Dr. Daniela Jopp is Assistant Professor for Applied Developmental Psychology. Her primary research interests focus on psychological mechanisms (i.e., resources, strategies, and beliefs) that allow for positive development over the lifespan, including adaptation to loss and successful aging. Complementing the resource perspective often applied in actual research, she examines “psychological strengths”, namely strategies and beliefs that further support (or hinder) individuals’ goal pursuit and positive development. Thus, her perspective on development discriminates between the following three elements: resources that individuals apply in everyday tasks and challenges (e.g., education, cognition, health, social network), strategies that are used to solve problems or reach goals (e.g., coping and life-management strategies), and beliefs that provide the motivation necessary to engage in effortful and persistent action (e.g., control beliefs and attitudes towards life, disease, and aging). Dr. Jopp’s research demonstrates that these psychological mechanisms play an important role for general (e.g., positive adaptation to loss) and specific (e.g., memory functioning) developmental outcomes. Furthermore, her research shows that taking into account the interrelations among resources and strengths explains more about positive development than any one factor considered alone.
Dr. Jopp is currently involved in several research activities, including (1) the investigation of the role of psychological mechanisms of adaptation in very old individuals and centenarians, in collaboration with Dr. Christoph Rott and Dr. Andreas Kruse from Heidelberg University; (2) examination of the impact of activities, strategy use, and agency beliefs in the context of memory functioning of young, middle-aged and older individuals, in collaboration with Dr. Christopher Hertzog at the Georgia Institute of Technology; (3) exploration of adaptation to aging in individuals with disabilities at the workplace in a study funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (co-investigator Jon Sanford, Georgia Institute of Technology); (4) resilience in nursing home residents, together with Dr. Kathrin Boerner, Jewish Home Lifecare, New York; (5) investigation of the development of life-management and coping (e.g., in college students); and (6) application of the psychological mechanisms model to cancer patients.
Students interested in becoming involved in ongoing projects are encouraged to contact Dr. Jopp.
