Lyn Abramson
Credentials: (she/her)
Position title: Sigmund Freud Professor of Psychology
Email: lyabrams@wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 263-4965
Address:
323 Psychology
Research Area(s)
Clinical
Research Interests
My research interests include the cognitive, psychosocial, biological, and developmental processes in the onset, course, and intervention of unipolar depression and bipolar disorder. Much of my work on unipolar depression has focused on developing and testing cognitive vulnerability – stress models such as the Hopelessness Theory, and we have begun to integrate these models with recent research on the psychoneuroimmunology of depression. Our work on bipolar disorder derives from the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) perspective and emphasizes that individuals at risk for bipolar disorder are particularly likely to develop hypomanic/manic symptoms in the face of events activating approach behavior. Finally, we study dysregulation of social and circadian rhythm in bipolar disorder and are integrating this perspective with the BAS theory.
NOTE: I will not be accepting any undergraduate RAs for Spring 2024
Representative Publications
Abramson, L.Y., Alloy, L.B., Hankin, B.L., Haeffel, G.J., MacCoon, D.G., & Gibb, B.E. (2002). Cognitive vulnerability-stress models of depression in a self-regulatory and psychobiological context. In I.H. Gotlib & C.L. Hammen (Eds.), Handbook of Depression, (pp.268-294). New York: Guilford.
Alloy, L.B., Abramson, L.Y., Whitehouse, W.G., Hogan, M.E., Panzarella, C., & Rose, D.T. (2006). Prospective incidence of first onsets and recurrences of depression in individuals at high and low cognitive risk for depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 145-156.
Urosevic, S., Abramson, L.Y., Harmon-Jones, E., & Alloy, L. B. (2008). Dysregulation of the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) in bipolar spectrum disorders: Review of theory and evidence. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 1188-1205.
Cox, W.T.L., Abramson, L.Y., Devine, P.G., & Hollon, S.D. (2012). Stereotypes, prejudice, and depression: The integrated perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 427-449.
Nusslock, R., Harmon-Jones, E., Alloy, L.B., Urosevic, S., Goldstein, K., & Abramson, L.Y. (2012). Elevated left mid-frontal cortical activity prospectively predicts conversion to bipolar I disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121, 592-601.