Research
Our research focuses on how relationships shape adolescent development in a rapidly changing digital world.
How digital interactions—from loving DMs to harmful online behaviors—shape romantic and peer relationships, identity, and well-being, including VR and AI in relationships.
Observational, physiological, and longitudinal methods to understand how romantic relationships unfold, resolve conflict, and shape life trajectories.
How parenting practices, early interventions, and family dynamics shape youth outcomes, from mental health and substance use to adult relationships.
The roles of peers, schools, and online environments in academic motivation, identity development, and well-being, with an emphasis on ethnically diverse youth.
Our Studies
Data collection in progress
Cultivating Interpersonal Connections and Education Engagement in Youth’s Lives and Online Interactions
Technology plays a major role in how adolescents connect, from heartfelt texts to late-night DMs, but how do these loving and stressful digital interactions impact teens’ mental health? In this study, we amplify youth voices by following 300 adolescents and their romantic partners over 18 months to understand when, how, and in which contexts digital interactions benefit or harm their relationships, mental health, and academic achievement. We also investigate how parents and friends can be key sources of support. Using cutting-edge measurement methods and data analysis techniques to capture real-time digital interactions, this research will provide new insights into the role of technology in teen relationships and mental health.
Data collection complete
Teens Interpersonal and Educational Success Study
Technology is transforming the way adolescents engage in friendships and romantic relationships, both online and offline, while they also navigate their identities, values, and future aspirations. Our study follows 510 adolescents over three years to investigate how their digital interactions with friends, romantic partners, and online content influence their mental health, academic success, and future relationships. As part of this research, we recently completed a four-week daily diary study in November 2024 to examine how daily exposure to digital social messaging affects adolescents’ moods and identity development.
In a world where technology is constantly evolving, this study provides valuable insights to ensure digital innovation supports adolescent mental health, academic growth, and healthy relationships.
Data collection complete
Romantic Touch Study in Virtual Reality
Despite being more connected than ever, people are lonelier than before. One reason might be that digital interactions lack physical touch, which is a fundamental evolutionary mechanism that increases survival by deepening social bonding and reducing stress. Virtual Reality (VR) is changing that. Unlike previous technologies, VR brings nonverbal cues into digital spaces, enabling new forms of touch, both real and simulated. Users can see and feel touch, interact with AI and human partners, and even experience emerging tactile technologies that replicate physical contact.
As we navigate multidimensional realities, understanding how touch evolves in virtual spaces is crucial. Our study explores social touch between 100 early adult romantic partners in a fully immersive VR environment, using Arizona State University’s unique immersive VR installation, Dreamscape Learn, uncovering how technology can bridge the physical gap and reshape relationships in the digital age.
Data collection complete, secondary data analyses phase
Project Alliance Study 1
Healthy family relationships in adolescence can shape romantic relationships decades later. This is a randomized intervention study of the Family Check-Up, a brief, strengths-based intervention designed to improve parenting and family management and to reduce children’s problem behaviors and substance abuse. The study followed 999 adolescents and their families from diverse middle schools in the northwest U.S. for more than two decades. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control or intervention group, with over 80% remaining in the study through its various stages. At the last measurement wave, the original teens are now young adults in romantic relationships, and participants and their partners are assessed for romantic relationship dynamics to better understand when and how relationships escalate into intimate partner violence and substance use.
The study provides a rich, multimethod dataset, including peer networks, self-reports, observations of parent and peer interactions during adolescence, romantic partner dynamics in adulthood, clinical diagnoses, and genetics.
Data collection complete, secondary data analyses phase
Technology and Relationships Study
The TAR study launched in April 2020 at the start of the pandemic. It explores how technology, social media, and the COVID-19 crisis affect romantic relationship quality and mental health among young adults, tracking how college students’ relationships evolved during the pandemic with daily diaries that capture real-time experiences. A total of 290 couples participated, with 91 moving on to a second phase involving a 21-day daily diary study.
Data collection complete, secondary data analyses phase
Adolescents, Schools, Peers, and Interpersonal Relationships
The ASPIRE study aimed to identify the affective and neurocognitive characteristics of adolescent social relationships that impact academic success and wellbeing. We assessed the impact of family, peer, and romantic relationships on academic engagement. Social relationships can help teens navigate the path to school and career success, but they can also pose challenges and, at times, hinder engagement in school.
We partnered with two local high schools and collected data from 99 dating adolescent couples (42% Hispanic/Latino, 42% White, and 16% African-American, Asian American, and Native American teens). Couples took part in a laboratory study at Arizona State University that included observations of conflict discussions, survey assessments, dual-acquisition EEG while playing an interactive computer game, and salivary stress physiology assessments. Participants were also tracked for 12 weeks using mobile ecological momentary assessments.
Data collection complete, secondary data analyses phase
ASU Support for Success Initiative for Students Transitioning to College
The ASSIST Study, a collaboration among REACH, ASU Educational Outreach and Student Services, and the Department of Psychology, seeks to better understand the challenges students face as they move from high school into college. Its primary goal is to learn from incoming ASU students in order to develop a web-based prevention program that promotes strategies and tools for a successful college transition.
ASSIST uses a multi-method approach, including twice-weekly diaries, questionnaires, focus groups, and academic records, to assess students and parents before, during, and after the transition to college. These data will directly inform the design of support services for parents and students to increase positive adjustment and decrease problematic behavior and drop out.