Dr. Jonathan Santo's Adolescent Peer Relationships and Identity Lab explores the intersection between adolescent peer relations and identity development.
Research largely explores within and between individual differences in both of these as a function of the cultural context. Using data from Canada, Colombia, Brazil, and China, the goal is to disentangle classroom differences in how positive and negative peer relationships are associated with later development and their impact on identity, specifically self-esteem and self-continuity.
Current Research
The lab's current research focuses on friends’ and class characteristics as measures of context to see how different forms of aggression are tolerated over the school year among adolescents from Colombia. Also studied is how an important aspect of identity development and self-continuity serves as a buffer against the depressive effects of peer victimization among Brazilian youth.
The research examines change over time in students’ social responsibility as a function of teachers’ socio-emotional learning in over 2000 Brazilian children. To further develop this area of cultural research, an international collaborative effort to merge data collected from Montreal, Canada, Barranquilla, Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, Curitiba, Brazil and Shanghai, China has been undertaken, leading to a number of publications.
The process of further developing a study to explore contextual influences on academic achievement among children and early adolescents using data collected in over 125 schools in Curitiba, Brazil is currently underway. This is a large three-year funded project to better understand how children develop social responsibility and prosocial leadership.
Participate in lab research
The lab accepts both graduate and undergraduate students. If you are interested in conducting research, please contact Jonathan B. Santo, Ph.D. at jsanto@unomaha.edu or 402.905.7663.
For further information on Developmental Psychology, view Dr. Jonathan Santo's selected works.