Bruce J. Ellis
· Professor, Developmental Psychology, Health PsychologyUniversity of Utah · Psychology
Active 1990–2026
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About
Bruce J. Ellis, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah, specializing in developmental psychology and health psychology. His overarching goal is to leverage knowledge from evolutionary biology and developmental science to address core issues in developmental psychopathology, particularly in relation to child and adolescent health. His research employs life history theory to model stress-health relations over the life course and has been instrumental in developing the Biological Sensitivity to Context theory and the Adaptive Calibration Model. These frameworks focus on how biobehavioral systems respond to specific features of family environments and larger ecological contexts. Dr. Ellis's empirical work examines the impact of fathers, family relationships, and socioecological conditions on children's biological stress responses, timing of pubertal development, risky adolescent behavior and cognition, and related health outcomes. He is also interested in applying this basic research to real-world interventions based on theoretical models. His work has contributed significantly to understanding developmental adaptations to stress, with a focus on how early adversity influences development. Dr. Ellis is actively involved in mentoring students interested in studying developmental adaptations to stress and is accepting new graduate students for the 2026-2027 academic year.
Research topics
- Cognitive psychology
- Epistemology
- Psychology
- Developmental psychology
Selected publications
The Value of Dimensional Models of Early Experience: Thinking Clearly About Concepts and Categories
Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2021 · 351 citations
Senior authorCorrespondingpiece by Smith and Pollak. We respond to concerns raised by Smith and Pollak about dimensional models of early experience and highlight the value of these models for studying the developmental consequences of early-life adversity. Basic dimensions of adversity proposed in existing models include threat/harshness, deprivation, and unpredictability. These models identify core dimensions of early experience that cut across the categorical exposures that have been the focus of specificity and cumula…
Theory and measurement of environmental unpredictability
Evolution and Human Behavior · 2020-09-02 · 134 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorOver the past decade, there is increasing interest in the ways in which environmental unpredictability shapes human life history development. However, progress is hindered by two theoretical ambiguities. The first is that conceptual definitions of environmental unpredictability are not precise enough to be able to express them in statistical terms. The second is that there are different implicit hypotheses about the proximate mechanisms that detect unpredictability, which have not been explicitl…
The Hidden Talents Approach: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges
Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2020-04-29 · 111 citations
reviewOpen accessSenior authorClinical Psychology Review · 2021-02-16 · 93 citations
reviewOpen access1st authorCorrespondingDespite evidence supporting a role for oxytocin (OT) in regulating social behavior, surprisingly little is known about how this neuropeptide is calibrated during development. We systematically reviewed empirical studies in humans (k = 86 publications reporting on 66 independent samples; N = 7319) that examined associations between early-life stress and three OT system components: endogenous OT, methylation of the OT receptor gene (OXTRm), and biological and behavioral responses to intranasally a…
The Journal of Pediatrics · 2020-02-25 · 83 citations
articleOpen access
Recent grants
Frequent coauthors
- 21 shared
Gabriel L. Schlomer
University at Albany, State University of New York
- 15 shared
Danielle J. DelPriore
Pennsylvania State University
- 11 shared
Willem E. Frankenhuis
University of Amsterdam
- 10 shared
Robert A. Hiatt
University of California, San Francisco
- 9 shared
Katherine K. Nishimura
Cancer Research And Biostatistics
- 9 shared
Athena Aktipis
- 8 shared
Jay Belsky
University of California, Davis
- 7 shared
David F. Bjorklund
Florida Atlantic University
Labs
Not provided
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