Paula S Nurius
Biographic Data
| ID | 123625 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paula S Nurius |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paula S |
| FAMILY NAME | Nurius |
| SIGNATURE | NURIUS P S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Washington |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5091-6349 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 53 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 219 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 53 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Social determinants of contraception use among rural adolescents: Implications for addressing disparities
PURPOSE: Few studies have examined disparities in-and social determinants of-contraception use among rural adolescents despite evidence of higher teen birth rates and greater STI risk in rural communities. Guided by a social determinants of health (SDoH) framework, this cross-sectional study aimed to address these gaps. METHODS: Data come from the 2018 Healthy Youth Survey, including N = 3757 sexually active, rural-based adolescents. Chi-square a…
Measuring adverse childhood experiences in youth: Metric Development Using a Statewide Youth Survey
Youth Gang Membership, Marginalized Identities, and Suicidality Disparities: Intersectional Implications for Research and Practice
Sexual health variation among gang‐involved youth in Washington state: Social ecological implications for research and practice
Findings highlight the need for service approaches that are responsive to both the individual needs of gang-involved youth and the factors that shape their living environments. We discuss the implications for research and practice, including the potential utility of a harm reduction framework to promote sexual health and reduce disparities in the youth gang population
Biological and social cascades of prenatal contextual risk and maternal psychological distress to early-childhood adjustment
In the peripartum, putative mechanisms in the transmission of prenatal contextual risk and maternal psychological distress include biological and social processes. In this study, path analyses were used to test unique, cascading pathways of prenatal contextual risk and pre- and postnatal maternal psychological distress through social mediators (parenting) and biological mediators (infant stress physiology) on infant temperament and toddler adjust…
Playgrounds are for children: Investigating developmentally-specific “Green Space” and child mental health
“Green space” effects on health have been amply demonstrated, but whether specific features of green space exert differential effects remains unknown. Driven by developmental psychology theory highlighting the importance of play for young children, we investigated the association between parks with playgrounds, as a subtype of “green space”, and young child mental health. After adjusting for individual race, sex, income, and cumulative risk as we…
Violence, HIV Risks, and Polysubstance Use Among HIV-Positive People Who Inject Drugs in Ukraine
Microsystem Supports, Therapeutic Progress, and Court Reinvolvement: Implications for Juvenile Probation
Objective: Juvenile probation is the most common disposition for court-involved youth. Emerging frameworks for research-informed probation highlight the importance of intervention dosage, adolescent development, and cross-systems approaches, yet research examining these features is limited. Guided by ecological, developmental, and probation practice frameworks, we examined the relationship between microsystem supports (family, school, probation),…
School Engagement Among Youth Entering Probation
The school-to-prison pipeline for probation youth with special education needs
Juvenile justice-involved youth with special education eligibility may have distinct needs from other justice-involved youth that place them at higher risk of re-offending. This study examines the extent to which the comorbidity of risk factors, such as school challenges and mental and emotional health problems, is related to recidivism among probation youth with a diagnosis eligible for special education. Data came from the Washington State Juve…
Commentary: Covid-19 and Long-Term Impacts on Tenure-Line Careers
Previous articleNext article FreeCommentary: COVID-19 and Long-Term Impacts on Tenure-Line CareersAudrey Mengwasser Shillington, Sarah Gehlert, Paula S. Nurius, Jorge Delva, Nancy R. Hooyman, Ronald William Manderscheid, and Lawrence A. PalinkasAudrey Mengwasser ShillingtonSan José State University Search for more articles by this author , Sarah GehlertUniversity of Southern California Search for more articles by this author , Paula S. NuriusUniv…
Substance use profiles among gang-involved youth: Social ecology implications for service approaches
Incarceration and adversity histories: Modeling life course pathways affecting behavioral health
