Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

Degree: Clinical Psychology, University of Missouri

Research Interests/Specialties:  Psychology of Religion & Spirituality; Psychology of Music; Addictive Behaviors

Joined ISU: August, 1993

Dr. Johnson interests include music, religion, history, philosophy, and making the world a better place.  The specific approach he takes to these areas is of course influenced by the fact that he is a psychologist by training.  Dr. Johnson got his BA in Psychology from Indiana University in Bloomington, and his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri in 1993.  He also studied music at Indiana University, the University of Wisconsin, and Indiana State University.  He did his clinical psychology internship at the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis, and has worked as a clinician in community mental health and correctional settings.

Most of his research at ISU has focused on social and motivational influences on substance use in college students, including the role of drinking games in socializing students into heavy drinking and the role of religiousness and spirituality as protective factors against the development of  alcohol use and problems.  The work on student drinking led him into work on religious and spiritual development in college students, including some studies that focus on religious or spiritual struggles, as well as getting involved with issues of measurement of aspect of religiousness and spirituality.  Dr. Johnson is also involved with collaborations with other researchers at ISU and elsewhere on a variety of topics, including health effects of Tai Chi, effects of exposure to violent media on serious criminal violence, religious coping and struggle in survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and the interaction of religion with race and racial identity as related to alcohol use and other behaviors.

At ISU, Dr. Johnson is the Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Health, Religion, and Spirituality.  He has been involved at the local and state levels in policies and programs aimed at substance abuse prevention, and has done clinical work in community mental health and correctional settings.  He has taught courses in Cognitive Therapy, Psychology of Music, History & Systems of Psychology, Personality Theories, Theories of Addictions, Research on College Student Drinking, Objective Assessment, and Introductory Psychology.  He has also had the privilege of being able to teach in ISU's summer program in London on "Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll:  Drug Cultures in the US and the UK."

Publications:

Johnson, T.J. (in press).  Addiction and the search for the sacred:  Religion, spirituality, an d the origins and treatment of substance use disorders.  In APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality.  Washington, DC:  American Psychological Association.

Drerup, M.L., Johnson, T.J., & Bindl, S. (in press).  Mediators of the relationship between religiousness/spirituality and alcohol problems in an adult community sample.  Addictive Behaviors.

Johnson, T.J., & Kristeller, J.L. (in press).  Spirituality and addiction.  In P. Miller (ED.) Encyclopedia of Addictive Behaviour.  Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

Johnson, T. J.,& Bennett, P. (2009). Faith based programs. In L. Cohen, F. L. Collins, A. M. Young, D. E. McChargue & T. R. Leffingwell (Eds.), The Pharmacology and Treatment of Substance Abuse: An Evidence based Approach. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Johnson, T. J. & Robinson, E. A. R., & (2008). Issues in measuring spirituality and religiousness in alcohol research. In M. Galanter & L. A. Kaskutis (Eds.), Recent developments in Alcoholism (Volume 18): Research on Alcoholics Anonymous and Spirituality (pp. 167 - 186). New York: Springer.

Johnson, T. J., Sheets, V. L., & Kristeller, J. (2008). Empirical Identification of Dimensions of Religiousness and Spirituality. Mental Health, Religion, & Culture, 11, 745 - 767.

Johnson, T. J., Sheets, V. L. & Kristeller, J. (2008). Identifying Mediators of the Relationship Between Religiousness/Spirituality and Alcohol Use. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 69, 160 - 170.

Johnson, T. J. (2005). Goal theories of motivation as rigorous humanism. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18, 311 - 325.

Johnson, T. J., Pfenninger, D., & Wenzel, M. (2005). Introduction to the Special Issue, Conversations on Rigorous Humanism: A tribute to Joseph Rychlak. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18, 289 - 295.

Kristeller, J., & Johnson, T. J. (2005). Cultivating Loving-Kindness: A Two-Stage Model for the Effects of Meditation on compassion, Altruism and Spirituality. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 40, 391 - 407.

Johnson, T. J., Kristeller, J., Sheets, V. L. (2004). Religiousness and Spirituality in College Students: Separate Dimensions with Unique and Common Correlates. Journal of College and Character. Volume 5, Number 8. Available on line at: www.collegevalues.org/pdfs/Johnson.pdf.

Johnson, T. J., & Cohen, E. A. (2004). College students' reasons for not drinking and not playing drinking games. Substance Use and Misuse, 39, 1139 - 1162.

Johnson, T. J., & Sheets, V. L. (2004). Measuring College Students' Motives for Playing Drinking Games. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 18, 91 - 99.

Johnson, T. J., & Stahl, C. (2004). Sexual experiences associated with drinking game participation. Journal of General Psychology, 131, 304 - 320.

Anderson, E. R., Herrmann, D., Yoder, C. Johnson, t., & Gennaro, R. (2003). Inferring the Mental Processes of Other People. Journal of Social Psychology, 143, 355 - 373.

Johnson, T.J. (2002). College students' self-reported reasons for why drinking games end. Addictive Behaviors, 27, 145 - 153.

Johnson, T. J. (2002). Folk drinking practices in the computer age: Drinking games and the internet. (In Russian). In R. M. Kulichenko (Ed.), Modern Technologies Used in Social Work and in Training Specialists at a University: Materials of International Scientific Conference (pp. 77 - 85). Tambov, Russia: TSU Press.

Johnson, T. J. (2001). Review of Introduction to Addictive Behaviors by Dennis R. Thombs and Psychological Theories of Drinking and Alcoholism by Kenneth E. Leonard and Howard T. Blaine. Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 29, 357 - 361.

Johnson, T. J., & Gennaro, R. J. (2001). Pragmatism and postmodernism: A review of Richard Rorty's Truth and Progress. [A review of the book: Truth and progress, Philosophical papers, Volume 3]. Journal of Constructive Psychology, 14, 65 - 76.

Johnson, T. J., & Cropsey, K. L. (2000). Sensation seeking and drinking game participation in heavy drinking college students. Addictive Behaviors, 25, 109 - 116.

Johnson, T. J., Pfenninger, D. T., & Klion, R. E. (2000). Constructing and deconstructing transitive diagnosis. In R. A. Neimeyer & J. D. Raskin (Eds.). Constructions of Disorder (pp. 145 - 174). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Johnson, T. J., Hamilton, S., & Sheets, V. L. (1999). College students self-reported reasons for playing drinking games. Addictive Behaviors, 24, 279 - 286.

Johnson, T. J., & DiLorenzo, T. M., (1998). Social information processing biases in depressed and nondepressed college students. Social Behavior and Personality, 13, 517 - 530.

Johnson, T. J., & Johnson, D. L. (1998). Old tune in a new key [ A review of the book: Jamming: The art and discipline of business creativity]. Praxis Review, 2:1.

Johnson, T. J., Wendel, J., & Hamilton, S. (1998). Social anxiety, alcohol expectancies, and drinking game participation. Addictive Behaviors, 23, 65 - 79.

Sarapata, M., Herrmann, D., Johnson, T., & Aycock, R., (1998). The role of head injury in cognitive functioning, emotional adjustment and criminal behavior. Brain Injury, 12, 821 - 842.

Kristeller, J. & Johnson, T. J. (1997). Women who smoke: Health effects and smoking cessation. In J. Rosenfeld (Ed.), Women's Health: A Text for Primary Providers (pp. 93 - 116). Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

Cowan, N., Day, L., Saults, S., Keller, T. A., Johnson, T., & Flores, L. (1992). The role of verbal output time in the effects of work length on immediate memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 1 -17.

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