Research

Our research is aimed at questions such as: how do young people develop their identity, personality and relationships with their parents and peers? Why do some young people develop problems such as aggressive and delinquent behaviour or, conversely, fearful and depressive behaviour? How can parents best handle the upbringing of their children during the teenage years? Which role do relationships with friends and romantic partners play in their development? We study both normal and problematic development, taking into account genetic and biological, psychological and social factors. We investigate how those factors jointly affect the way that young people develop. This will mostly take the form of a longitudinal study in which we follow adolescents for an extended period of time during their development.

Examples of our research

RADAR Research into the development of adolescents and young adults.
RADAR G3 Upbringing and development over multiple generations.
INTRANSITION How do young people develop during educational transitions?
Where do I belong? (in Dutch) How and where do children feel at home when growing up with divorced parents?
GRIP Research into the effectiveness of support for families with complex issues.
Young adults in times of corona This project investigates young adults’ attitudes and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The effectiveness of the Meaningful Roles (SterkWerk) intervention SterkWerk is an approach for groups 5-8 in which children are given specific roles to actively work on responsibility, ownership and prosocial behaviour.