14,001), this study tests pathways of household incarceration and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to mental health impairment and substance use in adulthood. Within a life course stress process perspective, this study uses structural equation modeling to examine mediational pathways through adulthood incarceration and indicators of adulthood adversity, low income, and supportive resources. In line with stress process theorizing, results indi…
Adverse childhood experiences to adult adversity trends among parents: Socioeconomic, health, and developmental implications
Cumulative adversity profiles among youth experiencing housing and parental care instability
Modeling life course pathways from adverse childhood experiences to adult mental health
Individual and Neighborhood Stressors, Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease
Psychosocial and environmental stress exposures across the life course have been shown to be relevant in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Assessing more than one stressor from different domains (e.g., individual and neighborhood) and across the life course moves us towards a more integrated picture of how stress affects health and well-being. Furthermore, these individual and neighborhood psychosocial stressors act on biologic pat…
Multiple Disadvantage and Discrimination: Implications for Adolescent Health and Education
Multiply disadvantaged youths exhibit worse health and academic success than their less disadvantaged peers, possibly due to greater exposure to social status-based discrimination. Models that capture the additive burden of disadvantage in tandem with multiple forms of discrimination are needed to explicate the unique and combined impact of these factors on adolescent health and academic outcomes. In addition, protective factors like positive fam…
Preparing Professional Degree Students to Tackle Grand Challenges: A Framework for Aligning Social Work Curricula
The Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative (GCSWI) reflects the power and potential of social work to accelerate social innovations and resolve major social problems. The complexity of these societal problems mandates profession-wide entrepreneurial readiness to engage in transdisciplinary, interprofessional, and translational collaborations. The GCSWI galvanizes shifts in undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, and early career supports to equip…
Life Course Pathways From Adverse Childhood Experiences to Adult Physical Health: A Structural Equation Model
Findings indicate that stress process roles in eroding physical health and experience of wellness. Addressing early adversity is an important strategy toward reducing preventable health problems
Next generation social work research education: Fostering transdisciplinary readiness
Globally, scholars across disciplines are seeing increasing pressures to develop the capacity for multi-level, boundary-spanning research focused on complex social, health, and environmental problems. Although social work is inherently an integrative discipline, the profession faces challenges and gaps in effectively and thoughtfully responding to these demands. This paper focuses on transdisciplinarity, arguing that it is a core dimension of res…
Transdisciplinarity in Research: Perspectives of Early Career Faculty
We offer a multilevel framework of structural and training supports needed to realize transdisciplinary research in social work with relevance to other disciplines
Adverse childhood experiences among youth aging out of foster care: A latent class analysis
Social Work Preparation to Compete in Today’s Scientific Marketplace
As the scientific marketplace rapidly evolves, we must keep revisiting strategic preparation of our doctoral students and early career scholars to be successful innovators in these contexts. As an inherently integrative, change-oriented, community-engaged, and context-sensitive discipline, social work has enormous potential as a value-added partner for greater cross-fertilization among scientists and stakeholders not only from the academy but als…
Life course pathways of adverse childhood experiences toward adult psychological well-being: A stress process analysis
Through Her Eyes: Factors Affecting Women's Perception of and Resistance to Acquaintance Sexual Aggression Threat
A major component of a woman's ability to resist assaults by strangers versus acquaintances lies in the social and cognitive context in which she is engaged with the perpetrator and within which she must recognize potential threat before engaging in a behavioral response. This paper presents questionnaire and focus group findings of heterosexual college sorority women's social contexts, perceived risks, responses, and psychological barriers to pr…
Expectations regarding acquaintance sexual aggression among sorority and fraternity members
Mental health implications of sexual orientation
The findings of a study designed to examine relationships among four measures of clinical psychopathology (depression, self‐esteem, marital discord, sexual discord), a measure of sexual attitudes, and measures of both sexual activities and sexual preferences are reported. These relationships are examined in relation to a four‐group typology of sexual orientation based on self‐report preference measures. Individuals are categorized as either predo…
