Faculty Bio

Christopher A. Modica

Associate Professor of Psychology

Education

  • B.A., Judson College
  • M.S., Illinois State University
  • Ph.D., Ball State University

About

Chris Modica is an Assistant Professor in the psychology department at Ohio Wesleyan University. He is currently a licensed psychologist in Ohio and Indiana and a Health Service Provider in Psychology (HSPP) in Indiana. Clinically he has experience providing outpatient psychotherapy and assessment in private practice, community mental health centers, and university student counseling centers. He also has experience in providing clinical supervision of doctoral students in individual therapy, group therapy, and testing/assessment. Academically, his subspecialty/cognate within his doctoral degree was in research methodology.

Before coming to Ohio Wesleyan University, Dr. Modica was an Assistant Professor at Wright State University within the School of Professional Psychology (Clinical Psychology Psy.D. program) where he taught classes in clinical interviewing, ethics, and statistics. He also has teaching experience at Ball State University at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Dr. Modica’s professional and clinical areas of interest broadly include:

  • Psychopathology and diagnosis (specifically anxiety disorders, OCD, MMPI-2-RF)
  • Psychotherapy
  • Eating disorders and body image
  • Professional psychology ethics
  • Statistics (specifically regression, mediation and moderation, structural equation modeling, and confirmatory factor analysis).

Dr. Modica’s primary areas of research interest are:

  • Sociocultural variables impacting body image, eating, and eating disorders
  • Social media use
  • Sexual objectification and its consequences (e.g., body image, eating concerns)

Publications

(Note, * refers to a current or past OWU student)

  • Busch, A.M., Modica, C.A., & Sheridan, E. (2023). The effect of yoga on anxiety, attention and social-emotional symptoms in preschool children: A pilot quasi-experimental study. Child Psychiatry & Human Development.DOI: 10.1007/s10578-023-01588-9
  • Modica, C.A. & DiLillo, V.G. (2023). A structural invariance analysis of the acceptance model of intuitive eating across Black, Hispanic, and White young-adult women. Body Image, 44, 157-169.
  • Modica, C.A., DiLillo, V.G., & Swami, V. (2023). Measurement invariance of the Broad Conceptualization of Beauty Scale (BCBS) across Black, Hispanic, and White women in the United States. Body Image, 44, 69-77.
  • Modica, C.A. & Murnen, S.K (2022). Are men who identify as a feminist less likely to sexually objectify women?: A cross-sectional study of heterosexual men. Journal of Sexual Aggression. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2022.2097325
  • Bigler, K.M.* & Modica, C.A. (2022). Emotionally-focused couples therapy and gay and lesbian couples: Considerations for pursuer-distancer patterns. Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling, 16(3), 300-316.
  • Modica, C.A. & Alonso, M.G.* (2021). Ethical considerations in supervising undergraduate internships across professions: Issues of competence. The Ohio Psychologist, 68,12-15.
  • Modica, C.A. (2021). Modeling the associations between internal body orientation, body appreciation, and intuitive eating among early-adult and middle-adult men and women: A multigroup structural invariance analysis. Body Image, 39,1-15.
  • Modica, C.A. (2020). The associations between Instagram use, selfie-activities, appearance-comparison, and body dissatisfaction in adult men. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 23(2), 90-99.
  • Modica, C.A. (2019). The association between body surveillance and body satisfaction moderated by self-concept clarity in adult women in the United States: A cross sectional study. Journal of Women’s Health, Issues and Care, 8, 1-6.
  • Modica, C.A. (2019). Facebook, body esteem, and body surveillance in adult women: The moderating role of self-compassion and appearance-contingent self-worth. Body Image, 29, 17-30.
  • Modica, C. A. (2018). Problems related to eating, nutrition, and body image. In J. Santos & J. Cutcliffe (Eds.), European psychiatric/mental health nursing in the 21st century: A person-centered evidence-based approach (pp. 425-439). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing Switzerland.