Psychology Research Works

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Author: search.filters.author.Dykas, Matthew J.

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    Tipping Points in Adolescent Adjustment: Predicting Social Functioning from Adolescents’ Conflict with Parents and Friends
    (American Psychological Association, 2012-10) Ehrlich, Katherine B.; Dykas, Matthew J.; Cassidy, Jude
    Despite widespread interest in examining the role of conflict for adolescent development, researchers only rarely have examined adolescents' experiences of conflict across relationships. The present study examined how adolescents' experiences of conflict with parents and friends were linked to their social functioning. Adolescents (n = 189) and their mothers and fathers participated in semistructured discussions about areas of parent-adolescent conflict in the laboratory. In addition, adolescents reported about conflict in their best friendships, and peers reported about adolescents' social acceptance and behavior in social settings. Parent–adolescent conflict was associated with peer-reported aggression and delinquency, and friendship conflict was associated with delinquency and prosocial behavior. In addition, significant Parent–Adolescent Conflict × Friend–Adolescent Conflict interactions revealed that parent–adolescent conflict was associated with poor social functioning only when conflict with best friends was also high. The findings suggest that consideration of conflict across relationships may yield insight into the specific contexts in which conflict is associated with negative outcomes for adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
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    Do Adolescents and Parents Reconstruct Memories About Their Conflict as a Function of Adolescent Attachment?
    (Wiley, 2010-09-14) Dykas, Matthew J.; Woodhouse, Susan S.; Ehrlich, Katherine B.; Cassidy, Jude
    This study examined whether 17-year-old adolescents (n = 189) and their parents reconstructed their memory for an adolescent–parent laboratory conflict over a 6-week period as a function of adolescent attachment organization. It also compared participants’ perceptions of conflict over time to observational ratings of the conflict to further characterize the nature of the attachment-related memory biases that emerged. Secure adolescents reconstructed interactions with each parent more favorably over time, whereas insecure adolescents showed less favorable reconstructive memory. Likewise, mothers of secure girls reconstructed conflicts more favorably over time, whereas mothers of insecure boys showed less favorable reconstructive memory. Participant ratings were associated with observational ratings in theoretically consistent ways. Contrary to expectations, fathers showed no attachment-related memory biases.
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    Reporter Discrepancies Among Parents, Adolescents, and Peers: Adolescent Attachment and Informant Depressive Symptoms as Explanatory Factors
    (Wiley, 2011-03-09) Ehrlich, Katherine B.; Cassidy, Jude; Dykas, Matthew J.
    The issue of informant discrepancies about child and adolescent functioning is an important concern for clinicians, developmental psychologists, and others who must consider ways of handling discrepant reports of information, but reasons for discrepancies in reports have been poorly understood. Adolescent attachment and informant depressive symptoms were examined as 2 explanations for absolute and directional discrepancies about adolescent symptoms, relationships, and social behavior in a sample of 189 eleventh-grade students (mean age = 16.5 years). Adolescent attachment predicted absolute discrepancies, with greater attachment coherence associated with fewer discrepancies in reports of adolescent depressive symptoms, parent–adolescent conflict, and adolescent externalizing behavior. Parents’ but not adolescents’ depressive symptoms sometimes predicted absolute discrepancies. Mothers’ depressive symptoms and adolescent attachment predicted the direction of discrepancies for mother–peer reports only.
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    The development of negative reactivity in irritable newborns as a function of attachment
    (Elsevier, 2013-02) Sherman, Laura J.; Stupica, Brandi; Dykas, Matthew J.; Ramos-Marcuse, Fatima; Cassidy, Jude
    This longitudinal study builds on existing research exploring the developmental course of infants’ negative reactivity to frustration in a sample of 84 irritable infants. We investigated whether infants’ negative reactivity to frustration differed during the first year as a function of infant attachment classification. Various elements of the designs of previous studies investigating negative reactivity and attachment preclude the strong conclusion that negative reactivity develops differently as a function of attachment. Thus, we utilized the same observational assessment of infant negative reactivity, conducted without parental involvement, at 5 and 12 months. One proposition, based in attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, Cassidy, 1994), is that relative to secure infants, insecure-avoidant infants come to minimize their negative emotional reactions, whereas insecure-ambivalent infants come to maximize their negative emotional reactions. As expected, we found that at 5 months, attachment groups did not differ in reactivity, but at 12 months, insecure-avoidant infants were the least reactive, followed by secure infants, and insecure-ambivalent infants were the most reactive. Results are discussed in terms of conceptualizing the development of emotion regulation and their implications for future