Psychology Professor Jamila Bookwala Receives Lindback Grant, Selected for National Institute on Aging Seminar

Jamila Bookwala, assistant professor of psychology, has received a grant from the Lindback Foundation to conduct research on the links among marital quality, depression, and ethnicity in older Americans.

She also is among 15 scholars selected from a national pool of applicants to attend a prestigious Summer Research Training Institute funded by the National Institute on Aging July 20-30 at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn.

In research funded by her Lindback grant, Bookwala expects to produce valuable insights into factors associated with maintaining and enhancing emotional well being for senior citizens. She plans to present a report based on her data analyses at the American Psychological Association’s 2004 annual meeting and to publish her findings in a leading scientific journal on aging-related research.

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households conducted by the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Bookwala will compare marital relationships of African Americans and Caucasian Americans 60 years of age or older and the role of marital quality in depression across these groups.

Joseph Benoit ’04, a double major in psychology and music from Middletown, N.J., will begin working on the project with Bookwala next month. They will collaborate through Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, in which students assist faculty with research while earning a stipend. Many of the more than 160 students who participate each year go on to publish papers in scholarly journals or present their research at conferences.

Bookwala has conducted related research with several Lafayette students, including Jamie Jacobs ’03 (Margate City, N.J.), who is graduating Saturday with a degree in psychology. She coauthored an article, “Age, marital processes, and depressed affect,” that will be published in the scientific journal The Gerontologist, and presented her research with Bookwala on the link between marital relationships and depression last August at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago, Ill. (see related story).

Their findings indicate that although there are no age differences in negative marital processes such as poor conflict resolution strategies, physical confrontations, and perceived unfairness, older adults report being more happy in their marriages than younger adults. One of their most interesting findings is that negative marital processes are more strongly related to symptoms of depression in younger adults compared to their older counterparts.

“By contrast, in older adults, marital happiness (a positive marital process) plays a stronger role in emotional well being (related to fewer depressive symptoms) than it does in young adults’ emotional well being,” says Bookwala. Therefore, the research suggests that the link between marital processes and symptoms of depression may vary across the life span.

Under the supervision of Bookwala, in a separate independent study spanning two semesters, Jacobs examined the direct relationship between marital quality and physical health, as well as the indirect relationship between those two factors via mental health.

Melissa Mitchell ’03 (Merchantville N.J.), who is graduating Saturday summa cum laude with a double major in psychology and economics & business, also has worked as an EXCEL Scholar with Bookwala for two years. They presented their research on the psychology of aging last November at the Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Symposium in Boston (see related story). Specifically, they reported on three studies in which they examined marital quality and health in late adulthood, the role of marriage in memory loss prevention, and the effects of childlessness on older adults.

“I love working with Professor Bookwala,” says Mitchell, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Chi (psychology), and Omicron Delta Epsilon (economics) academic honor societies. She presented a paper as part of a symposium panel and coauthored a paper presented during another session. “She is so dedicated to her field of study, and her enthusiasm about our research is contagious. She keeps me extremely motivated.”

Inku Subedi ’04, a double major in psychology and anthropology & sociology from Kathmandu, Nepal, is conducting a comparative study with Bookwala on attitudes toward older adults in the United States and her home country (see related story). They distributed a questionnaire about aging during the spring semester to more than 100 Lafayette students.

“In Eastern culture, as people get older, they have much more decision-making power and they are looked on with much more respect,” says Subedi. “Here I definitely see a difference in the relationship between parents and children.”

The research specifically supported by the Lindback Foundation grant will include information on the well being of older African Americans and how their experiences in late adulthood may be different from those of Caucasian Americans.

“Although much attention has been given to the role of physical well being (e.g. disability) and cognitive functioning (e.g. memory loss) in depression during late adulthood, little is known about the role of marital quality in depression during old age,” says Bookwala. “Indeed, psychologists have largely ignored the nature of marital relationships during the late adulthood years, tending to focus near-exclusively instead on marital quality among newlywed young couples. However, recent trends indicate that being married in old age has a significant protective effect on health and well being.”

And recent research indicates that marital status is more critical to the health and well being of African Americans than Caucasian Americans, thus making an examination of ethnicity-based differences extremely important, she adds.

A recipient of multiple grants from both the American Psychological Association (APA) and Pennsylvania State University, Bookwala has earned awards from the APA, National Institute on Aging, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Bombay.

When pending articles in four journals are published this year, Bookwala will have shared her research in more than 20 scientific journals since 1992. She also has written or coauthored five book chapters and penned a book review published last year.

Bookwala has presented her research at 30 academic conferences, not including a scheduled presentation in August at the annual APA meeting in Toronto and papers submitted for presentation in November at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in San Diego, Calif.

She served as consulting editor for the journal Psychology and Aging from 2001-2002 and has been an ad hoc reviewer since 1995 for Health Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Clinical Psychology, Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Psychology and Aging, and The Gerontologist. Since 1997, she has been an abstract reviewer for the Gerontological Society of America’s annual meeting program.

A member of the Lafayette faculty since 2001, Bookwala previously taught at Pennsylvania State University-Abington College, Drexel University, and University of Pittsburgh. Her research positions have included National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow, Quality of Life Laboratory, Clinical Research Center, Geriatric Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, 1997-1998; project director, Advance Directives & End-of-Life Decision-Making in Older Adults, Kent State University psychology department, 1995-1996; and research assistant, Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh, 1993-1995.

Bookwala earned a Ph.D. and master’s degree in social psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995 and 1993, respectively; a master’s degree in psychology from the City University of New York in 1989; and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Bombay in 1985.

She is a member of American Psychological Association, Eastern Psychological Association, Gerontological Society of America, and Health and Aging Interest Group.