Neena Malik
Neena Malik
Assistant Professor, Child Division
University of Denver, Denver, CO - 1997
My research and clinical interests focus on prevention and intervention strategies for families at risk for or exposed to violence and trauma. Foci include the intersection of research and public policy, community methods, and cross-ethnic research and intervention methods.
Research Interests
Theoretical Background
The primary research paradigm within which I work is that of prevention science, focusing on empirically investigating the causes, consequences, and effective treatments of social problems in a community-centered approach. My primary area of research is family violence, focusing on developing and longitudinally testing etiological models of violence occurring in dyadic family subsystems. My particular emphasis is on power in family subsystems, the influence of culture on family power, and prevention of family violence. Theoretically, my work draws upon aspects of social psychological, ethnocultural, and family systems approaches in integrating empirically testable models of the development of spouse abuse in long-term couple relationships, aggression and coerciveness in parent-child relationships, and the overlap between different forms of violence in families.
My focus on this area of research includes an integration of several areas of academic and social interest, from depictions of power and aggression in society and the media, to linguistic symbols of influence and self-assertion, to the politics of oppression and the interpersonal and cultural consequences of individuals attempts to gain a measure of control in their lives. My research seeks to understand the uses of power by both dominant and oppressed individuals and the psychological consequences, both healthy and corruptive, of power. Over the past several years, my interest in understanding power and control has centered on couples and families. In families, relationships are at their most intimate, and the foundations for interpersonal relatedness are laid for development across the lifespan. As such, it is also in these relationships that expressions of power and influence can reach their strongest and most destructive capacity, in the form of violence. Because the way family members define power, relate to one another, and relate to larger systems in their environments may be influenced by cultural values and norms as much as by intrapersonal and dyadic factors, this line of research also has a strong focus on culture and ethnicity.
Current Projects
Couples and Families Project/Family Communication Project
This work includes basic research on power, culture, and domestic violence in couple relationships. In collaboration with Dr. Kristin Lindahl and Kelly Heiges, M.A., Nicole Marcus, M.S., Sean Spiegel, M.S., and Zachary Warren, B.A., these projects also examine the associations of power, conflict, and violence in the marriage on family and child functioning. This work includes a strong focus on observations of marital and family functioning, including power, control, and verbal aggression in couple interactions, and coerciveness, triangulation, coalition formation, and cohesiveness in triadic family interactions. Observations are coded using the System for Coding Interactions in Dyads, Malik & Lindahl, revised 2000; and the System for Coding Interactions and Family Functioning, Lindahl & Malik, revised 2000. Questions include, for example, cross-ethnic examinations of the associations between balance of power in the marriage and domestic violence; cross-ethnic examinations of the relations between marital conflict and family functioning; the moderation of the relations between marital problems and child functioning by triadic family functioning; the moderation of the association between marital conflict and parenting by parenting cognitions; and the moderation of the association between marital aggression and child aggression by aggressogenic child social cognitions. Data collection, underway since 1998, includes both community and clinic-referred families.
Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Program
Currently in development is a prevention-oriented, dyadic therapy program for parents with young children. Focusing on at-risk populations, this intervention research program includes comprehensive evaluations of social and emotional development in young children and family-level functioning, with both cross-sectional and longitudinal components planned. This program offers training in models of dyadic therapy with parents and very young children, including infants and toddlers, and prevention-oriented research. The focus of this program is on children and families at risk for violence and families who have experienced trauma. Theoretical models to be tested include a focus on coercive interactions between parents and their infants and toddlers and the transactional influences of community level factors, such as neighborhood violence, family conflict and violence, parent-child interaction, and child factors on child development and treatment outcome.
Selected Publications
Malik, N. M., Lederman, C. S., Crowson, M. M., & Osofsky, J. D. (In press). Evaluating maltreated infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in dependency court. Infant Mental Health Journal.
Marcus, N. E., Lindahl, K. M., & Malik, N. M. (2001). Interparental conflict, children's social cognitions, and child aggression: A test of a mediational model. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 315-333.
Lindahl, K. M., & Malik, N. M. (2001). The System for Coding Interactions and Family Functioning. P. Kerig and K. M. Lindahl (Eds.), Family Observational Coding Systems: Resources for Systemic Research (pp. 77-91). LEA Publishers
Lederman, C. S., Malik, N. M., & Aaron, S. M. (2000). The nexus between child maltreatment and domestic violence: A view from the court. Journal of the Center for Children and the Courts, 2, 129-135.
Lederman, C. S., & Malik, N. M. (1999). Family violence: The state of the research. Florida Bar Journal, 73, 58-62.
Lindahl, K. M., & Malik, N. M. (1999). Observations of marital conflict and power: Relations with parenting in the triad. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 320-330.
Lindahl, K. M., & Malik, N. M. (1999). Linking marital conflict and children?s adjustment: The role of triadic family processes in Anglo and Hispanic families. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 28, 12-24.
Lecklitner, G. E., Malik, N. M., Aaron, S. M., & Lederman, C. S. (1999). Promoting the safety of abused children and battered mothers: A model dependency court intervention program. Child Maltreatment, 4 , 175-182.
Malik, N. M., & Lindahl, K. M. (1998). Aggression and dominance: The roles of power and culture in domestic violence. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 5, 409-423.
Teaching
- Sample Syllabi
- PSY 665 Family Therapy