Ronald Holden

B.Sc., University of Toronto, 1976
M.A., University of Western Ontario, 1978
Ph.D., University of Western Ontario, 1982

Research Interests

My research has three primary interests: (a) suicide; (b) strategies for constructing inventories of personality and psychopathology; and (c) methods for detecting faking on self-report inventories. Research on suicide concerns clinical and non-clinical populations and examines the roles of psychache, hopelessness, and motivations in predicting suicide ideation, attempts, and completions. In test construction, my focus is on evaluating the best methods for writing individual test items. Applications include research, clinical, counseling, employment, and forensic contexts. Investigations of faking examine the formulation of models of responding and the search for anomalies that indicate discrepancies (i.e., lies). Research deals with student, psychiatric patient, inmate, and job applicant populations.

Selected Publications

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., & Lambert, C. E. (in press). Avoidance of psychological pain and suicidal ideation in community samples: Replication across two countries and two languages. Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., Spínola, J., Marques, D., & Santos, S. (in press). Exposure to suicide in the family: Suicidal ideation and thwarted interpersonal needs in individuals who have lost a family member by suicide. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

Holden, R. R., & Fekken, G. C. (in press). Depressive disorders and suicidality. In M. Sellbom & J. Suhr (Eds.). Cambridge handbook of clinical assessment and diagnosis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book, A., Visser, B. A., Volk, A., Holden, R. R., & D’Agata, M. T. (2019). Ice and fire: Two paths to provoked aggression. Personality and Individual Differences, 138, 247-251.

Bouchard, K. N., Stewart, J. G., Boyer, S. C., Holden, R. R., & Pukall, C. F. (2019). Sexuality and personality correlates of willingness to participate in sex research. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. doi:10.3138/cjhs.2018-0028

Campos, R. C., & Holden, R. R. (2019). Portuguese version of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised: Validation data and the establishment of a cut-score for screening purposes. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 35, 190-195.

Campos, R. C., Simões, A., Costa, S., Sofia Pio, A. S., & Holden, R. R. (2019). Psychological pain and suicidal ideation in undergraduates: The role of pain avoidance. Death Studies. doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2018.1554610

Dave, H. P., Keefer, K., Snetsinger, S., Holden, R. R., & Parker, J. D. A. (2019). Predicting the pursuit of post-secondary education: Role of trait emotional intelligence in a longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:1182. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01182

Holden, R. R. (2019). Holden, Ronald R. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. New York: Springer. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2319-1

Holden, R. R., Marjanovic, Z., & Troister, T. (2019). Indiscriminate responding can increase effect sizes for clinical phenomena in non-clinical populations: A cautionary note. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 37, 464-472. doi: 10.1177/0734282918758809g

Marjanovic, Z., & Holden, R. R. (2019). Differentiating conscientious from indiscriminate responders in existing NEO-Five Factor Inventory-3 data. Journal of Research in Personality, 81, 127-137.0.

Schermer, J. A., & Holden, R. R. (2019). Personality facet loadings onto the general factor of personality change when social desirability responding is considered. Personality and Individual Differences, 147, 200-203.

Schermer, J. A., Holden, R. R., & Krammer, G. (2019). The general factor of personality is very robust under faking conditions. Personality and Individual Differences, 138, 63-68.

Breton, S., van Vlymen, J., Xia, S., Holden, R. R., Phelan, R., Sagan, S. M., & Jaeger, M. (2018). A survey of medication preparation and administration practices among members of the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. doi.org/10.1007/s12630-018-1164-5

Campos, R. C., & Holden, R. R. (2018). Past depressive experiences do relate to suicidal ideation even when controlling for current depressive symptoms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 240, 212-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2018.07.068

Campos, R. C., Holden,. R. R., Beleizão, C., Caçador, B., & Fragata, A. S. (2018). Self-criticism, neediness, and distress in the prediction of suicide ideation: Results from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The Journal of Psychology, 152, 237-255.

