Her doctoral advisor was Laura L. Carstensen, and her thesis title was Age-Related Positivity Effects in Information Acquisition and Decision-Making: Testing Socioemotional Selectivity Theory in the Health Domain.
[1][3] Her research focuses on how psychological factors vary with age and what these variations imply for mental and physical health.
[5] She also studies the influence of personality and emotion upon health behaviors and outcomes, a line of inquiry exemplified in a 2016 book that she co-edited with Anthony Ong, Emotion, Aging, and Health.
[6] The Association for Psychological Science recognized Löckenhoff as a Rising Star in 2011,[7] and she received the Margret M. and Paul B. Baltes Foundation Award in Behavioral and Social Gerontology from the Gerontological Society of America in 2014.
[1][8] She was elected fellow of the Gerontological Society of America in 2016[9][10] and the Association for Psychological Science in 2020.