cripe, L. D., Rawl, S. M., Schmidt, K., Tong, Y., Monahan, P. O., & Rand, K. L. (2012). Discussions of life expectancy moderate relationships between prognosis and anxiety or depression in men with advanced cancer. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 15, 99-105.
Rand, K. L., Cripe, L. D., Monahan, P. O., Tong, Y., Schmidt, K., & Rawl, S. M. (2012). Illness appraisal, religious coping, and psychological responses in men with advanced cancer. Supportive Care in Cancer, 20, 1719-1728.
Rand, K. L., Martin, A., D., & Shea, A. M. (2011). Hope, but not optimism, predicts academic performance of law students beyond previous academic achievement. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 683-686.
Rand, K. L., Otte, J. L., Flockhart, D., Hayes, D., Storniolo, A. M., Stearns, V., Henry, N. L., Nguyen, A., Lemler, S., Hayden, J., Jeter, S., & Carpenter, J. S. (2011). Modeling hot flushes and quality of life in breast cancer survivors. Climacteric, 13, 171-180.
Rand, K. L. (2009). Hope and optimism: Latent structures and influences on grade expectancy and academic performance. Journal of Personality, 77, 231-260.
Stewart, J. C., Rand, K. L., Muldoon, M. F., & Kamarck, T. W. (2009). A prospective evaluation of the directionality of the depression-inflammation relationship. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 23, 936-944.