My research focuses on the development of affective disorders in adolescents, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidality. I am especially interested in the intersection of neurobiological risk factors and social experiences, especially experiences with peers and social media, as well as parents, and how these influence day-to-day emotional experience measured using ecological momentary assessment.

Representative Publications

James, K.M., Silk, J.S. (shared first authorship), Scott, L.N., Hutchinson, E.A., Wang., S., Sequeira, S.L., Lu, C., Oppenheimer, C., & Ladouceur, C.D. (2023). Peer connectedness and social technology use during COVID-19 lockdown predict adolescent girls’ emotional health. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. Online ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-023-01040-5

McKone, K. M. &  Silk, J. S. (2022). The emotion dynamics conundrum in developmental psychopathology: Similarities, distinctions, and adaptiveness of affective variability and socioaffective flexibility. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 25(1):44-74. doi: 10.1007/s10567-022-00382-8.

Silk, J.S., Sequeira, S.L., Jones, N.P., Lee, K.H., Dahl, R.E., Forbes, E.E., Ryan, N.D., & Ladouceur, C.D. (2022). Subgenual anterior cingulate cortex reactivity to rejection vs. acceptance predicts depressive symptoms among adolescents with an anxiety history. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 24;1-16. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2021.2019048. PMCID: PMC9308833

Silk, J.S., Scott, L.N., Hutchinson, E.A., Lu, C., Sequeira, S.L., McKone, K.M.P., Do, Q.B., Ladouceur, C.D. (2021). Storm clouds and silver linings: Impacts of COVID-19 and daily emotional health in adolescent girls. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab107. PMID: 34664665

Hamilton, J.L., Do, Q.B.*, Choukas-Bradley, S., Ladouceur, C.D., & Silk, J.S. (2021). Where it hurts the most: Peer interactions on social media and in person are differentially associated with emotional reactivity and sustained affect among adolescent girls. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 49(2), 155-167. PMID: 33294963

Sequeira, S.L., Silk, J.S., Jones, N.P., Hanson, J.L., Forbes, E.E., & Ladouceur, C.D. (2021). From scanners to cell phones: Neural and real-world responses to social evaluation in adolescent girls. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab038. PMCID: PMC8259290

Silk, J.S. (2019). Context and dynamics: The new frontier for developmental research on emotion regulation. Developmental Psychology, 55(9), 2009–2014. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000768

Silk JS, Lee KH, Elliot RD, Hooley JM, Dahl RE, Barber, & Siegle GJ. “Mom--I don’t want to hear it”: Brain response to maternal praise and criticism in adolescents with major depressive disorder. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2017; 12(5): 729-738. PMCID: PMC5460041.

Silk JS, Nelson E, Dahl RE, Stroud L, Lee KH, Siegle GJ. Increased neural response to peer rejection associated with adolescent depression and pubertal development. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2014 Dec: 9(11): 1798-1807.  doi: 10.1093/scan/nst175. PMCID: PMC4221220.

Silk JS, Davis S, McMakin DL, Dahl RE, Forbes EE.  Why do anxious children become depressed teenagers?:  The role of social evaluative threat and reward processing.  Psychological Medicine. 2012 October; 42(10): 2095-2107.

Silk JS, Forbes EE, Whalen DJ, Jakubcak JL, Thompson WK, Ryan ND, Axelson DA, Birmaher B, Dahl RE.  Daily emotional dynamics in depressed youth: A Cell-phone ecological momentary assessment study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2011 Oct;110(2):241–257. PMCID: PMC3061240