Lauren Alloy

Lauren Alloy

  • College of Liberal Arts

    Psychology and Neuroscience

    Professor

    Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology

    Joseph Wolpe Distinguished Faculty

    Associate Director of Clinical Training

    Affiliated Faculty

    Programs
    • Neuroscience
Office Location

Weiss Hall, 762

Expertise

Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Developmental Psychopathology, Cognitive, Psychosocial, Developmental, Neurobiological Processes in Mood Disorders

Biography

Dr. Alloy is an internationally recognized researcher in the area of mood disorders. Her work on depression and bipolar disorder has had a major impact on the fields of clinical, personality, social, developmental, and cognitive psychology and psychiatry. Her research focuses on cognitive, psychosocial, developmental, and neurobiological processes in the onset and course of depression and bipolar disorder and is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Along with her colleagues, Lyn Abramson and Gerald Metalksy, she is the author of the Hopelessness Theory of depression and she discovered, with Lyn Abramson, the "sadder but wiser" or "depressive realism" effect. This work has been featured prominently in the popular media (e.g., Time Magazine, the book "Lincoln's Melancholy", etc.). More recently, she and Lyn Abramson also have developed the Behavioral Approach System (BAS)/reward hypersensitivity theory of bipolar disorder. Previously, at Northwestern University, she became the youngest professor in the university's history and the first woman to become professor in the Psychology Department.

Dr. Alloy was awarded the American Psychological Association's (APA) Young Psychologist Award in 1984, the APA's Master Lecturer Award in Psychopathology in 2002, Temple University's Paul W. Eberman Faculty Research Award in 2001, the APA's Division 12 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 2003, the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology's Distinguished Scientist Award in 2003, the Association for Psychological Science's (APS) James McKeen Catell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Applied Psychological Research in 2009, the Society for Research in Psychopathology (SRP) Joseph Zubin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Psychopathology Research in 2014, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Career/Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Temple University Faculty Research Award in 2017. She is a Fellow of APA, APS, ABCT, and the American Psychopathological Association (APPA). Dr. Alloy is the author of over 350 scholarly publications, and is in the Top 1% of Most Cited Authors in Psychology. She serves on the editorial boards of many clinical psychology journals.

