About

Amy L. Dent is an Associate Professor of Teaching of Psychological Science at the School of Social Ecology, UC Irvine. She holds a Ph.D. from Duke University. Her research focuses on meta-analysis, the academic context and consequences of self-regulation, and the educational and developmental psychology of academic learning. She is involved in various research resources, hubs, centers, and initiatives within the school, contributing to the understanding of psychological science in educational settings.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Clinical psychology
• Psychiatry
• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Social Science
• Ecology
• Criminology
• Biology
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and suicide ideation, attempt, and risk among active-duty service members and veterans: A systematic review with three meta-analyses of associations and moderators

  Clinical Psychology Review · 2025-10-10 · 1 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Sleep timing, chronotype, and posttraumatic stress disorder: An individual participant data meta-analysis

  Psychiatry Research · 2023-01-18 · 9 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Sleep disturbance is a major component of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The role of circadian disruption is largely overlooked, though many PTSD studies collect proxy markers of circadian timing. This individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis examined the correlation between sleep timing / chronotype and PTSD severity among individuals diagnosed with PTSD, the standardized mean difference in sleep timing / chronotype for individuals with and without PTSD, and moderators of these relationships. A systematic search was conducted; authors provided IPD for 27 studies and aggregate data for 16 studies (3,011 participants with PTSD; 2,703 participants without PTSD). Two-step meta-analyses were conducted using a random-effects multivariate approach with robust variance estimation. Bedtime and wake time were not significantly associated with PTSD symptoms or diagnosis. Less total sleep time / time in bed was weakly associated with greater PTSD symptoms. Moderator analyses revealed that effect sizes were stronger in certain populations and when using wrist actigraphy to measure sleep timing; however, gap maps revealed few studies in moderator categories with the strongest effects. Only two studies measured chronotype, prohibiting strong conclusions. Our findings indicate that the relationship between sleep timing and PTSD is weak; however, key gaps in the literature warrant further study.

  PublisherDOI

• Trait and state affective experience among high-risk people in the schizophrenia spectrum: A meta-analytic review.

  Psychological Bulletin · 2022-09-01 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Climate Change Consensus Messages May Cause Reactance in Conservatives, But There is No Meta-Analytic Evidence That They Backfire

  Environmental Communication · 2022-08-26 · 27 citations

  article

  Recent studies suggest climate change consensus messages may cause psychological reactance for conservatives. However, it remains unknown how much this reactance impacts the effectiveness of consensus messaging. Using data from a recent meta-analysis on climate change interventions, the current paper seeks to add context to the debate over reactance. We integrated data from 20 experiments (N = 19,200 participants) that test how consensus messages (compared to a control condition) impact climate change attitudes. The effect of consensus messages on attitudes was small yet statistically significant and positive (g = 0.09), and not significantly moderated by political affiliation. Moreover, the moderating role of political affiliation was similar for consensus messages compared to other interventions for climate change attitudes. While conservatives may experience resistance to consensus messages, there is little meta-analytic evidence that consensus messages backfire.

  PublisherDOI

• Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and sympathetic nervous system responses to social evaluative stress in chronic cannabis users and non-users

  Addictive Behaviors · 2022-09-07 · 14 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Trait and State Affective Experience Among High-Risk People in the Schizophrenia Spectrum: A Meta-Analytic Review

  2022-10-31

  reviewOpen access

  Evidence suggests that individuals with schizophrenia display a trait-state disjunction in affective experience characterized by severe trait-level disturbances yet relatively intact state-level experiences, but the extent to which trait-state disjunction is found in individuals at high risk (HR) for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders is unclear. Therefore, this meta-analysis provides an integrative evaluation of HR individuals’ self-reported affective experiences across trait and state to identify which disturbances are most pronounced and for whom – a crucial objective for understanding affective vulnerability factors for schizophrenia. A literature search yielded 181 studies, totaling 995 effect sizes across 9,672 HR and 15,386 controls. Notably, a large amount of heterogeneity among effect sizes was observed. Multivariate models with robust variance estimation showed that HR (vs. control) participants had lower trait positive affect (PA) and higher trait negative affect (NA), with state-level disturbances being weaker than trait-level disturbances. Heightened NA generalized across methods used for eliciting and assessing affective experiences, whereas PA deficits were more variable and most severe for social processes. Moreover, the severity of PA and NA disturbances was greater for participants with higher levels of schizophrenia-spectrum risk. Overall, findings provide support for the trait-state disjunction in HR conditions along the schizophrenia spectrum, although the observed heterogeneity highlights the uncertainty of our findings and urges continued investigation in further explicating this heterogeneity. We outline an explanatory model for these findings and discuss important implications to facilitate future research on the role affective experience disturbances may play in the developmental pathway for schizophrenia.

