Cynthia Erdley
Contact
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Research Interests
Broadly speaking, my research focuses on the ways in which children’s and adolescents’ peer relationship experiences are associated with their adjustment. I have examined how various social-cognitive processes (e.g., attributions, social goals, strategy knowledge, self-efficacy
perceptions) relate to youth’s behavior, peer status, and psychosocial adjustment.
My lab has been involved in numerous studies investigating these issues. Our research has examined how peer acceptance and friendship (quality and quantity) predict to loneliness, depression, and social anxiety, and whether these associations vary by gender and developmental level. We have also investigated the role of different interpersonal processes (e.g., co-rumination, negative feedback seeking, excessive reassurance seeking) in predicting depression, non-suicidal self-injury, and suicidality in adolescents. In addition, we are exploring the relations among emotional processes (e.g., intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation), friendship quality, and depression. In other work, using a measure of social networks systematically developed in our lab, we are examining how the size and diversity of college students’ social networks predict to their socioemotional adjustment.
Areas of Expertise
Psychological Adjustment
Social Cognition
Education
M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988
B.A., Gettysburg College, 1986

