What I'm Up To

Dearest Blogosphere,

When my sister came to visit me earlier this month, she asked me what exactly I was doing. I realized that I haven't told many people what I'm up to! So here goes.

My primary age of interest is adolescence. Adolescence is a really, really cool time to study everything from social changes (becoming friends and more with "the other sex") to brain development. I am mainly interested in relationships during this time period, parent-child, peer friendships, and romantic relationships. Of course, these are all hugely affected by biological and cognitive changes during puberty and beyond, so I try to be cognizant of all the different factors affecting the adolescents (it's a dynamic system!).

This quarter I am learning as much as I can about romantic relationships during adolescence. I am also hoping to begin... maybe even complete... the lit review for my thesis.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done before I can feel comfortable using the data I want to use to ask my research questions:

1. Do adolescents who perceive themselves as victims or aggressors of peer victimization perceive their romantic relationships as having different (very hostile, somewhat hostile, or warm) characteristics than those who do not perceive themselves to be victims or aggressors?
2. If so, how are their perceptions different? Are their relationships perceived as more or less hostile than their peers?
3. If not, why are they similar?

But before I can ask these questions I need to make sure that the measures, which have been validated only with White, middle-class samples, are valid in an economically and ethnically diverse sample. In fact, the data that I'll be using come from a very diverse sample with European Americans being the minority. This adds a whole statistical element that I am very, very excited to work on!

This quarter I am taking a research methods course, which I LOVE!!, independent research hours with my possible thesis advisor, and I am doing an internship as a TA. I get to guest lecture and write an exam.

So that is what I am up to!

-n@