My research is driven by a desire to understand the connection between the quality of communication and the quality of life. I have dedicated my career to examining the ways in which communication practices affect and reflect mental, physical, and relational health. Narratives and storytelling processes in the family are at the heart of my innovative interdisciplinary research on health and well-being. The overarching purpose of my research program is to study the ways in which narratives, storytelling, and related forms of communicated sense-making can help individuals and families understand, negotiate, and improve communication and coping within the context of difficulty and illness. I seek to implement interdisciplinary, narrative-based interventions to improve caregiving, communication, and psychosocial well-being for families and care providers.
The constructs pertinent to my program of research are detailed in my recent chapter in the Sage Handbook of Family Communication (Koenig Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015). As illustrated in that chapter, Communicated Sense-Making – or the ways in which people communicate to make sense of their lives – provides the umbrella that captures my work on concepts typically conceptualized and studied as psychological constructs. Importantly, I focus on sense-making as a communicative, rather than wholly cognitive, process because much of our understanding emerges within and as a product of our everyday talk. Thus, my research agenda seeks to uncover the ways in which interpersonal and family communication, such as memorable messages, accounts, attributions, narratives, storytelling, and communicated perspective-taking are important to our well-being.
Some of the constructs I research are described below and on the Lessons Learned and The Next Chapter pages.
The constructs pertinent to my program of research are detailed in my recent chapter in the Sage Handbook of Family Communication (Koenig Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015). As illustrated in that chapter, Communicated Sense-Making – or the ways in which people communicate to make sense of their lives – provides the umbrella that captures my work on concepts typically conceptualized and studied as psychological constructs. Importantly, I focus on sense-making as a communicative, rather than wholly cognitive, process because much of our understanding emerges within and as a product of our everyday talk. Thus, my research agenda seeks to uncover the ways in which interpersonal and family communication, such as memorable messages, accounts, attributions, narratives, storytelling, and communicated perspective-taking are important to our well-being.
Some of the constructs I research are described below and on the Lessons Learned and The Next Chapter pages.
Memorabel Messages, Accounts, & AttributionsOur research on memorable messages, accounts, and attributions indicate the significance of communicated sense-making across a variety of family relationships, particularly in the context of mothers' communication.
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Communicated Narrative Sense-MakingCommunicated Narrative Sense-Making theory (Koenig Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015) examines the content and process of storytelling in relation to health constructs (e.g., individual mental and physical health, relational satisfaction, coping) to showcase the many ways storytelling affects and reflects well-being.
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Communicated Perspective-takingThe ability to attend to, understand, and confirm another's perspective in interactions is another element central to my program of research. This line of scholarship demonstrates the ways in which people communicate their understanding of others can have significant consequences for individual, marital, and family health
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