Research Interests

My primary research interests are in the area of social relationships, social support, and their impact on physical and psychological health. I'm particularly interested in online social environments and interactions. I also do research with the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

My secondary research area is in proenvironmental attitudes and behavior. I work with the University Sustainability Office as a consulting environmental and social psychologist.

Opportunities For Students

Undergraduate students working with me will have opportunities to collect and work with psychological and physiological (cardiac impedance, blood pressure, etc.) data in human subjects research. Please email me if you are interested in becoming involved. I often have online research assistant opportunities for students who are not at the U's Salt Lake Campus or have scheduling conflicts that prevent coming into the lab.

Opportunities to work on proenvironmental/cancer research may also be available. Contact me for details.

Education

M.S., University of Utah (Psychology, 2014)

Selected Publications

Kent, R. G., Uchino, B. N., Cribbet, M. R., Bowen, K., and Smith, T. W. (2015). Social relationships and sleep quality. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 1-6. doi: 10.1007/s12160-015-9711-6
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Mikal, J. P., Rice, R. E., Kent, R. G., & Uchino, B. N. (2015). 100 million strong: A case study of group identification and deindividuation on Imgur.com. New Media & Society. doi: 10.1177/1461444815588766
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Uchino, B. N., Cawthon, R., Smith, T. W., Kent, R. G., Bowen, K., & Light, K. (2015). A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Association Between Perceived Network Social Control and Telomere Length. Health Psychology, 34(5), 531-538. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0000148
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Mikal, J. P., Rice, R. E., Kent, R. G., & Uchino, B. N. (2014). Common voice: Analysis of behavior modification and content convergence in a popular online community. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 506-515.
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Smith, T., Uchino, B. N., Bosch, J. A., and Kent, R. G. (2014). Trait hostility is associated with systemic inflammation in married couples: An actor-partner analysis. Biological Psychology, 102, 51-53.
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Uchino, B. N., Bowen, K., Kent, R. G., Mikal, J. & Fisher, E. B. (in press). Social support and physical health: Models, mechanisms, and opportunities. In E. Fisher, L. Cameron, A. Christensen, U. Ehlert, B. Oldenburg, and F. Snoek (Eds.), Principles and concepts of behavioral medicine: A global handbook.

Kent de Grey, R. G., & Uchino, B. N. (in press). Health correlates and consequences of friendship. In M. Robbins & K. Sweeney (Eds.), The Wiley Encyclopedia of Health Psychology.

Uchino, B. N., Bowen, K., & Kent, R. G. (in press). Social support and mental health. In H. Friedman, K. Fingerman, Encyclopedia of Mental Health (2nd Edition). Oxford: Elsevier.

Uchino, B.N., Ong, A., Queen, T.L., & Kent de Grey, R.G. (In press). Theories of social support in health and aging. Handbook