Background

Alexander T. Vazsonyi, Ph.D.
Professor of Family Sciences, Professor of Psychology, Professor of Sociology

My cross-cultural and intracultural comparative work focuses on the etiological factors (e.g., individual differences, parenting, family processes) and developmental course of adolescent problem behaviors (deviance, cyberbullying, violence, and health or health compromising behaviors) as well as indicators of psychosocial adjustment and well-being (academic achievement, internalizing behaviors). Using a multidisciplinary lens, it examines these questions in large, representative population-based samples of "typically developing" youth and adolescents. This includes a particular consideration of contextual processes know to impact development, ranging from more proximal contexts (neighborhood, school) to distal ones (culture or nation). This inherently comparative work also focuses on different ethnic or racial groups as well as immigrant groups in the United States (African American, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic, and White youth) as well as Roma youth versus non-Roma youth for instance, in the Czech Republic.