Laura M Padilla-Walker is an American developmental psychologist and academic administrator. [1] She is a professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. She was an associate dean for the BYU College of Family, Home and Social Sciences from 2017-2021 until she became the dean in July 2021. [2]
Padilla-Walker received her bachelor's degree from Central Michigan University in 1999, and both her master's (2001) and PhD. (2005) in developmental psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. [3] [4] Her thesis was " Perceived appropriateness and accurate perception of parental messages as predictors of adolescents' internalization of values and behaviors". [5]
Day RD, Padilla-Walker LM. Mother and father connectedness and involvement during early adolescence. Journal of Family Psychology. 2009 Dec;23(6):900. (Cited 278 times, according to Google Scholar. [6] )
Padilla-Walker has over 100 journal publications and has co-edited[ which? ] three volumes with Oxford University Press. [7]
In 2010, Padilla-Walker received the Camilla Eyring Kimball Professorship from 2019 to 2024
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life. This field examines change across three major dimensions, which are physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept, and identity formation.
Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and educational development from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship.
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood. Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years, but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier or end later. Puberty typically begins during preadolescence, particularly in females. Physical growth and cognitive development can extend past the teens. Age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have not agreed upon a precise definition. Some definitions start as early as 10 and end as late as 30. The World Health Organization definition officially designates an adolescent as someone between the ages of 10 and 19.
An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction. In the human context, the term adult has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a non-adult or "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. They may also be regarded as "majors". The typical age of attaining legal adulthood is 18, although definition may vary by legal rights, country, and psychological development.
In sociology, a peer group is both a social group and a primary group of people who have similar interests (homophily), age, background, or social status. The members of this group are likely to influence the person's beliefs and behaviour.
Egocentrism refers to difficulty differentiating between self and other. More specifically, it is difficulty in accurately perceiving and understanding perspectives other than one's own. Egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Although egocentric behaviors are less prominent in adulthood, the existence of some forms of egocentrism in adulthood indicates that overcoming egocentrism may be a lifelong development that never achieves completion. Adults appear to be less egocentric than children because they are faster to correct from an initially egocentric perspective than children, not because they are less likely to initially adopt an egocentric perspective.
A parenting style is a pattern of behaviors, attitudes, and approaches that a parent uses when interacting with and raising their child. The study of parenting styles is based on the idea that parents differ in their patterns of parenting and that these patterns can have a significant impact on their children's development and well-being. Parenting styles are distinct from specific parenting practices, since they represent broader patterns of practices and attitudes that create an emotional climate for the child. Parenting styles also encompass the ways in which parents respond to and make demands on their children.
James E. Marcia is a clinical and developmental psychologist. He taught at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and the State University of New York at Buffalo in Upstate New York.
Emerging adulthood, early adulthood, or post-adolescence refers to a phase of the life span between late adolescence and early adulthood, as initially proposed by Jeffrey Arnett in a 2000 article from the American Psychologist. It primarily describes people living in developed countries, but it is also experienced by young adults in wealthy urban families in the Global South. The term describes young adults who do not have children, do not live in their own homes, and/or do not have sufficient income to become fully independent. Arnett suggests emerging adulthood is the distinct period between 20 and 29 years of age where young adults become more independent and explore various life possibilities.
The BYU College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences is a college located on the Provo, Utah campus of Brigham Young University and is housed in the Spencer W. Kimball Tower and Joseph F. Smith Building. The BYU College of Family Living was organized on June 28, 1951, while the BYU College of Social Sciences was organized in 1970. These two colleges merged to form the current college in 1981. The first dean of the college was Martin B. Hickman. The college includes nine major departments: Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Psychology, The School of Family Life, Social Work, and Sociology. There are 21 different majors and 21 different minors that students can choose from, including 9 majors that have a correlating minor.
Siblings play a unique role in one another's lives that simulates the companionship of parents as well as the influence and assistance of friends. Because siblings often grow up in the same household, they have a large amount of exposure to one another, like other members of the immediate family. However, though a sibling relationship can have both hierarchical and reciprocal elements, this relationship tends to be more egalitarian and symmetrical than with family members of other generations. Furthermore, sibling relationships often reflect the overall condition of cohesiveness within a family.
Social competence consists of social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral skills needed for successful social adaptation. Social competence also reflects having the ability to take another's perspective concerning a situation, learn from past experiences, and apply that learning to the changes in social interactions.
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. The theory states that morality develops across the lifespan in a variety of ways. Morality is influenced by an individual's experiences, behavior, and when they are faced with moral issues through different periods of physical and cognitive development. Morality concerns an individual's reforming sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a synonym for "rightness" or "goodness." It also refers to a specific code of conduct that is derived from one's culture, religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts.
Religious identity is a specific type of identity formation. Particularly, it is the sense of group membership to a religion and the importance of this group membership as it pertains to one's self-concept. Religious identity is not necessarily the same as religiousness or religiosity. Although these three terms share a commonality, religiousness and religiosity refer to both the value of religious group membership as well as participation in religious events. Religious identity, on the other hand, refers specifically to religious group membership regardless of religious activity or participation.
The media and American adolescent sexuality relates to the effect the media has on the sexuality of American adolescents and the portrayal thereof.
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Massachusetts. His main research interest is in "emerging adulthood", a term he coined, which refers to the distinct phase between adolescence and young adulthood, occurring from the ages of 18 to 25.
Tina Malti is a Canadian-German child psychologist of Palestinian descent. She currently holds an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Early Child Development and Health as the first child psychologist and female psychologist in the award's history. She directs the Alexander von Humboldt Research Group for Child Development as research chair at Leipzig University. She is also a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and founding director of the Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy at the University of Toronto.
Deborah M. Capaldi is a developmental psychologist known for her research on at-risk male youth and the intergenerational transmission of substance use, antisocial behavior, intimate partner violence, and child abuse. She is a senior scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Her current projects focus on child exposure to family violence and parenting practices of at-risk parents.
Nancy E. Hill is an American developmental psychologist. She is the Charles Bigelow Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Hill is an expert on the impact of parental involvement in adolescent development, cultural influences on minority youth development, and academic discourse socialization, defined as parents' academic beliefs, expectations, and behaviors that foster their children's academic and career goals.
Jeylan T. Mortimer is an American sociologist. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, where she founded the Life Course Center and served as its Director from 1986 to 2006.