I like you just the way you are: The role of parents, teachers, and peers for early adolescents’ psychosocial development

All human beings share the need to belong and having this need met is essential for adaptive development. For early adolescents, relationships with parents, teachers, and peers are key to fulfill this need. It is crucial, however, to gain a greater understanding of different aspects of these relationships. More specifically, the first objective of this project is to examine the unique and joint effects of different social relationships on youth development (i.e., self-esteem and internalizing problems). Our second objective is to focus on the effects of a key component of these relationships: (un)conditional regard. Pushing this research forward, we seek to find out the developmental importance of (un)conditional regard by peers. The third objective is to examine how social relationships affect each other, both in the home and the school context. The final objective is to examine which profile of social relationships is most adaptive for youth development. We will address these objectives by combining longitudinal and experimental studies regarding social relationships in early adolescence.

Keywords:Parent-child relationships, Teacher-child relationships, Peer relationships, Psychosocial development, Early adolescence

Disciplines:Social and emotional development, Educational and school psychology