David Dunkley

Research Areas:

Clinical Psychology | Social & Personality

Research Summary:

Dr. Dunkley, based at the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry at the Lady Davis Institute - Jewish General Hospital, is interested in the role of cognitive-personality vulnerability factors, especially perfectionism, in psychopathology, in particular depression and eating disorders. His research examines both stress generation (e.g., daily stress, coping, increased cortisol secretion) and stress reactivity processes that might explain why personal standards and self-criticism dimensions of perfectionism are instigating and/or maintaining factors of distress symptoms in both nonclinical and clinical samples.

Selected References:

Dunkley, D. M., Ma, D., Lee, I. A., Preacher, K. J., & Zuroff, D. C. (2014). Advancing complex explanatory conceptualizations of daily negative and positive affect: Trigger and maintenance coping action patterns.  Journal of Counseling Psychology, 61, 93-109.

Dunkley, D. M., Berg, J., & Zuroff, D. C. (2012). The role of self-critical perfectionism in daily self-esteem, attachment, and affect. Journal of Personality, 80, 633-663.

Dunkley, D. M., Blankstein, K. R., & Berg, J. (2012).  Perfectionism dimensions and the five-factor model of personality. European Journal of Personality, 26, 233-244.

Dunkley, D. M., Schwartzman, D. E., Looper, K. J., Pierre, A., Sigal, J. J. & Kotowycz, M. A. (2012). Perfectionism dimensions and dependency in relation to personality vulnerability and psychosocial adjustment in patients with coronary artery disease. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 19, 211-223.

Dunkley, D. M., Masheb, R. M., & Grilo, C. M. (2010). Childhood maltreatment, depressive symptoms, and body dissatisfaction in patients with binge eating disorder: The mediating role of self-criticism. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 43, 274-281.

Dunkley, D. M., Sanislow, C. A., Grilo, C. M., & McGlashan, T. H. (2009). Self-criticism versus neuroticism in predicting depression and psychosocial impairment over four years in a clinical sample.  Comprehensive Psychiatry, 50, 335-346.