Adverse childhood experiences among youth aging out of foster care: A latent class analysis
A short‐form scale to measure liberal vs. conservative orientations toward human sexual expression
This paper presents a new, short‐form scale that was designed to measure the extent to which a person adheres to a liberal or a conservative orientation toward human sexual expression. It has a score range from 0 to 100, a reliability α = .94, a standard error of measurement of 4.20, and good construct, factorial, and concurrent validity. The paper presents the major research findings that serve as a basis for the partial validation of the scale
Transdisciplinarity and Translation: Preparing Social Work Doctoral Students for High Impact Research
Contemporary research models are becoming increasingly transdisciplinary (TD), multilevel, community-connected, and bent on expediting the movement of research to impact. This requires not only fresh thinking about the science of social work but an educational architecture that fosters both cross-disciplinary understanding of complex underlying determinants and the ability to translate that knowledge into effective, sustainable action. This artic…
Childhood Violence Exposure: Cumulative and Specific Effects on Adult Mental Health
Multi-domain risk and protective factor predictors of violent behavior among at-risk youth
This study extends prior examination of adolescent violence etiology, drawing on an ethnically diverse, community accessed, yet emotionally vulnerable sample (N = 849) of adolescents at-risk for school drop-out. A balanced risk and protective factor framework captured theorized dimensions of strain, coping, and support resources. We tested the combined and unique contribution of risk and protective components spanning individual, peer/school, and…
Trauma Exposure and Sexual Revictimization Risk: Comparisons Across Single, Multiple Incident, and Multiple Perpetrator Victimizations
Although research demonstrates a link between child sexual abuse and sexual revictimization in adolescence or adulthood, less is known about specific mechanisms that increase women's vulnerability to reassault. This study examined experiential and outcome differences between survivors of a single assault, survivors of ongoing abuse by a single perpetrator, and survivors of multiple assaults by different offenders. Multiply victimized women differ…
Women’s Situational Coping With Acquaintance Sexual Assault: Applying an Appraisal-Based Model
Drawing on theories of appraisal-based coping, the present study applied structural modeling to examine relationships among personal goal orientations, primary and secondary appraisals of acquaintance sexual assault, and women's emotional and behavioral responses to it. Based on 415 college women's reports of a sexual assault experience, the model shows both direct and indirect effects. Assertive, diplomatic, and immobilized responding were each …
Responding in Their Best Interests: Contextualizing Women’s Coping With Acquaintance Sexual Aggression
Using an investigation of 202 college women who completed a survey about coping with sexual aggression from a known male assailant, the authors examined assailant behaviors, along with women's victimization history, alcohol use, positive relationship expectancies, and sexual assertiveness, to clarify how these factors shape women's responses to acquaintance sexual aggression. Multivariate regression analyses showed that these factors and assailan…
When a Date Changes from Fun to Dangerous: Factors Affecting Women's Ability to Distinguish
Women's ability to perceive risk of acquaintance sexual assault is key to decreasing its likelihood. This study examined the relationship between women's recognition of known situational risk factors and global perceived risk, prior victimization, and drinking habits. Women consistently distinguished between clear and ambiguous situational risk factors although these were not related to perceived global risk. They also manifested positivity bias,…
Adverse childhood experiences to adult adversity trends among parents: Socioeconomic, health, and developmental implications
Spouse Psychological Well-Being: A Keystone to Military Family Health
Understanding predictors of military spouse psychosocial vulnerability informs efforts to assess, identify, and support at-risk spouses and families. In this analysis we test the effects of family stress and strain on military spouse psychological health, using a sample of female civilian spouses (n=161). Regression findings confirm expectations of the significant contribution of family stressors, strain, and resources in explaining variation in …
Multiple Disadvantage and Discrimination: Implications for Adolescent Health and Education
Multiply disadvantaged youths exhibit worse health and academic success than their less disadvantaged peers, possibly due to greater exposure to social status-based discrimination. Models that capture the additive burden of disadvantage in tandem with multiple forms of discrimination are needed to explicate the unique and combined impact of these factors on adolescent health and academic outcomes. In addition, protective factors like positive fam…
