Assistant Professor

Department of Psychology

North Dakota State University

Fargo, ND 58108-6050

Office: 332B Minard Hall

Phone: 701-231-5486

Email: robert.dvorak@ndsu.edu

Education:

2001 B.A., Sociology, Northern State University

2008 M.A., Psychology, University of South Dakota

2012 Clinical Internship, Brown University

2012 Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, University of South Dakota

Research Interests:

My lab focuses on health-risk behavior through the lens of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation. Most risky behavior involves strong proximal appetitive drives (e.g., cravings) coupled with weaker distal avoidant drives (e.g., goals). Understanding how these drives operate is important for the development of interventions to reduce risky/maladaptive behavior. Many of the behaviors I study are related to late adolescents and/or early adulthood (e.g., alcohol use, drug use, risky sex, impulse control, etc.). Thus, members of my lab are able to focus on health-risk research with adolescents, adults, or both. My primary areas of interest are: 1. Examining the role of cognitive, affective, and behavioral self-regulation in health-risk behavior. 2. Assessing factors associated with health-risk behavior in real-time through experience sampling methodology. 3. Developing mobile interventions to reduce risk-behavior involvement and increase adaptive goal pursuit. 4. Using advanced statistical models to better understand experiences both within- and between- persons and across time.

Representative Publications:

Dvorak, R. D., Wray, T. B., Kuvaas, N. J., & Kilwein, T. M. (in press) Mania and sexual risk: Associations with behavioral self-regulation. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Lamis, D. A. & Dvorak, R. D. (in press). Mindfulness, Nonattachment, and Suicide Rumination in College Students: The Mediating Role of Depressive Symptoms. Mindfulness.

Dvorak, R. D., Lamis, D. A., & Malone, P. S. (in press). Alcohol Use, Depressive Symptoms, and Impulsivity as Risk Factors for Suicide Proneness among College Students. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Dvorak, R. D., Pearson, M. R., & Kuvaas, N. J. (2013). The Five-factor Model of Impulsivity like Traits and Emotional Lability in Aggressive Behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 39, 222-22.

Link to my homepage