Research Interests

Her research interests have been in the areas of personality assessment, personality variables affecting critical thinking, and treatment models successful in small group therapy.  In 1993 she received the Outstanding Research Award from the American Counseling Association (specialists in group work) for the “best example of group work research published during the 1992 calendar year.”

Her recent work has centered on parent-child relationships and the developmental impact made by specified parent-child interactions on the adult development of women today. She has conducted research on the mother-daughter relationship and currently has focused her attention on the father-daughter relationship. 

Through her work, Professor Perkins has developed an inventory that identifies father-daughter interaction profiles and she has conducted research with women that showed a significant relationship between the father-parenting a woman experiences in childhood and her adult development.