Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA. His is the Founding Director of Creating Common Ground, a non-profit devoted to teaching people how to bridge divides on contentious social and political issues. He received his Ph.D from... Hmm.... Do you really care? Should you really care? We bloggers tend to put our credentials here as a way of saying, "I'm an expert! Listen to me!" Well, of course I want you to read my work. But should you listen to me? Why? Because of my credentials? My experience? My expertise? No. None of these are good reasons. The only good reason to use anything that comes from reading something is because you find it useful in some way. The ideas should stand on their own. Either they are useful to you or they're not. If they are, please use them. If not, let's enter into a dialogue to find out why.If you really need to make sure that I'm not just some joker writing a blog, here are my credentials: PhD from the University at Albany, post-doctoral work at Harvard University. I've written and/or edited six books, including From Conflict to Collaboration: A Step-by-Step Guide to Solving Problems in Everyday Relationships (Absolute Author); Handbook of Integrative Psychological Science (Routledge/Taylor & Francis); 8 Key to Old School Parenting for Modern Day Families (2015, Norton); Psychotherapy as a Developmental Process (with M. Basseches, 2010, Routledge/Taylor & Francis); Culture and Developing Selves (2004, edited with J. Li, Jossey-Bass) and What Develops in Emotional Development? (edited with S. Griffin, 1998). I've written over 100 scholarly articles, book chapters and papers for both scholarly audiences and for the general public. I am founding editor of Pedagogy and the Human Sciences. I am also a parenting and relationship coach.Read more about this authorRead less about this author