Project Mentor: Professor Danming An, Psychology
Project Description:
How can we understand what makes children do well in the social world?
Integrating multiple levels and facets of data to comprehensively understand early middle-childhood (6-9 years old) children's adjustment in the social world. We seek to understand how the environmental socialization processes contribute to the development of social cognitive and socio-emotional skills during this period, and how those skills are associated with children's psychological, social, and school adjustment. Students will work on one of the following teams: 1) computer programming, and 2) behavioral data collection and coding. The computer programming team will develop computer- and/or tablet-based apps which are used to collect children’s data on behavioral tasks, as well as explore ways to efficiently collect and code eye-tracking and facial expression data during the tablet tasks. The behavioral data collection and coding team will conduct observations of parent and child behaviors in the lab and code the data into analyzable form. Students with backgrounds in computer science, the social sciences (e.g., Psychology, Sociology), and cognitive science are encouraged to apply. To meet the needs of the population in the Lehigh Valley, Spanish-speaking students are especially encouraged to apply.