Families, Interpersonal Relationships, & Health

Stress and Teen Depression
Adolescent depression is a major health issue that affects approximately 15 to 20 percent of all U.S. adolescents at some point. In a four-year longitudinal study, Daily Experiences, Stress, and Sleep over the Transition to Adulthood, Emma Adam and her colleagues are exploring how exposure to stress affects the development of depression and anxiety in adolescents as they move from high school to college or a job. Adam uses interviews, questionnaires, and diaries to capture their transition experiences. By measuring the stress hormone cortisol and sleep quality using wristwatch-sized “actigraphs,” she is trying to trace the physiological impact of these changes. Annual clinical interviews diagnose depression and anxiety disorders.

In a recent article, Adam and her colleagues reviewed the current state of research on the role of HPA axis functioning—which can be measured through a person’s cortisol levels—to predict, and guide treatment of, adolescent depression. While the researchers find great promise for using HPA axis indicators, measures of it in clinical settings are rare, and thus it does not yet constitute an accurate clinical tool. They call for more research into HPA axis measures and formulate a model to guide researchers in including such measures in prevention studies of adolescent depression. In this and other studies, Adam shows how daily measurements of cortisol can provide insights into how everyday social environments affect physiological stress levels in children and adolescents. She points to risk factors for negative health outcomes and possible interventions for them.

Effects of Parenting Styles on Youth
Jelani Mandara, a developmental psychologist, is examining the effects of parenting styles on the academic achievement, sexual activity, and behavioral problems of African American, European American, and Latino youth. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Mandara is finding that girls and boys are parented differently by African American mothers. Girls are assigned more responsibilities and rules, for example, while boys are given more latitude. This is especially the case when the girl is the oldest child and the boy is the youngest. Mandara shows how this differential socialization might explain some of the reasons why African American males have such high rates of risky behaviors, incarceration, and school failure compared with females. He proposes interventions that teach African American parents authoritative parenting styles and how to treat boys and girls and younger and older siblings the same.

Romantic Attraction
Psychologist Eli Finkel continues his physiological study of initial romantic attraction in real-life interactions between potential romantic partners, supported by C2S seed-grant funding. Specifically, he is exploring biomarkers associated with two of three systems composing the experience of initial romantic attraction: lust and infatuation. He is also exploring individuals’ physiological stress responses to meeting and interacting with a series of potential romantic partners at speed-dating events. He and Northwestern psychologist Paul Eastwick have pointed out that such events are ideal for researchers to study romantic dynamics—and many other social dyads—because individuals are together in the same place at the same time in a situation with strong external validity. Finkel, Eastwick, and psychologist Jennifer Richeson are also working on a study of how political orientation moderates romantic desire in interracial relationships.

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