Kathryn E. Hood, Ph.D.

1983, Temple University

Associate Professor of Human Development

S-110 Henderson
(814) 865-2657
ig4@psu.edu

Research

My research commitments are centered on understanding the development of human aggressive behavior and the social contexts that support agency instead of aggression. I have initiated an analysis of audio-taped annual interviews of some of the 695 subjects in the Carolina Longitudinal Study, together with colleague Hongling Xie. The analysis examines the social-cognitive experiences of three groups of girls, one group identified at age 10 or 14 as at-risk for aggressive behavior, their case-matched controls, and girls who in late adolescence begin to show increased aggressive behaviors. Subsequent studies will include parallel groups of boys from the Carolina Longitudinal Study. Our theoretical perspective includes an openness to developmental transformation from age 10 to age 30, a focus on social context and perceptions of threat in children as they become adolescents and young adults over time, and an interpretation of aggressive behavior as a response to threat.

My comparative research suggests that aggressive behavior is bound to context, as well as to biological and evolutionary processes. My animal colony includes mice that are selectively bred either for high aggression or low aggression, over 30 generations of selective breeding. However, when high-aggressive line males are reared in a positive social environment, they show completely normal social behaviors. My studies of the physiological aspects of aggressive behavior show that high-aggressive animals lack adequate function in the GABA system, a neurological system that inhibits anxiety. These findings may be relevant to reducing aggression among people. If aggression is responsive to social environments, then the means for reducing aggressive behavior are at hand. Reducing threat in the social environment should reduce fear-based aggressive behaviors. Sex differences in aggression also are a focus of studies with these animals. Over the life span, sex differences that are robust at puberty disappear at midlife. In general, the most fiercely aggressive animals are females with pups.

My studies of human hormones and behavior reveal that women do not show behavioral or mood changes over the menstrual cycle. However, husbands do show changes over their wife's cycle, probably because of shared beliefs about premenstrual and menstrual behavior changes in women. This finding underscores the possible influence of beliefs about biological causes of behavior, including the possibility that beliefs can create the observed relationships.

Education

Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, B.A., 1970, Philosophy
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Ph.D., 1983, Psychology

Research and Professional Experience

1970-1971: Therapist, Northwestern Mental Health Center, Philadelphia
1973-1975: Research Assistant, Behavior Therapy Unit, Department of Psychiatry, Temple University, Philadelphia
1977-1979: Instructor, Temple University, Philadelphia
1980-1983: Research Associate, Laboratory of Social Development, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1983-1984: NIH Fellow (Post-doctoral), Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1984-1989: Assistant Professor of Human Development, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University
1989-1995 : Associate Professor of Human Development, and Women's Studies
1995-Present: Faculty Member, Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Member, National Board of the T. C. Schneirla Research Fund
1995-Present: Associate Professor of Human Development, Women's Studies, and Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University

Honors

1975-1977: Temple University Fellowship
1980: NATO Fellowship to attend the Advanced Study Institute on the Biology of Aggression,Gers, France
1982-1985: NIH (NICHD) Individual fellowship to study social development in humans and nonhumans; R. B. Cairns, Sponsor
1995-1997: Fellow of the Institute for Innovative Learning, Penn State

