Alicia Cast’s research interests include social psychology, family, and gender. Her work focuses on issues related to self and identity in family relationships. Her work has investigated the role of status and power in understanding self-change and individuals' ability to control the definition of the situation. She will be initiating a longitudinal, rolling sample of newly married couples in Iowa in the spring of 2007. This research will focus on marital role transitions and how role-taking abilities change in the early years of marriage. Her work has been published in Social Forces, Social Psychology Quarterly, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.