Life Course Pathways From Adverse Childhood Experiences to Adult Physical Health: A Structural Equation Model
Findings indicate that stress process roles in eroding physical health and experience of wellness. Addressing early adversity is an important strategy toward reducing preventable health problems
Preparing Emerging Doctoral Scholars for Transdisciplinary Research: A Developmental Approach
Research models that bridge disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological boundaries are increasingly common as funders and the public push for timely, effective, collaborative responses to pressing social and environmental problems. Although social work is inherently an integrative discipline, there is growing recognition of the need to better prepare emerging scholars for sophisticated transdisciplinary and translational research environments. …
Preparing Professional Degree Students to Tackle Grand Challenges: A Framework for Aligning Social Work Curricula
The Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative (GCSWI) reflects the power and potential of social work to accelerate social innovations and resolve major social problems. The complexity of these societal problems mandates profession-wide entrepreneurial readiness to engage in transdisciplinary, interprofessional, and translational collaborations. The GCSWI galvanizes shifts in undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, and early career supports to equip…
The role of positive academic self-concept in promoting school success
Sexual activity and preference: Six quantifiable dimensions
We present a new multidimensional measure of sexual activity and preference that may be of use to researchers and practitioners who work in clinical settings involving sex-related problems. The questionnaire contains six subscales to measure amounts of sexual activity and six subscales to measure degree of preference for those activities. The 12 subscales have good to excellent reliabilities, and they all appear to have content, construct, and fa…
Commentary: Covid-19 and Long-Term Impacts on Tenure-Line Careers
Previous articleNext article FreeCommentary: COVID-19 and Long-Term Impacts on Tenure-Line CareersAudrey Mengwasser Shillington, Sarah Gehlert, Paula S. Nurius, Jorge Delva, Nancy R. Hooyman, Ronald William Manderscheid, and Lawrence A. PalinkasAudrey Mengwasser ShillingtonSan José State University Search for more articles by this author , Sarah GehlertUniversity of Southern California Search for more articles by this author , Paula S. NuriusUniv…
Human Memory: A Basis for Better Understanding the Elusive Self-Concept
Recent advances in understanding human memory provide new insights into how people "know" and how they apply that knowledge in social functioning. While the focus here is on the self-concept, many of the points about memory functioning are broadly applicable in social work practice and research. I present a visual and narrative description of the major components and processes of human memory as well as "mindless," or unconscious, processing and …
Methods of Generalization Used in Empirical Social Work Literature
This paper reviews methods currently used for generalization of findings, as reflected in the reporting of research-related articles in two major social work research journals over a five-year period. Findings indicate, with the exception of a pronounced reliance on statistical significance testing, a greater orientation toward qualitative rather than quantitative methods. While there was also evidence of differential use of generalization method…
Biological and social cascades of prenatal contextual risk and maternal psychological distress to early-childhood adjustment
In the peripartum, putative mechanisms in the transmission of prenatal contextual risk and maternal psychological distress include biological and social processes. In this study, path analyses were used to test unique, cascading pathways of prenatal contextual risk and pre- and postnatal maternal psychological distress through social mediators (parenting) and biological mediators (infant stress physiology) on infant temperament and toddler adjust…
Cumulative adversity profiles among youth experiencing housing and parental care instability
Mental health implications of sexual orientation
The findings of a study designed to examine relationships among four measures of clinical psychopathology (depression, self‐esteem, marital discord, sexual discord), a measure of sexual attitudes, and measures of both sexual activities and sexual preferences are reported. These relationships are examined in relation to a four‐group typology of sexual orientation based on self‐report preference measures. Individuals are categorized as either predo…
A short‐form scale to measure liberal vs. conservative orientations toward human sexual expression
