Dr. Gruber's research focuses on positive emotion disturbance, or the delineating the ways in which positive emotion can go awry and towards developing an integrated clinical affective science model of positive emotion disturbance. Specific questions of interest include whether positive emotion — in particular degrees, contexts, durations, or types — be a predictor of maladaptive behavioral syndromes and relevant psychological-health outcomes. Her work examines perturbations in positive valence systems in clinical populations characterized by disturbed positive emotion (e.g., bipolar disorder and depression) as well as health community samples of adults and adolescents to delineate the normative function of emotion. Work conducted in Dr. Gruber’s laboratory utilizes a multi-modal approach across experiential (e.g., self-report, narrative), behavioral (e.g., FACS, iEAR), and neurobiological (e.g., peripheral psychophysiology, neuroendocrine, EEG, and FMRI) levels of analysis.