  PublisherDOI

• The moderating role of gender in the association between quality of social relationships and sleep

  Journal of Behavioral Medicine · 2022-02-12 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  To determine whether the association between perceived social support or strain in close relationships and sleep outcomes varies by gender. Participants were selected from the Biomarker projects of either the MIDUS II or MIDUS Refresher study if they were in a married-or married-like relationship and shared a bed with their partner (N = 989). A subsample also participated in a seven-day sleep study (n = 282). Perceived social support and strain from partner, family, and friends were examined by self-report questionnaires. We used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, sleep daily diary, and actigraphy to measure both subjective and objective sleep. Social support and strain were both associated with sleep outcomes. Specifically, higher social support was associated with fewer daily reports of light sleep and feeling more rested in the morning, while higher social strain was associated with higher clinical sleep disturbance. For women, but not men, social support was significantly associated with lower daily sleep disturbance while perceived social strain was significantly associated with higher daily sleep disturbance, lighter sleep, feeling less rested in the morning, lower sleep efficiency, and longer sleep onset latency. Mainly among women, social support and strain are associated with an important transdiagnostic health outcome-sleep-which may have implications for a wide range of health disparities. Interpersonal stressors may increase health risks differently for women compared to men and one mechanism that may link social relationships to long-term health outcomes is sleep.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Climate change consensus messages may cause reactance in conservatives, but there is no meta-analytic evidence that they backfire

  2022-02-15 · 5 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Recent studies suggest climate change consensus messages may cause psychological reactance for conservatives. However, it remains unknown how much this reactance impacts the effectiveness of consensus messaging. Using data from a recent meta-analysis on climate change interventions, the current paper seeks to add context to the debate over reactance. We integrated data from 20 experiments (N = 19,200 participants) that test how consensus messages (compared to a control condition) impact climate change attitudes. The effect of consensus messages on attitudes was small yet statistically significant and positive (g = 0.09), and not significantly moderated by political affiliation. Moreover, the moderating role of political affiliation was similar for consensus messages compared to other interventions for climate change attitudes. While conservatives may experience resistance to consensus messages, there is little meta-analytic evidence that consensus messages backfire.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Influencing climate change attitudes in the United States: A systematic review and meta-analysis

  Journal of Environmental Psychology · 2021 · 139 citations

  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  PublisherDOI

• The 40-year debate: a meta-review on what works for juvenile offenders

  Journal of Experimental Criminology · 2021 · 62 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Psychology

  Objectives: This meta-review integrates the findings of meta-analyses and systematic reviews to explore the effect of intervention programs on recidivism for juvenile offenders. Methods: The systematic literature search gathered 48 meta-analyses and systematic reviews from 53 research reports, contributing 56 independent effect sizes for analysis. These effect sizes were statistically integrated, and five moderators of theoretical and methodological importance were tested using meta-regression. Results: < 0.001) for juvenile offenders who participate in a program compared to those who do not. However, reductions in recidivism significantly vary between the levels of criminal justice system, characteristics of juvenile offenders, types of program modalities, and methodological quality. Conclusions: Results indicate that intervention programs can be an effective approach to reducing recidivism for juvenile offenders, especially when combined with a rehabilitative program modality. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-021-09472-z.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jacob B. Rode

  Harvard University

  7 shared

• Peter H. Ditto

  University of California, Irvine

  7 shared

• Susan M. Sheridan

  University of Nebraska–Lincoln

  6 shared

• Shannon R. Holmes

  6 shared

• Michael J. Coutts

  Children's Hospital & Medical Center

  6 shared

• Amanda L. Witte

  6 shared

• Caitlin Benedict

  University of California, Irvine

  5 shared

• Ramona L. Martinez

  University of California, Riverside

  5 shared