Dr. Robert Laird
Research Interests
My research interests center on the contexts in which children and adolescents develop social and behavioral competencies with an emphasis on parent-child and peer relationships. In addressing these issues, I take the position that family and peer relationships are multi-dimensional and bi-directional, and that findings must be interpreted within the larger developmental context.
Parent-Child Relationships & Parenting
My interest in parenting came about in graduate school when I was working on a study of the pathways through which parents transmit social skills to their preschool-age children. I chose to explore the ecological validity of the laboratory analogue that was being used in the study by assessing parents in a more natural context. My Master’s Thesis (Laird, Pettit, Mize, Brown, & Lindsey, 1994) focused on naturally occurring parent-child conversations regarding peers and peer relationships. Parents who reported having more conversations with their children about peers and peer relationships had children who were more competent in their peer group, especially if the parent-child conversations included parental advice giving or discussions of emotions.
Findings from my Master’s Thesis suggested that parents who have an ongoing dialogue with their children about the child’s friends and activities may be in a better position to identify and prevent problems. Over the past two decades I have explored this possibility in a series of papers (Keijsers & Laird, 2014; Laird, 2011; Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2003a; 2003b; Laird, Criss, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2009; 2008; Pettit, Keiley, Laird, Bates, & Dodge, 2007; Pettit & Laird, 2002; Pettit, Laird, Bates, Dodge, & Criss, 2001). The papers have focused on antecedents of monitoring (i.e., parental awareness of the child’s whereabouts and activities) and psychological control in early parent-child interactions and have tested main effects and moderation of linkages between parenting and antisocial behavior. Major findings from this line of research reinforce the conclusion that links between parenting and behavior problems are bi-directional and reciprocal. Moreover, findings emphasize that parent-child relationships during late childhood and adolescence reflect parent and child characteristics and experiences at prior ages.
Peer Relationships
Although I have become more focused on parent-child relationships over the course of my career, I remain interested in connections between parenting and peer relationships as well as in the behavioral and developmental consequences of peer relationships themselves. In my Doctoral Dissertation (Laird, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1999), I reported data that were consistent with the hypothesis that friendships with antisocial individuals more strongly predict externalizing behavior problems when adolescents describe their friendships as characterized by high levels of closeness, security, and involvement (i.e., high quality friendships) than when adolescents describe the friendships as being lower quality. I have continued to examine the roles that peer relationship experiences may play in promoting and maintaining behavior problems. For example, one study (Laird, Jordan, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 2001) employed a prospective, longitudinal approach to test whether peer rejection experiences in childhood lead to involvement with antisocial peers in adolescence, which then leads to delinquency. Generally, the data are inconsistent with that sequence of events, suggesting instead, that peer rejection and antisocial peer involvement represent different pathways to delinquency. A follow-up article (Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2005) extended the prospective analyses and tested the generalizability of these findings to different groups. Results suggest that the process is similar for boys and girls, for African-Americans and European-Americans, and for children from high and low socioeconomic status homes. A series of recent papers (Kuhn & Laird, 2013; Laird, Bridges, & Marsee, 2013; Laird, Criss, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2008; Sentse & Laird, 2010) tightly integrated my peer relationship and parenting interests. These papers suggest that selection and influence processes are attenuated when parents are consistently aware of their children’s activities, and that experiences with peers and experiences with parents appear to have both independent and interdependent links with behavioral and social adjustment.
Parenting Adolescents and Adolescents Who Allow Themselves to Be Parented
Over the past few years, much of my work on parenting and parent-adolescent relationships has shifted from outcomes of parenting to trying to better understand parent and child contributions to what is often simplistically labeled “parenting.” The impetus for this work comes from a number of studies (including some of my own: Keiley et al., 2007; Laird et al., 2003; Pettit et al., 2001) demonstrating that adolescents report fewer behavior problems when they believe their parents are aware of the adolescents’ whereabouts and activities. Although parents’ awareness was initially attributed to parents’ monitoring behaviors, empirical evidence suggests that adolescents’ willingness to provide information is likely more important in many families than is parental questioning. I have been attempting to better understand the interpersonal processes and dynamics that contribute to parents’ awareness and to the apparent protective effect of such awareness. I received funding from the National Science Foundation to conduct a three-year longitudinal study (i.e., The Baton Rouge Families and Teens Project: BRFTP) to address these issues.
One series of papers that has come out of the BRFTP has focused on the role of adolescent agency within the information management process (Keijsers & Laird, 2014; Laird & Marrero, 2010; 2011; Laird, Marrero, Melching, & Kuhn, 2013). In these papers, I considered the antecedents and consequences of different strategies adolescents use to manage the flow of information to their parents. Generally, adolescents who report frequent use of disclosing strategies are well-behaved and well adjusted, whereas adolescents who report frequent use of concealing strategies are not so well-behaved and well-adjusted. However, infrequent disclosure or frequent concealment is not as strongly associated with maladjustment when adolescents feel that parental authority is legitimate or when parents report high levels of trust. Moreover, longitudinal analyses show that infrequent disclosure antecedes behavior problems whereas frequent concealment follows behavior problems.
A related series of papers out of the BRFTP has focused on the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in adolescents’ beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority and in compliance with parents’ rules (Kuhn & Laird, 2011; Kuhn, Phan, & Laird, 2014; Laird & Marrero, 2011; Laird, Marrero, & Sentse, 2010). Previous work on legitimacy beliefs emphasized domain-based beliefs and normative change in legitimacy beliefs but devoted little attention to individual differences. In the BRFTP papers, I demonstrated that although legitimacy beliefs weaken developmentally, weaker legitimacy beliefs relative to same-age peers are anteceded by premature autonomous experiences, parental psychological control, and adolescent resistance to being controlled by others. Weak legitimacy beliefs are associated with more adolescent behavior problems and I argued that legitimacy beliefs likely reflect adolescents’ internalization of parents’ rules and expectations. Legitimacy beliefs also appear to be an important moderator of the effectiveness of parents’ socialization attempts. Parental solicitation or questioning is more effective at reducing behavior problems among adolescents reporting weak legitimacy beliefs than among adolescents reporting strong legitimacy beliefs. Solicitation is not as necessary in families where adolescents report strong legitimacy beliefs as adolescents are more likely to disclose information to parents and are also less likely to misbehave. Legitimacy believes are also strong predictors of compliance with specific rules imposed by parents as well as with parents’ rules more generally.
I am continuing to study many of these same themes in my Teen Driving Project (TDP). The TDP was funded by a grant from the W. T. Grant Foundation and focuses on parent-teen negotiations and interactions during the early stages of driving. Injuries suffered in car crashes are by far the leading cause of death during adolescence. Parenting is a neglected and understudied source of social influence on adolescent driving and public health researchers have identified parental restrictions of adolescents’ driving as a primary target for intervention. The TDP takes advantage of a naturally occurring developmental transition to study parent-child negotiations of restrictions in a context with substantial real-world implications (Laird, 2011). Data collection for the TDP was recently completed, and data analysis and dissemination will be ongoing for the next several years.
Methodological Interests and Contributions
I also have recently established a line of work focused on finding better ways to answer research questions with respect to informant discrepancies (i.e., the degree of disagreement among multiple informants). More specifically, my first paper in this area critiqued the use of difference scores and explained why common interpretations of results produced using difference scores are invalid (Laird & Weems, 2011). Subsequent papers have demonstrated and illustrated how polynomial regression models (i.e., regression models with interaction terms) can be used to test informant discrepancy hypotheses both when the informant discrepancy functions in the hypothesis as the independent variable (Laird & De Los Reyes, 2013) and when the informant discrepancy serves as the dependent variable (Laird & LaFleur, 2014). Recent collaborations have extended the work to longitudinal applications (De Los Reyes, Ohannessain, & Laird, 2016) and the reach of this critique to physiological variables where the analysis of difference scores is the norm (Meyer, Lerner, Reyes, Laird, & Hajcak, 2017).
Parent-Child Relationships & Parenting
My interest in parenting came about in graduate school when I was working on a study of the pathways through which parents transmit social skills to their preschool-age children. I chose to explore the ecological validity of the laboratory analogue that was being used in the study by assessing parents in a more natural context. My Master’s Thesis (Laird, Pettit, Mize, Brown, & Lindsey, 1994) focused on naturally occurring parent-child conversations regarding peers and peer relationships. Parents who reported having more conversations with their children about peers and peer relationships had children who were more competent in their peer group, especially if the parent-child conversations included parental advice giving or discussions of emotions.
