Lauren B. Alloy (born Lauren Helene Bersh; November 22, 1953) is an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

, recognized for her research on

mood disorder A mood disorder, also known as an affective disorder, is any of a group of conditions of mental and behavioral disorder where the main underlying characteristic is a disturbance in the person's mood. The classification is in the ''Diagnostic ...

s. Along with colleagues Lyn Abramson and Gerald Metalsky, she developed the hopelessness theory of depression. With Abramson, she also developed the depressive realism hypothesis. Alloy is a professor of psychology at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Biography

Alloy was born in Philadelphia in 1953. She earned her B.A. in Psychology in 1974 and her Ph.D. in experimental and clinical psychology in 1979, both from the University of Pennsylvania. Her graduate school mentors were psychologists

Martin Seligman Martin Elias Peter Seligman (; born August 12, 1942) is an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. Seligman is a strong promoter within the scientific community of his theories of well-being and positive psychology. His t ...

and Richard Solomon. Alloy was a faculty member at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

from 1979 to 1989. She has been a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at

since 1989. Her research focuses on cognitive, interpersonal, and biopsychosocial processes in the onset and maintenance of depression and

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

. She is the author of over 250 scholarly publications. In the late 1970s, Alloy and her longtime collaborator Abramson demonstrated that depressed individuals held a more accurate view than their non-depressed counterparts in a test which measured the

illusion of control The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It was named by U.S. psychologist Ellen Langer and is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory sup ...

. This finding, termed "depressive realism", held true even when the depression was manipulated experimentally.

Selected awards

* 2014 - Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Lifetime Achievement Award (jointly with Lyn Abramson) *2014 - Society for Research in Psychopathology Joseph Zubin Award *2009 -

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...

James McKeen Cattell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Applied Psychological Research (jointly with Lyn Abramson) *2003 - Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology Distinguished Scientist Award (jointly with Lyn Abramson) *2002 - American Psychological Association Master Lecturer Award in Psychopathology (jointly with Lyn Abramson) *1984 -

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...

Young Psychologist Award

Selected works

* Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (2007). Depressive realism. In R. Baumeister & K. Vohs (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Social Psychology'' (pp. 242–243). New York: Sage Publications. * Alloy, L. B., Kelly, K. A., Mineka, S., & Clements, C. M. (1990). Comorbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders: a helplessness-hopelessness perspective. * Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. ''Psychological review'', ''96''(2), 358. * Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (1988). Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. In L.B. Alloy (Ed.), ''Cognitive processes in depression''. New York: Guilford. * Alloy, L. B., & Tabachnik, N. (1984). Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: the joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. ''Psychological review'', ''91''(1), 112. * Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1979). Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser?. ''Journal of experimental psychology: General'', ''108''(4), 441.

References

External links

Temple University faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alloy, Lauren 1953 births American women psychologists Bipolar disorder researchers Living people Temple University faculty University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni American women academics 21st-century American women scientists American clinical psychologists 21st-century American psychologists James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award recipients