Curriculum Vitae

Website

Selected Publications

  • Alloy, L.B., Nusslock, R., & Boland, E.M.  (2015). The development and course of bipolar spectrum disorders: An integrated reward and circadian rhythm dysregulation model. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 11, 213-250.
  • Hamilton, J.L., Stange, J.P., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B.  (2015). Stress and the development of cognitive vulnerabilities to depression explain sex differences in depressive symptoms during adolescence. Clinical Psychological Science, 3, 702-714.
  • Alloy, L.B., Hamilton, J.L., Hamlat, E.J., & Abramson, L.Y.  (2016). Pubertal development, emotion regulatory styles, and the emergence of sex differences in internalizing disorders and symptoms in adolescence. Clinical Psychological Science, 4, 867-881.
  • Alloy, L.B., Olino, T.M., Freed, R.D., & Nusslock, R.  (2016). Role of reward sensitivity and processing in major depressive and bipolar spectrum disorders. Behavior Therapy, 47, 600-621.
  • Boland, E.M., Stange, J.P., LaBelle, D.R., Shapero, B.G., Weiss, R.B., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2016). Affective disruption from social rhythm and behavioral approach system (BAS) sensitivities: A test of the integration of the social zeitgeber and reward theories of bipolar disorder. Clinical Psychological Science, 4, 418-432.
  • Burke, T.A., Connolly, S.L., Hamilton, J.L., Stange, J.P., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2016). Cognitive risk and protective factors for suicial ideation: A two-year longitudinal study in adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44, 1145-1160.
  • Ng, T.H., Stange, J.P., Black, C.L., Titone, M.K., Weiss, R.B., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2016). Impulsivity predicts the onset of DSM-IV-TR or RDC hypomanic and manic episodes in adolescents and young adults with high or moderate reward sensitivity. Journal of Affective Disorders, 198, 88-95.
  • Stange, J.P., Connolly, S.L., Burke, T.A., Hamilton, J.L., Hamlat, E.J., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2016). Inflexible cognition predicts first onset of major depressive episodes in adolescence. Depression and Anxiety, 33, 1005-1012.
  • Alloy, L.B., Ng, T.H., Titone, M.K., & Boland, E.M.  (2017). Circadian rhythm dysregulation in bipolar spectrum disorders. Current Psychiatry Reports, 19: 21, 1-10.
  • Connolly, S.L., & Alloy, L.B.  (2017). Rumination interacts with life stress to predict depressive symptoms: An ecological momentary assessment study. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 97, 86-95.
  • Hamilton, J.L., & Alloy, L.B. (2017). Physiological markers of interpersonal stress generation in depression. Clinical Psychological Science, 5, 911-929.
  • Nusslock, R., & Alloy, L.B. (2017). Reward processing and mood disorder symptoms: An RDoC and translational neuroscience perspective. Journal of Affective Disorders, 216, 3-16. Lead article.
  • Shapero, B.G., Bangasser, D., McClung, G., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2017). Interaction of biological stress recovery and cognitive vulnerability for depression in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 46, 91-103.
  • Stange, J.P., Alloy, L.B., & Fresco, D.M. (2017). Inflexibility as a vulnerability to depression: A systematic qualitative review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 24, 245-276.
  • Connolly, S.L., & Alloy, L.B. (2018). Negative event recall as a vulnerability for depression: Relationship between momentary stress-reactive rumination and memory for daily life stress. Clinical Psychological Science, 6, 32-47.
  • Mac Giollabhui, N., Hamilton, J.L., Nielsen, J., Connolly, S.L., Stange, J.P., Varga, S., Burdette, E., Olino, T. M., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2018). Negative cognitive style interacts with negative life events to predict first onset of a major depressive episode in adolescence via hopelessness. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 127, 1-11. 
  • Alloy, L.B., & Nusslock, R. (2019). Future directions for understanding adolescent bipolar spectrum disorders: A reward hypersensitivity perspective. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 48, 669-683.
  • Mac Giollabhui, N., Olino, T.M., Nielsen, J., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2019). Is worse attention a risk factor for depression, a consequence of depression, or are both better accounted for by stress?: A prospective test of three hypotheses. Clinical Psychological Science, 7, 93-109.
  • Ng, T.H., Alloy, L.B., & Smith, D.V.  (2019). Meta-analysis of reward processing in major depressive disorder reveals distinct abnormalities within the reward circuit. Translational Psychiatry, 9: 293. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0644-x
  • Kautz, M.M., Coe, C.L., McArthur, B.A., Mac Giollabhui, N., Ellman, L.M., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2020). Longitudinal changes of inflammatory biomarkers Moderate the relationship between recent stressful life events and prospective symptoms of depression in a diverse sample of urban adolescents. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 86, 43-52.
  • Mac Giollabhui, N., Swistun, D., Murray, S., Moriarity, D.P., Kautz, M.M., Ellman, L.M., Olino, T.M., Coe, C.L., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B. (2020). Executive dysfunction in depression in adolescence: The role of inflammation and higher body mass. Psychological Medicine, 50, 683-691.
  • Moriarity, D.P., Kautz, M.M., Mac Giollabhui, N., Klugman, J., Coe, C.L., Ellman, L.M., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B.(2020). Bidirectional associations between inflammatory biomarkers and depressive symptoms in adolescents: Potential causal relationships. Clinical Psychological Science, 8, 690-703.
  • Stumper, A., Mac Giollabhui, N., Abramson, L.Y., & Alloy, L.B.  (2020). Early pubertal timing mediates the association between low socioeconomic status and poor attention and executive functioning in a diverse community sample of adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49, 1420-1432.
  • Damme, K.S.F., Alloy, L.B., Young, C.B., Kelley, N.J., Chein, J., Ng, T.H., Titone, M.K., Black, C., & Nusslock, R. (in press). Amygdala subnuclei volume abnormalities in bipolar spectrum disorders: Insights from diffusion-based subsegmentation and a high risk design. Human Brain Mapping.
  • Kautz, M.M., Burke, T.A., Siegel, D.M., Case, J., & Alloy, L.B.  (in press). The role of reward sensitivity and childhood maltreatment in predicting non-suicidal self injury. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior.
  • Mac Giollabhui, N., Ng, T.H., Ellman, L.M., & Alloy, L.B.  (in press). The longitudinal associations of inflammatory biomarkers and depression revisited: Systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.  Molecular Psychiatry.
  • Moriarity, D.P., Ng, T.H., Titone, M.K., Chat, I.Y., Miller, G.E., Nusslock, R., & Alloy, L.B. (in press). Reward responsiveness and ruminative styles interact to predict inflammation and mood symptomatology. Behavior Therapy.

Courses Taught

  • PSY 8412 Core Course in Psychopathology
  • PSY 8430 Grant Writing
  • PSY 8420 Mood Disorders