John Knutson, Ph.D.

Affiliated Scientist
Oregon Social Learning Center

Dr. John F. Knutson is a consultant on Pathways Home: Reducing Risk in the Child Welfare System and a collaborator with other OSLC scientists on projects related to physical abuse and neglect. Dr. Knutson is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, The University of Iowa. Dr. Knutson received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Washington State University. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Medical Psychology at The University of Oregon Medical School, he joined the faculty at Iowa, where he was a recipient of the Regents’ Award for Faculty Excellence in 1999. He has served two tours of duty as Director of Clinical Training at Iowa, and he directed the Department’s training clinic for ten years. He has held editorial positions on Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, and Aggressive Behavior, and he is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.

He recently ended his third term as Treasurer of the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) and was elected the Executive Secretary of ISRA. Dr. Knutson’s early research career focused on basic processes underlying the development of aggression, with his research on child maltreatment commencing in the late 1970s. He has also devoted considerable effort to research on psychological factors, including family relations, in the outcome of cochlear implants with deafened populations.

Dr. Knutson has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters on aggression, physical child abuse, neglect, the association between abuse and disabilities, cochlear implants, and methodology pertaining to the assessment of child maltreatment. He has a particular interest in the use of analog measures to assess parenting and discipline. Recently Dr. Knutson served on two Federal committees focused on research definitions of child maltreatment and he was a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the Fourth National Incidence Study (NIS-4) of the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect. His current active research support is examining the role of supervisory and care neglect, harsh punitive discipline, and exposure to domestic violence in the development of young children’s aggression and social adjustment.