Isaac Petersen, PhD
Cognitive Control in the Development of School Readiness in Early Childhood
The Developmental Psychopathology Lab conducts research to understand how children develop behavior problems as well as positive adjustment. We have been particularly interested in externalizing behavior problems, such as aggressive, disruptive, and noncompliant behavior. We focus on the development of individual differences in self-regulation skills and the consequences of children's self-regulation skills for their school readiness. The goal of our lab is to improve understanding of how children develop behavior problems and positive adjustment from a very early age. We place special emphasis on the early development of behavior problems before later, more severe, and more stable behavior problems develop, which may lead to improved intervention and prevention approaches.
To study the development of self-regulation and behavior problems, we follow children and families longitudinally over time and examine multiple levels of analysis, including how biological, psychological, and social-contextual processes relate to the development of behavior problems. For instance, we examine brain development (as measured by EEG/ERP), sleep, stress, parenting, temperament, and language skills in relation to the development of behavior problems.
We recruit highly motivated and conscientious students who have a good grounding in psychology, developmental science, clinical science, and/or cognitive neuroscience. Basic knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel) is desirable, but is not required. Some familiarity with basic statistics and research methods is also desirable.
Undergraduate SROP research assistants have the opportunity to participate in many research-related activities, including data collection during child lab visits, video coding of parent-child interactions, data management and processing, data analysis, writing a research report, creating a research poster, and presenting their research. SROP students will also attend regular lab meetings in which we discuss current results from the lab and recent publications. Positions in our laboratory may be particularly interesting and greatly beneficial for those who plan to enter graduate programs in clinical psychology or developmental psychology.
