Developmental
Area Description (St. George)
The members of the developmental area share a broad interest in accounting for changes in thought, feeling, and behavior across the life span. Each explores a different facet of human development, but with a common commitment to appreciating its formative context -- material, social, and symbolic.
Alison Chasteen's research examines stereotyping and prejudice with respect to age. In particular, she focuses on how people's self-concepts regarding their future aged selves influence age-based prejudice.
David Goldstein explores developmental and individual differences in cognition, especially in atypical populations. His current projects include an examination of the role of circadian rhythms in the academic performance of children and adolescents, and comparing younger and older adults on a variety of judgment and decision-making tasks.
Joan Grusec's research examines how different strategies, styles, and beliefs about parenting impact the socialization of children. This includes assessing of the uniformity and variability of these relations across ethnocultural groups.
Charles Helwig explores the development of moral understanding, especially as it applies to judgments about social issues and institutions. He is currently involved in collaborative, cross-cultural research looking at children’s conceptions of democratic rights and freedoms.
Jennifer Tackett interested in personality structure and development in middle childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. She uses epidemiological, behavioral genetic, and clinical samples to investigate the relationship between personality and behavioral outcomes such as psychopathology.
Romin Tafarodi’s research is concerned with the cultural character of self and identity. His most recent work examines acculturative identity change as it is reflected in narrative structure, especially with regard to the integration of challenging experiences into the life story.
Research at the University of Toronto Scarborough