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., Caçador, B., Fragata, A. S., & Beleizão, C. (2018). Self-criticism, intensity of perceived negative life events, and distress: Results from a two-wave study. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 145-149.

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., & Gomes, M. (2018). Assessing psychache as a suicide risk variable: Data with the Portuguese version of the Psychache Scale. Death Studies. doi: 10.1080/07481187.2018.1493002

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., & Santos, S. (2018). Exposure to suicide in the family: Suicide risk and psychache in individuals who have lost a family member by suicide. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74, 407-417.

D’Agata, M. T., & Holden, R. R. (2018). Self-concealment and perfectionistic self-presentation in the concealment of psychache and suicide ideation. Personality and Individual Differences, 125, 56-61.

Holden, R. R., Lambert, C. E., Bianchini, G., Wong, R. E., Towheed, S., Yeung, C., & Fekken, G. C. (2018). Response surface modeling of how love mitigates the association between a need to belong and suicidality. Personality and Individual Differences, 134, 210-213.

Montemarano, V., Troister, T., Lambert, C. E., & Holden, R. R. (2018). A four-year longitudinal study examining psychache and suicide ideation in elevated-risk undergraduates: A test of Shneidman’s model of suicidal behavior. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74, 1820-1832.

Campos, R. C., Gomes, M., Holden, R. R., Piteira, M., & Rainha, A. (2017). Does psychache mediate the relationship between general distress and suicide ideation in the general population? Death Studies, 41, 241-245.

Campos, R. C., Holden, R. R., Costa, F., Oliveira, A. R., Abreu, M., & Fresca, N. (2017). The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between coping and suicide risk in a Portuguese community sample of adults. Journal of Mental Health, 26, 66-73.

Dargie, E., Holden, R. R., Pukall, C. F. (2017). The Vulvar Pain Assessment Questionnaire: Factor structure, preliminary norms, internal consistency, & test-retest reliability. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 14, 1585-1596.

Ducasse, D., Holden, R. R., Boyer, L., Artero, S., Calati, R., Guillaume, S., Courtet, P., & Olie, E. (2017). Psychological pain in suicidality: A meta-analysis. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.16r10732

Gilron, I., Tu, D., Holden, R. R., Jackson, A. C., Ghasemlou, N., Duggan, S., Vandenkerkhof, E., & Milev, R. (2017). PAin Improvement with Novel Combination Analgesic REgimens: The PAIN-CARE trial. JMIR Research Protocols, 6(6), e111  doi:10.2196/resprot.7493

Gilron, I., Tu, D., Holden, R. R., Towheed, T., Vandenkerkhof, E., & Milev, R. (2017). Combination Analgesic Development for Enhanced Clinical Efficacy (CADENCE Trial): Study protocol for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial of an alpha-lipoic acid-pregabalin combination for the treatment of fibromyalgia pain. JMIR Research Protocols, 6(8), e154.

Gilron, I., Tu, D., Holden, R. R., Towheed, T., Ziegler, D., Wang; L., Milev, R. & Gray, C. (2017) Innovations in the Management of Musculoskeletal Pain with Alpha-Lipoic Acid (IMPALA Trial): Study protocol for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial of alpha-lipoic acid for the treatment of fibromyalgia pain. JMIR Research Protocols, 6(3), e41 doi:10.2196/resprot.7198

He, D., Grant, B., Holden, R. R., & Gilron, I. (2017). Assessing “spontaneous, or rest” pain versus “evoked, or movement-related” pain in chronic neuropathic conditions: A prospective observational pilot study. PAIN Reports, e587. DOI: 10.1097/PR9.0000000000000587

Holden, R. R., & Fekken, G. C. (2017). The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. New York: Springer. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_3-1

Holden, R. R., & Fekken, G. C. (2017). The Basic Personality Inventory. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. New York: Springer. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_4-1

Holden, R. R., Lambert, C. E., D’Agata, M. T., & Book, A. S. (2017). Response patterns for the identification of fakers: Detecting drifting dissimulators. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 195-199.