Other selected news coverage:

• Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
  

• Psychology Today
  

• US News & World Report
  

• The Wall Street Journal
  

• Forbes
  

CBS News Coverage

Research

Dr. Tara's research interests broadly include understanding resilience to minor and major stressors and how positive psychological factors may help.

She has focused particularly on the role of emotions and emotional expression in physical and mental health outcomes, and her research with mentor Dr. Sarah Pressman on positive facial expression (smiling) and the cardiovascular stress response has been widely cited in the media.

Selected Publication & Presentation Titles
(View citations, list of authors, and other work HERE)

• Do positive facial expressions reduce negative physiological and psychological responses to needle injection?
  ​(2014, American Psychosomatic Society)

• Positive health: Heart rate variation with positive psychology exercises
  (2013, American Psychological Association)
  

• Grin and Bear it: The influence of manipulated facial expression on the stress response
  (2012, Psychological Science)
  

• Well-being: Physical, Psychological, Social.
  (2011, Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine)