How do the life stories of young people exposed to adversity (e.g., young refugees) differ from those of others? To understand the effects of adversity on specific features of young refugee’s narratives, we need to disentangle the effects of cultural uprooting and refugee experience from normative developmental effects. We will, therefore, (1) examine if young refugees show different features in the way they tell their stories in comparison to third-culture-kids, and a community sample; (2) test narrative features as drivers of well-being; and (3) identify differential effects of the writing exercises for young individuals from refugee, third-culture, and community backgrounds.

• prof. dr. Sander Thomaes
• dr. Liselotte den Boer
• Sasha Gukovskaia
• dr. Hend Eltanamly

10YUP: Waar sta jij over 10 jaar? | Universiteit Utrecht

• dr. Laura Weiss
• dr. Jan Fekke IJbema
• dr. Floor Kroese
• dr. Jeroen Benjamins
• prof. dr. Denise de Ridder
• dr. Marleen Gillebaart

Major negative life events such as unemployment and widowhood are associated with increased psychopathology and loneliness and reduced self-esteem. However, our measurement designs and statistical methods to detect and describe complex changes are still crude. Furthermore, it is unclear (1) what drives these developmental trajectories, (2) what factors predict heterogeneous developmental trajectories, and (3) how these developmental trajectories generalize across cultures, especially to non-Western ones. The proposed research aims to unravel the effects of negative life events on psychological functioning by improved description, explanation, and generalization. 

• Thao Kieu
• Lisa Levelt
• dr. Nikki Lee
• dr. Liselotte den Boer