Selected Publications

Hood, K. E. (1981). Aggression among female rats over the estrus cycle. In P. F. Brain & D.Benton (Eds.), The biology of aggression. Rockville, MD: Sitjhoff and Noordhoff.
Cairns, R. B., MacCombie, D. J., & Hood, K. E. (1983). A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: I. Behavioral outcomes. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 97, 69-89.
Cairns, R. B., & Hood, K. E. (1983). Continuity in social development: A comparative perspective on individual differences prediction. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim, Jr. (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Vol. 5. New York: Academic Press.
Hood, K. E. (1984). Aggression changes during the estrus cycle. In D. C. Blanchard, K. J. Flanelly, & R. J. Blanchard (Eds.), Biological perspectives on aggression. New York: Allan Liss.
Cairns, R. B., Hood, K. E., & Midlam, J. (1985). On fighting in mice: Is there a sensitive period for isolation effects? Animal Behaviour, 33, 166-180.
Petersen, A. C.,& Hood, K. E. (1985). Immunoreactive theory: A conceptually narrow theory reflecting androcentric bias. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 457-458.
Lerner, R. M., & Hood, K. E. (1986). Plasticity in development: Concepts and issues for intervention. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 7, 139-152.
Hood, K. E. (1986). Review of E. S. Gollin, Developmental plasticity: Behavioral andbiological aspects of variations in development. Child Development Abstracts and Bibliography, 60, 109-110.
Hood, K. E., & McHale, S. M. (1987). Sources of stability and change in early childhood. InD. Peters & S. Kontos (Eds.), Continuity and discontinuity of experience in child care: Annual advances in applied developmental psychology, (Vol.2). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Hood, K. E., Draper, P., Crockett, L. J., & Petersen, A. C. (1987). The ontogeny and phylogeny of sex differences in development: A biopsychosocial synthesis. In D. B. Carter (Ed.), Current conceptions of sex roles and sex typing: Theory and research. New York: Praeger.
Hood, K. E. (1988). Female aggression in albino ICR mice: Development, social experience, and the effects of selective breeding (Mus musculus). International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2, 27-41.
Hood, K. E. (1988). Selective breeding-selective rearing interactions and the ontogeny of aggressive behavior. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 11, 636. (commentary)
Gariepy, J.-L., Hood, K. E., & Cairns, R. B. (1988). A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: III. Behavioral mediation by heightened reactivity or immobility? Journal of Comparative Psychology, 102, 392-399.
Hood, K. E., & Cairns, R. B. (1988). A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: II. Cross-sex inheritance. Behavior Genetics, 18, 605-619.
Petersen, A. C., & Hood, K. E. (1988). The role of experience in cognitive performance and brain development. In G. Vroman, D. Burnham, & S. G. Gordon (Eds.), Genes and gender: V.Women at work: Socialization toward inequality. New York: Gordian.
Hood, K. E., & Cairns, R. B. (1989). A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: IV. Genotype-environment interaction. Aggressive Behavior, 15, 361-380.
Mansfield, P. K., Hood, K. E., & Henderson, J. (1989). Women and their husbands: Mood and arousal fluctuations across the menstrual cycle and days of the week. Psychosomatic Medicine, 51, 66-80.
Cairns, R. B., Gariepy, J.-L., & Hood, K. E. (1990). Development, microevolution, and socialbehavior. Psychological Review, 97, 49-65.
Hood, K. E. (1991). The menstrual cycle. In R. Lerner, A. Petersen, & J. Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Adolescence (pp. 642-646). New York: Garland.
Hood, K. (1991). Premenstrual syndrome. In R. Lerner, A. Petersen, & J. Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Adolescence. New York: Garland.
Hood, K. E. (1992). Female aggression in mice: Developmental, genetic, and contextual factors. In K. Bjorkquist & P. Niemela (Eds.), Of mice and women: Aspects of female aggression. Academic Press.
Hood, K. E. (1992). Contextual determinants of menstrual cycle effects in observations of social interactions. In A. J. Dan & L. L. Lewis (Eds.), Menstrual health in women's lives (pp.83-97). University of Illinois Press.
Weerts, E. M., Miller, L. G., Hood, K. E., & Miczek, K. A. (1992). Increased GABA-dependent cloride uptake in mice selectively bred for low aggressive behavior. Psychopharmacology, 108, 196-204.
Hood, K. E. (1993). An apology for sociobiology. Contemporary Psychology, 38, 705-706.
Hood, K. E. (1995). Dialectical and dynamical systems of approach and withdrawal: Is fighting a fractal form? In K. Hood, G. Greenberg, & E. Tobach (Eds.), Behavioral development: Concepts of approach-withdrawal and integrative levels. The T. C. Schneirla Conference Series, Vol. 5. New York: Garland.
Hood, K. E., Greenberg, G., & Tobach, E. (1995). Behavioral development: Concepts of approach-withdrawal and integrative levels. The T. C. Schneirla Conference Series, Vol. 5. New York: Garland.
Hood, K. E. (1995). Social psychology and sociobiology: Which is the meta-theory? Psychological Inquiry, 6, 54-56 (commentary).
Granger, D. A., Hood, K. E., Ikeda, S. C., Reed, C. L., & Block, M. L. (1996). Neonatal endotoxin exposure alters the development of social behavior and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in selectively bred mice. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 10, 249-259.
Hood, K. E. (1996). Intractable tangles of sex and gender in women's aggressive behavior. In D. M. Stoff & R. B. Cairns (Eds.), Aggression and violence: Neurobiological, biosocial, andgenetic perspectives (pp. 309-335). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Erlbaum.
Granger, D. A., Hood, K. E., Ikeda, S. C., Reed, C. L., Jones, B. C., & Block, M. L. (1997). Effects of peripheral immune activation on social behavior and adrenocortical activity in aggressive mice: Genotype-environment interactions. Aggressive Behavior, 23, 93-105.
Hood, K. E. (1998). Dynamical systems and dialectical processes in development and evolution. In G. Greenberg & M. Haraway (Eds.), Encyclopedia of comparative psychology. New York: Garland.
Shanahan, M., & Hood, K. E. (2000). Adolescents in changing social structures: Bounded agency in life course perspective. In L. J. Crockett & R. K. Silbereisen (Eds.), Negotiating adolescence in times of social change. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Granger, D. A., Hood, K. E., & Dreschel, N. (2001). Developmental effects of early immune stress on aggressive, socially reactive and inhibited behaviors. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 597-608.
Reed, C. L., Hood, K. E., Cortes, D. A., & Jones, B. J. (2001). Genetic-environmental analysis of sensitivity and acute tolerance to ethanol in mice. Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior, 69, 461-467.
Hood, K. E., Dreschel, N. A., & Granger, D. A. (2003). Maternal behavior changes after immune challenge of neonates with developmental effects on adult social behavior. Developmental Psychobiology, 42, 17-34.
Hood, K. E. (2005). Toward an integrative account of the development of aggressive behavior. In D. M. Stoff & E. J. Susman (Eds.) Developmental psychobiology of aggression (pp. 225-251) New York, NY: Cambridge University Press
Hood, K. E., Quigley, K. & Dacal, K. (In press). A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: V. Exploratory behavior. Developmental Psychobiology.
Hood, K. E. (In press) Contradiction to the power of i: Imaginary numbers and the analysis of social-behavioral cycles. Cognition and Development.