My early research experience was marked by a series of investigations of the continuity hypothesis of dreaming (Hall & Nordby, 1972), which involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses in order to examine the complex relationships between dream content and waking life characteristics (e.g., health, sexuality, intimate relationships). In particular, my honours thesis revealed highly significant relationships between dream imagery and indicators of physical health. This body of work has led to additional interests in dreams as a source of personal meaning (and methods which facilitate such meaning-making).

My Master's thesis project allowed me to explore a related interest in social psychology: the emerging construct of spiritual intelligence. According to leading criteria for intelligence, a model and self-report measure were developed, tested, and validated. I have positied existential thinking, meaning-making, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion as adaptive mental capacities comprising the construct. The Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI-24) was subsequently developed as a measure of these four components. Some of the most intriguing findings occurred with meaning-making abilities and their relationship to presence and search for meaning. This line of research will continue at some point in the future in order to further validate this model and measure.

My current doctoral work involves an examination of stress, coping, and social support processes among Canadian paramedics. Due to the unique nature and high demands of their work, paramedics regularly experience stress not common to the general population, such as death of a patient under their care, violence, assault, and more generally, human suffering and tragedy. As a result, this population has been identified as high risk for post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma-related symptoms such as depression, anxiety, detachment, sleep disturbance, and emotional numbness, among others. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that spouses of paramedics deal with stressors resulting from the occupational stress of their significant others. A review of the extant literature reveals that although some of the aforementioned issues have been identified, paramedics remain an understudied population. The proposed study aims to examine stress and coping processes in paramedics using daily process methodology. This allows for the assessment of daily stress and coping close to their real-time occurrence. In particular, we propose to examine how paramedics who are partnered on the job cope with stress together and provide support to one another, and the impact they have on each other in terms of stress-related outcomes (e.g., mood, quality of sleep). Since it has been demonstrated that stress is contagious across settings, we are also interested in examining the effects of work-related stress on the home environment. Other variables that will be examined for their role in stress perception and contagion include emotional expressivity, burnout, depression, job satisfaction, and trait forgiveness.

It is my longterm goal to combine the afore-mentioned lines of research in order to examine some of the following questions within psychology: How does personal meaning contribute to coping processes? Does this vary as a function of the source of meaning (e.g., dreams)? Do elevated spiritual capacities lead to adaptational outcomes (e.g., health, social functioning) over time? What is the role of meaning- and spiritual-based coping processes in interpersonal relationships and support provision? How does this relate to the perception of interconnectedness? These questions are just a few examples of how my various research interests might someday combine and interrelate. One of my overall goals is to better understand the role of both situational and global forms of meaning in other psychological processes such as stress and coping, well-being (including physical), empathy, and social functioning.

Current Research Projects