Bob G. Knight, Ph.D.
Merle Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology.
Director of the Tingstad Older Adult Counseling Center.
Cultural differences in stress and coping models for distress among dementia caregivers, emotion and aging, and mental health policy and aging.

Bob G. Knight, Ph.D. is the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Professor of Psychology at the Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California. In addition to that position, he also serves as Director of the Tingstad Older Adult Counseling.

He has published extensively in mental health and aging, including Psychotherapy with older adults (Sage, 3rd ed. 2004, available in French, Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese translations), Outreach with the elderly (NYU Press, 1989), Older adults in psychotherapy: Case histories (Sage, 1992). He is the senior editor, along with Linda Teri, Paul Wohlford, and John Santos, of Mental health services for older adults: Implications for training and practice (1995), and co-edited with Steven Zarit, A guide to psychotherapy and aging: Effective clinical interventions in a life-stage context (1996), both published by APA Books. He is also the Co-editor with Sara Qualls of Psychotherapy with depression in older adults (2006), published by Wiley.

Dr. Knight has been active in various professional organizations relating to psychology and aging. He served as the President of Section II, Division 12 (Clinical Geropsychology) of the American Psychological Association in 1997; President of APA Division of Adult Development and Aging, 2003-2004; chair of the APA Committee in Aging, 2001.  In 2006, he co-chaired (with Michele Karel) the National Conference on Training Models in Clinical Geropsychology.  More recently, he helped to organize and now serves as founding Chair of the Council of Professional Geropsychology Training Programs.

Dr. Knight received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. His professional experience in working with older adults began while working at the Urban League of Madison County (IN) where he organized and served as first president of the Madison County Council on Aging in 1973.

Current research interests include cultural difference in stress and coping models used to understand family caregiving as well as age differences in the effects of emotion on cognition. Knight and his collaborators have developed and are refining a sociocultural stress and coping model for understanding physical and mental health effects of stress related to caring for a family member with dementia.  The work to date has suggested a common core model that links behavioral problems of the person with dementia to perceived burden to avoidant coping strategies to emotional distress and subjective physical health outcomes. This common model is elaborated in different ways across cultural groups studied to date, which have included African Americans, Latinos, and Korean Americans as well as cross national comparisons with caregivers in Korea and in Spain.  The work has also suggested that the group specific differences are found more in differential coping styles and in social support rather than in cultural values.  There is also some evidence for biological markers of stress showing effects of caregiving in minority groups that are not self-reporting poor health. Future aims for this line of research include further refinement of the sociocultural stress and coping model with special attention to the discrepancy between biomarkers indicators of stress and self-reported effects, the development of measures of group-specific cultural values related to caregiving, and the development of an intervention for caregivers rooted in the sociocultural stress and coping model.

Back to Faculty Page