Project Mentor: Professor Danming An, Psychology
2026 Impact Fellows:
Maria Reyes Fernandez '29
Nathan Webber '28
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. We use a variety of research methods (in-lab behavioral experiments and observations, questionnaires, and computer-assisted assessments and coding) to understand children’s social behaviors and the impact from their early environments.
In previous semesters, students have worked on developing the study protocol, tasks, and materials, as well as working with local families and children to collect data. In 2027, the Impact Fellow team will 1) continue the in-lab behavioral data collection with families, 2) work on behavioral coding (i.e., transcribe, categorize, and rate the videotaped parent and child behaviors so that the data can be analyzed) and data cleaning, 3) propose their own research questions that can be answered using the existing data, 4) analyze the data and present their findings at academic conferences, and 5) propose ways to engage in local communities and promote child development based on research evidence. More information about existing data can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4zutjdt5
