Janette Funk

Research Interests

My research interests focus on understanding romantic relationships and the early years of marriage. Specifically, I am interested in the impact that environmental factors such as neighborhood cohesion and neighborhood dilapidation have on newlywed marriages, recognizing that couples from the inner-city neighborhoods might face unique challenges and interact somewhat differently than couples from the suburbs. In addition, I am also interested in improving the precision of measurement for a central outcome variable in couple’s research: relationship satisfaction. Using a sample of over 6,000 respondents who completed an item pool of 180 potential satisfaction items, Dr. Rogge and I used Item Response Theory analyses to create the Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI), an optimized measure of relationship satisfaction. We are currently validating the CSI in several longitudinal samples.

Publications/Manuscripts

• Funk, J. L. & Rogge, R. D. (2006). Testing the ruler: Increasing precision of measurement with the Couples Satisfaction Index. Journal of Family Psychology. Manuscript under review.
• Heatherington, L., Tolejko, N., McDonald, M., & Funk, J. L. (in press). Now why'd he do that?: The nature, correlates and predictive utility mothers' attributions about negative teen behavior.  Journal of Family Psychology.

Presentations

• Funk, J. L., & Rogge, R. D. Can we detect change over time? Assessing the sensitivity to change in marital satisfaction measures (2006, November). To be presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.
• Funk, J. L., & Rogge, R. D. (2005, November). Testing the ruler: Reliability and validity of an IRT-derived measure of relationship satisfaction. Presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention, Washington, D. C.
• Funk, J. L., & Heatherington, L. (2005, August). Cognitions of parents and teens during arguments predict relationship conflict. Presented at the Annual American Psychological Association Conference, Washington, D. C.
• Heatherington, L., Tolejko, N., McDonald, M., & Funk, J. L. (2005, August). Attributions and parent teen conflict: A longitudinal study. Presented at the Annual American Psychological Association Conference, Washington, D. C.

Additional Information

Research Assistant Positions Available : The Newlywed Lab, directed by Dr. Ronald Rogge is regularly recruiting research assistants to assist with projects and gain valuable experience in all phases of our research. Please contact me at jfunk@psych.rochester.edu if you are interested.

Seeking research participants: If you are at least 18 years old and are in a romantic relationship please considering participating in one of our online surveys. Some of these surveys include personalized feedback about your romantic relationship and your personality. Visit the our lab webpage ( http://www.couples-research.com) for more information or to participate.

Courses Taught

Abnormal Psychology, Summer Session 2004

Teaching Assistantships

Industrial Organizational Psychology (Fall 2004, Fall 2005)

Abnormal Psychology (Spring 2004)

Undergraduate Research Methods (Fall 2006)

Curriculum vitae is available upon request.