Lynn Fainsilber Katz

Image of Lynn Fainsilber Katz

Lynn Fainsilber Katz

Research Professor
(206) 543-5625
Advising: Not accepting new graduate students in 2025-2026.
Interests: Children's exposure to adverse life circumstances, including domestic violence and pediatric cancer; Family interaction; Psychophysiology and stress reactivity

Research

My primary research interests are in examining familial factors related to risk and resilience in children's socioemotional development. I am particularly interested in children's ability to regulate emotion in face of adverse environments and life events, and how parenting buffers children from negative developmental outcomes. I see the family as an important source of influence shaping children's ability to regulate their emotions and teaching them how to develop successful, healthy relationships with others, including peers. Consistent with a developmental psychopathology approach, the studies I have conducted have included children who are functioning normally as well as those who exhibit behavior disorders. My current research is focused in two areas: (1) development of a combined emotion coaching and parent management training parenting intervention for families of children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and low prosocial emotions; and (2) understanding child and family adjustment in families with a young child who has been newly diagnosed with cancer. In many of my studies, we collect observational, self-report and psychophysiological data from children while they interact with family members. Our studies of child with cancer will help us understand how children and families react to the stress of having a child with cancer, and whether positive parenting processes can reduce this risk. The new parenting intervention we have developed for children with ODD and low prosocial emotions targets development of empathy and prosocial responding, which we expect will function to reduce children's noncompliance and promote positive social relationships.

Education

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1990)

  • Fladeboe, K., Gurtovenko, K., Keim, M., Kawamura, J., King, K., Friedman, D., Compas., B., Breiger, D., Lengua, L., & Katz, L.F. (in press). Patterns of spillover between marital and parent-child relationships during pediatric cancer treatment. Journal of Pediatric Psychology.
  • Fladeboe, K., King, K., Kawamura, J., Gurtovenko, K., Stettler, N., Compas, B., Friedman, D., Breiger, D., & Katz, L.F. (in press). Caregiver perceptions of stress and sibling conflict during pediatric cancer treatment. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsy008
  • Katz, L.F., Fladeboe, K., King, K., Gurtovenko, K., Kawamura, J., Friedman, D., Compas, B., Breiger, D., Lengua, L., Lavi, I., & Stettler, N. (in press). Trajectories of child and parent psychological adjustment in families of children with cancer. Health Psychology.
  • Katz, L.F., Fladeboe, K., Lavi, I., King, K., Kawamura, J., Friedman, D., Compas, B., Breiger, D., Gurtovenko, K., & Stettler, N. Pediatric cancer and trajectories of marital adjustment, parent-child conflict, and sibling conflict. Health Psychology.
  • Lavi, I., Fladeboe, K., King, K., Kawamura, J., Friedman, D., Compas, B., Breiger, D., Gurtovenko, K., Lengua, L., Katz, L.F. (in press). Stress and marital adjustment in families of children with cancer. Psycho-Oncology.  
  • Katz, L.F., Stettler, N., & Gurtovenko, K. (2016). Traumatic stress symptoms in children exposed to intimate partner violence: The role of parent emotion socialization and children’s emotion regulation abilities. Social Development, 25, 47-65.
  • Shortt, J.W., Katz, L.F., Allen, N., Leve, C., Davis, B., & Sheeber, L.B. (2016). Mother and father socialization of anger and sadness in adolescents with depressive disorder. Social Development, 25, 27-46.
  • Katz, L.F. & Gurtovenko, K. (2015). Posttraumatic stress and emotion regulation in survivors of intimate partner violence. Journal of Family Psychology, 29, 528-536.
  • Katz, L.F., Heleniak, C., Kawamura, J., & Jakubiak, J. (2015). Emotion regulation, internalizing symptoms and somatic complaints in pediatric survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. PsychoOncology.
  • Katz, L.F., Shortt, J.W., Allen, N., Davis, B., Hunter, E., Leve, C., & Sheeber, L. (2014). Parental emotion socialization in clinically depressed adolescents: Accepting, dampening and enhancing positive affect. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42(2), 205-215.
  • Kawamura, J., & Katz, L.F. (2014). Maternal directiveness in childhood survivors of acute lympohoblastic leukemia. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 21, 329-336.
  • Stettler. N., & Katz, L.F., (2014). Changes in parental meta-emotion philosophy from preschool to early adolescence. Parenting: Science and Practice, 14, 162-174.
  • Katz, L.F., & Rigterink, T. (2012). Domestic violence and emotion socialization. In Dennis, T., Buss, K., & Hastings, P. (Eds.) Physiological Measures of Emotion from a Developmental Perspective: State of the Science. Monograph for the Society of Research in Child Development, 77(2), 52-60.
  • Katz, L.F., Maliken, A., & Stettler, N. (2012). Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy: A Review of Research and Theoretical Framework. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 417-422
  • Maliken, A., & Katz, L.F. (2013). Exploring the impact of parental psychopathology and emotion regulation on evidence-based parenting interventions: A transdiagnostic approach to improving treatment effectiveness. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 16, 173-186. DOI 10.1007/S10567-013-0132-4.
  • Maliken, A., & Katz, L.F. (2013). Fathers’ Emotional Awareness and Children’s Empathy and Externalizing Problems: The Role of Intimate Partner Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28, 718-734.