This paper presents a new, short‐form scale that was designed to measure the extent to which a person adheres to a liberal or a conservative orientation toward human sexual expression. It has a score range from 0 to 100, a reliability α = .94, a standard error of measurement of 4.20, and good construct, factorial, and concurrent validity. The paper presents the major research findings that serve as a basis for the partial validation of the scale
Assessment of behavioral change in a child psychiatric inpatient program
Methods of Generalization Used in Empirical Social Work Literature
This paper reviews methods currently used for generalization of findings, as reflected in the reporting of research-related articles in two major social work research journals over a five-year period. Findings indicate, with the exception of a pronounced reliance on statistical significance testing, a greater orientation toward qualitative rather than quantitative methods. While there was also evidence of differential use of generalization method…
Possible selves
Gender and time variations in medical students' value development
Sexual activity and preference: Six quantifiable dimensions
We present a new multidimensional measure of sexual activity and preference that may be of use to researchers and practitioners who work in clinical settings involving sex-related problems. The questionnaire contains six subscales to measure amounts of sexual activity and six subscales to measure degree of preference for those activities. The 12 subscales have good to excellent reliabilities, and they all appear to have content, construct, and fa…
Computer Literacy Preparation: Conundrums and Opportunities for the Social Work Educator
This paper addresses three sets of perplexing factors of conundrums - ambivalence, ambiguity, and alienation - associated with computerization in the human services that have copmlicated and confounded the task of computer literacy perparation. The primary focus is on dilemmas encountered, and at times generated, by educators in social work programs, particularly masters level training. Recommendations for constructive approaches to ameliorating …
Preparing Computer Literate Social Workers: An Integrative Approach
This paper brings together and adds to the current thinking on how to introduce microcomputer technology to MSW students and how to integrate this content with practice and research courses. A new framework suggested by the authors facilitates the integration of computer literacy training into an MSW curriculum. This framework conceptualizes computer literacy as a composite of both analytic and end-user administration, or research - each will hav…
Computers in Agencies: A Survey Baseline and Planning Implications
To date, the developing presence and functions of computers in human services has followed a varied and often reactive course. Baselines and barometers of actual technology use, changing attitudes, and organizational impact are needed. This paper reports survey findings from a metropolitan sample of human service agencies (N = 103) regarding computer resources currently in use as well as agencies' concerns, perceptions of advantages, and future p…
Procedural Knowledge in Education for Direct Practice: Definitions, Baselines, and Recommendations
Social workers continually draw inferences, exercise judgement, and make decisions about the client and the client's environment. Recent advances regarding the cognitive underpinnings of these processes suggest avenues for empirical investigation. This paper first discusses operationalization of these processes, then reports findings from a pilot study to assess baseline information regarding social work students' knowledge in performing these pr…
Human Memory: A Basis for Better Understanding the Elusive Self-Concept
Recent advances in understanding human memory provide new insights into how people "know" and how they apply that knowledge in social functioning. While the focus here is on the self-concept, many of the points about memory functioning are broadly applicable in social work practice and research. I present a visual and narrative description of the major components and processes of human memory as well as "mindless," or unconscious, processing and …
A Cognitive Ecological Model of Women'S Response to Male Sexual Coercion in Dating
We offer a theoretical model that consolidates background, environmental, and intrapersonal variables related to women's experience of sexual coercion in dating into a coherent ecological framework and present for the first time a cognitive analysis of the processes women use to formulate responses to sexual coercion. An underlying premise for this model is that a woman's coping response to sexual coercion by an acquaintance is mediated through c…
Through Her Eyes: Factors Affecting Women's Perception of and Resistance to Acquaintance Sexual Aggression Threat
A major component of a woman's ability to resist assaults by strangers versus acquaintances lies in the social and cognitive context in which she is engaged with the perpetrator and within which she must recognize potential threat before engaging in a behavioral response. This paper presents questionnaire and focus group findings of heterosexual college sorority women's social contexts, perceived risks, responses, and psychological barriers to pr…
Expectations regarding acquaintance sexual aggression among sorority and fraternity members
When a Date Changes from Fun to Dangerous: Factors Affecting Women's Ability to Distinguish
Women's ability to perceive risk of acquaintance sexual assault is key to decreasing its likelihood. This study examined the relationship between women's recognition of known situational risk factors and global perceived risk, prior victimization, and drinking habits. Women consistently distinguished between clear and ambiguous situational risk factors although these were not related to perceived global risk. They also manifested positivity bias,…
Women’s Situational Coping With Acquaintance Sexual Assault: Applying an Appraisal-Based Model
Drawing on theories of appraisal-based coping, the present study applied structural modeling to examine relationships among personal goal orientations, primary and secondary appraisals of acquaintance sexual assault, and women's emotional and behavioral responses to it. Based on 415 college women's reports of a sexual assault experience, the model shows both direct and indirect effects. Assertive, diplomatic, and immobilized responding were each …
Trauma Exposure and Sexual Revictimization Risk: Comparisons Across Single, Multiple Incident, and Multiple Perpetrator Victimizations
Although research demonstrates a link between child sexual abuse and sexual revictimization in adolescence or adulthood, less is known about specific mechanisms that increase women's vulnerability to reassault. This study examined experiential and outcome differences between survivors of a single assault, survivors of ongoing abuse by a single perpetrator, and survivors of multiple assaults by different offenders. Multiply victimized women differ…
Responding in Their Best Interests: Contextualizing Women’s Coping With Acquaintance Sexual Aggression
Using an investigation of 202 college women who completed a survey about coping with sexual aggression from a known male assailant, the authors examined assailant behaviors, along with women's victimization history, alcohol use, positive relationship expectancies, and sexual assertiveness, to clarify how these factors shape women's responses to acquaintance sexual aggression. Multivariate regression analyses showed that these factors and assailan…
Risk and Protective Profiles Among Never Exposed, Single Form, and Multiple Form Violence Exposed Youth
Multi-domain risk and protective factor predictors of violent behavior among at-risk youth
This study extends prior examination of adolescent violence etiology, drawing on an ethnically diverse, community accessed, yet emotionally vulnerable sample (N = 849) of adolescents at-risk for school drop-out. A balanced risk and protective factor framework captured theorized dimensions of strain, coping, and support resources. We tested the combined and unique contribution of risk and protective components spanning individual, peer/school, and…
Rethinking the Bar on Standards of Evidence for Social Work Intervention Research
The research reports by Boyd et al. and Herman et al. provide insights about intervention research with vulnerable populations that highlight often-neglected standards of evidence. This commentary describes linkages of nonspecific therapeutic factors critical to these outcome studies as illustrative of research to practice standards we must continually promote. Embedding intervention research with iterative links to service system and implementat…
Childhood Violence Exposure: Cumulative and Specific Effects on Adult Mental Health
Practical Reason Within and Across Disciplinary Borders: A Response to Longhofer and Floersch
Longhofer and Floersch argue for more expansive thinking about the modes of social science research predominant in contemporary social work science. This commentary concurs with aspects of their article that we see as compatible both with social work aims and with current trends and imperatives in research and practice, including mixed methods and participatory studies, translational research, the scholarship of engagement, and rapidly emerging i…
Transdisciplinarity and Translation: Preparing Social Work Doctoral Students for High Impact Research
Contemporary research models are becoming increasingly transdisciplinary (TD), multilevel, community-connected, and bent on expediting the movement of research to impact. This requires not only fresh thinking about the science of social work but an educational architecture that fosters both cross-disciplinary understanding of complex underlying determinants and the ability to translate that knowledge into effective, sustainable action. This artic…
Psychology (46 works) · Medicine (28 works) · Developmental psychology (24 works) · Clinical Psychology (22 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Psychiatry (20 works) · Clinical Psychology (18 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Sociology (17 works)