Research Interests:
Dr. Gibby's research considers how sociodemographic characteristics—focusing mainly on adoption status and gender— shape family structure and family practices. One primary branch of her research focuses on adoption and its relation to societal biases and family functioning. Adoption is unique in that decision-makers assess who is a fit parent and who is a desirable child. Because of this phenomenon, it is possible to examine how societal biases bleed into family life (e.g., who does society define as suitable parents, desirable children, etc., and how does this impact the dynamics of adoptive families?). She is currently working on expanding adoption research to more fully consider birth families or first families, as well, as they are a vastly understudied group. The second branch of her research considers how gender ideology (i.e., how people think about gender) shapes family practices and experiences. Here, she examines how parents' gender ideologies relate to children's outcomes, how couples navigate gender ideologies together and how they influence one another, as well as how this relates to individual- and couple-level outcomes.