Peer Relations Lab - Lehigh University

One week ago these amazing senior lab members crossed the stage and graduated from Lehigh University! These students transcribed hours of video-recorded friendship interactions, edited hundreds of segments of physiological data, conducted (and in many cases led) behavioral coding, and pursued innovative, independent research questions of their own. I could not be more grateful or proud of all they’ve done and accomplished. They will go on to be educators, mental health professionals, researchers, child development specialists, and health care providers. Congrats Class of 2025, we can’t wait to see what you do next!

We are have a great time at Society for Research on Child Development sharing research from our lab and connecting with our academic family! It all started with Dr. Amanda Rose at University of Missouri and there are now labs and graduate students at Lehigh University, University at Buffalo, UCONN, and Randolph Macon studying topics related to peer relations.

Our amazing first year graduate students, Gabriela Gonzalez and Mina Zare, each presented their first year projects focused on how adolescent friends navigate stressors together. Gaby’s work examined identity based stressors and how friendships might affect the impact of stress on depression. Mina presented work on how adolescents’ coping strategies affect disclosure and support during friendship interactions. Congratulations on a successful first year of research!

Halle Bernstein and Sarah McDermott presented their research today supported by Lehigh’s Grants for Experiential Learning in Health. They are both continuing their research in the Psychology Department’s Honors Program this year.

Halle’s research examines adolescents’ physiological and emotional reactivity to friendship interactions in relation to their physical health.

Sarah’s research focuses on gender differences in adolescents’ disclosure and support behaviors and how these behaviors relate to boys’ and girls’ subjective experiences during their interactions with friends.

Teens (14-17) are invited to participate in an online research study! Teens will fill out an online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes to complete and then will receive a $10 Amazon gift card.

To sign up, please fill out the google form by scanning below or email us! Teens will need a parent or guardian’s email address to sign up. After signing up, you will be contacted by a researcher with more information on the study and how to participate.

It has been a busy summer of research with amazing students! This summer we have students supported through the Mountaintop Summer Experience Program, the STEM Summer Institute, and Grants for Experiential Learning in Health.

This May, our lab celebrated our graduating seniors and all the hard work we did in the 2023-2024 academic year with an outdoor lab meeting on Lehigh’s beautiful campus. Have a great summer, everyone and congrats to our 2024 seniors!!! We will miss you!!!

The Peer Relations Lab had a great showing at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in Philly last week! Our undergraduate researchers presented research on how behaviors during friendship interactions, emotional reactions to friendship interactions, and physiological reactions to friendship interactions affect adolescents’ well-being.

Last Friday our Mountaintop Creative Inquiry students presented their research on adolescents’ experiences with social media at the Eastern Psychological Association Conference. Our studies examined friends’ conversations as a context for studying social media experiences and proposed new methods for examining adolescents’ emotional reactions to social media.

The last lab meeting of Fall Semester 2023! Our amazing undergraduate researchers help recruit participants, assist with data collection, transcribe HOURS of interactions, and edit physiological data. Several submitted their first conference presentations this semester. We are celebrating all their hard work and are ready for a well-deserved winter break!

One of our amazing lab members, Sarah McDermott, presented her independent research project at the Lehigh Summer Experience Poster Session this week. Her project examined adolescents’ depressogenic attributions within the context of their conversations with friends about problems. She was supported by a Grant for Experiential Learning in Health. We’re so proud!

The Peer Relations Lab will be at the Farewell to Summer Festival in Emmaus on Saturday, September 16th from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Come to our table to say hi, learn about our research, and sign up for our study, Teens Talking!