Our research studies examine how children relate to other children and understand their social world. The specific goals of our studies are:
- To examine the influence of temperament (or early personality) on children’s social, emotional and academic development
- To study the strategies children use to regulate their thoughts and feelings in social and non-social contexts
- To understand which self-regulatory strategies are most effective for children with different temperament (e.g., shy versus socially outgoing children).
The findings from our studies contribute to basic knowledge of the processes underlying typical and atypical development and are being used to better tailor prevention and intervention efforts to the specific needs of children.