June Gruber is a licensed clinical psychologist whose research focuses on the
positive affectivity
Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects (sensations, emotions, sentiments); and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings.
People with high po ...
and disturbances involving positive emotion, for example, as experienced by people with
bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
.
She is an Associate Professor of
Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
and
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
at the
University of Colorado Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...
and Director of the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Laboratory (www.gruberpeplab.com).
Gruber received the
Association for Psychological Science
The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...
(APS) Rising Star Award in 2011.
and APS
Janet Taylor Spence
Janet Allison Taylor Spence (August 29, 1923 – March 16, 2015) was an American psychologist who worked in the field of the psychology of anxiety and in gender studies.
Early life
Spence was born on August 29, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio. She was ...
Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions in 2016.
Gruber is editor of the ''Oxford Handbook of Positive Emotion and Psychopathology'' and co-editor (with Judith Tedlie Moskowitz) of ''Positive Emotion: Integrating the Light Sides and Dark Sides.''
Early life and education
Gruber was raised in
Half Moon Bay, California, where she attended
Half Moon Bay High School and graduated as class co-valedictorian in 1999. She later attended the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where she completed her B.A. in Psychology with the highest distinction in scholarship and high honors in psychology (2003) and was a Haas Undergraduate Research Fellow.
Academic career
Gruber earned her M.A. (2005) and Ph.D. (2009) in
Clinical Psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...
, also at UC Berkeley, where she was an NIMH Predoctoral Fellow in Affective Science. As a student of affective and clinical science, Gruber collaborated on projects with
Ann Kring, Sheri Johnson, and
Dacher Keltner
Dacher Joseph Keltner is a Mexican-born American professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, who directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. He is also the founder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, host ...
. Her
dissertation was supervised by Allison Harvey.
Gruber was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
from 2009-2014. Whilst there she received the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Junior Faculty to support her research on the potentially negative consequences of positive emotion.
In 2014 she moved to the University of Colorado Boulder.
Research areas
Negative impacts of positive emotions: Psychopathology and bipolar disorder
Gruber conducts research on the ways different types of positive emotions impact well-being and health, and particularly on negative aspects.
Positive emotions may provide the basis for dysfunction,
and suboptimal outcomes. This area of work is sometimes known as "positive emotion disturbance".
During her graduate studies in clinical psychology Dr. Gruber gained first-hand exposure to patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and saw the potential negative consequences of heightened euphoria during mania.
Happiness
Gruber sees
happiness
Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...
as "not one single thing," but composed of "feelings, thoughts, behaviors and even the way our body responds." She believes a direct focus on achieving happiness can backfire; "people report feeling less happy the more they try to pursue it." So her advice is “Don’t focus on the pursuit of happiness; focus on other people, things you’re grateful for and doing things for others as opposed
oryourself.”
Gruber has undertaken studies suggesting that seeking happiness can have negative effects, such as failure to meet over-high expectations.
(
Iris Mauss has similarly shown that the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they’ll set up too high of standards and feel disappointed.
)
Gruber has argued that happiness may have negative effects. It may trigger a person to be more sensitive, more gullible, less successful, and more likely to undertake high risk behaviours.
Recognitions and Awards
Gruber's work has been recognized by several early-career awards including the 2011 Association for Psychological Science’s Rising Star Award and the 2016 Association for Psychological Science’s Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, the 2012 Society for Research in Psychopathology's Early Career Award, and two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards in 2014 and 2019 from the
Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds mental health
Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It like ...
.
Other activities
Gruber has taught courses on emotion, happiness, and psychopathology. Her pedagogical activities also include the forthcoming #TalkMentalIllness series, the Experts in Emotion Interview Series at Yale University, and a free online course in Human Emotion available through YouTube and iTunes U. Gruber offers a free online course in Human Emotion available through YouTube and other sources. She has given a public TEDx talk on the “dark side” of happiness. She contributes to a monthly column for young scientists on careers in
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
.
Gruber is engaged in science outreach and distribution of the science of emotions and mental health for students and the broader public.
She developed a focus on the mental health crisis sparked by the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
pandemic.
Gruber is invested in mentoring future generations of scientists and clinicians, and co-writes a monthly column for young scientists in Science Careers, is the recipient of the 2020 UROP Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, and received an IMPART grant to co-lead a workshop on advancing underrepresented women in the sciences. She has also written on the role of women in psychological research.
References
External links
Faculty HomepagePositive Emotion and Psychopathology lab at UC Boulder*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruber, June
American women psychologists
Bipolar disorder researchers
Emotion psychologists
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Colorado Boulder faculty
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American women
American clinical psychologists