Broadly speaking, my research focuses on the ways in which children’s and
adolescents’ peer relationship experiences are associated with their adjustment. For many
years, I have also examined how particular social-cognitive processes, including
attributions, social goals, strategy knowledge, and self-efficacy perceptions, are
related to behavior, peer status, and psychosocial adjustment. 

My lab is involved in a variety of studies investigating these issues. For example, we
are examining how peer acceptance and friendship (quality and quantity) predict to
loneliness, depression, and social anxiety, and whether these associations vary by gender
and developmental level. Other work is investigating relations among children’s
attributions and goals in response to overt versus relational conflicts with friends,
behavior style, friendship quality, social anxiety, and depression. We are also studying
the role of certain peer processes (e.g., negative feedback seeking, susceptibility to
peer pressure) in predicting depression in young adolescents. In other work with
adolescents, we are examining the strategies youth might use when a peer who has been
victimized comes to them for support and how effective these strategies might be in
promoting more positive adjustment. Finally, our lab is beginning to examine the ways in
which electronic forms of communication might impact social functioning and individual
adjustment.

Articles

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Peer Acceptance and Friendship as Predictors of Early Adolescents’ Adjustment Across the Middle School Transition (with Julie Newman Kingery and Katherine C. Marshall), Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (2011)

This study examines several aspects of adolescents’ pretransition peer relationships as predictors of their adjustment...

 

PDF

Peer Acceptance and Friendship as Predictors of Early Adolescents' Adjustment Across the Middle School Transition (with Julie Newman Kingery and Katherine C. Marshall), Merrill-Palmer Quarterly-Journal of Developmental Psychology (2011)

This study examines several aspects of adolescents' pretransition peer relationships as predictors of their adjustment...