Broadly speaking, my interests reside in two general lines of research: (1) the process, outcome, and training in individual and group psychotherapy, and (2) the career development as well as mental health of college students or early career employees. In the first line of research, I focus on investigating important clinical constructs in therapy process (e.g., group cohesion, therapist metacommunication, therapist-client dynamics, etc.) or therapist training (e.g., therapist knowledge structure, etc.). I am particularly interested in exploring therapist-related factors in psychotherapy process-outcome research that can have important implications for effective therapy training and practice. In the second line of research, my interests include investigating individuals’ career development in both U.S. and Chinese cultural contexts, including (a) important predictors of career outcomes, such as social comparison, personality traits, familial environments, and systemic factors of race- and gender-related barriers, and (b) the development, revision, and validation of commonly used career measures. In addition, I am also interested in college students’ mental health and what predicts a more successful and healthy college life, such as social media use, perceived stress, coping, parental support, etc.