Findings from my Master’s Thesis suggested that parents who have an ongoing dialogue with their children about the child’s friends and activities may be in a better position to identify and prevent problems. Over the past two decades I have explored this possibility in a series of papers (Keijsers & Laird, 2014; Laird, 2011; Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2003a; 2003b; Laird, Criss, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2009; 2008; Pettit, Keiley, Laird, Bates, & Dodge, 2007; Pettit & Laird, 2002; Pettit, Laird, Bates, Dodge, & Criss, 2001). The papers have focused on antecedents of monitoring (i.e., parental awareness of the child’s whereabouts and activities) and psychological control in early parent-child interactions and have tested main effects and moderation of linkages between parenting and antisocial behavior. Major findings from this line of research reinforce the conclusion that links between parenting and behavior problems are bi-directional and reciprocal. Moreover, findings emphasize that parent-child relationships during late childhood and adolescence reflect parent and child characteristics and experiences at prior ages.
Peer Relationships
Although I have become more focused on parent-child relationships over the course of my career, I remain interested in connections between parenting and peer relationships as well as in the behavioral and developmental consequences of peer relationships themselves. In my Doctoral Dissertation (Laird, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1999), I reported data that were consistent with the hypothesis that friendships with antisocial individuals more strongly predict externalizing behavior problems when adolescents describe their friendships as characterized by high levels of closeness, security, and involvement (i.e., high quality friendships) than when adolescents describe the friendships as being lower quality. I have continued to examine the roles that peer relationship experiences may play in promoting and maintaining behavior problems. For example, one study (Laird, Jordan, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 2001) employed a prospective, longitudinal approach to test whether peer rejection experiences in childhood lead to involvement with antisocial peers in adolescence, which then leads to delinquency. Generally, the data are inconsistent with that sequence of events, suggesting instead, that peer rejection and antisocial peer involvement represent different pathways to delinquency. A follow-up article (Laird, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2005) extended the prospective analyses and tested the generalizability of these findings to different groups. Results suggest that the process is similar for boys and girls, for African-Americans and European-Americans, and for children from high and low socioeconomic status homes. A series of recent papers (Kuhn & Laird, 2013; Laird, Bridges, & Marsee, 2013; Laird, Criss, Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 2008; Sentse & Laird, 2010) tightly integrated my peer relationship and parenting interests. These papers suggest that selection and influence processes are attenuated when parents are consistently aware of their children’s activities, and that experiences with peers and experiences with parents appear to have both independent and interdependent links with behavioral and social adjustment.
Parenting Adolescents and Adolescents Who Allow Themselves to Be Parented
Over the past few years, much of my work on parenting and parent-adolescent relationships has shifted from outcomes of parenting to trying to better understand parent and child contributions to what is often simplistically labeled “parenting.” The impetus for this work comes from a number of studies (including some of my own: Keiley et al., 2007; Laird et al., 2003; Pettit et al., 2001) demonstrating that adolescents report fewer behavior problems when they believe their parents are aware of the adolescents’ whereabouts and activities. Although parents’ awareness was initially attributed to parents’ monitoring behaviors, empirical evidence suggests that adolescents’ willingness to provide information is likely more important in many families than is parental questioning. I have been attempting to better understand the interpersonal processes and dynamics that contribute to parents’ awareness and to the apparent protective effect of such awareness. I received funding from the National Science Foundation to conduct a three-year longitudinal study (i.e., The Baton Rouge Families and Teens Project: BRFTP) to address these issues.
One series of papers that has come out of the BRFTP has focused on the role of adolescent agency within the information management process (Keijsers & Laird, 2014; Laird & Marrero, 2010; 2011; Laird, Marrero, Melching, & Kuhn, 2013). In these papers, I considered the antecedents and consequences of different strategies adolescents use to manage the flow of information to their parents. Generally, adolescents who report frequent use of disclosing strategies are well-behaved and well adjusted, whereas adolescents who report frequent use of concealing strategies are not so well-behaved and well-adjusted. However, infrequent disclosure or frequent concealment is not as strongly associated with maladjustment when adolescents feel that parental authority is legitimate or when parents report high levels of trust. Moreover, longitudinal analyses show that infrequent disclosure antecedes behavior problems whereas frequent concealment follows behavior problems.
A related series of papers out of the BRFTP has focused on the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in adolescents’ beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority and in compliance with parents’ rules (Kuhn & Laird, 2011; Kuhn, Phan, & Laird, 2014; Laird & Marrero, 2011; Laird, Marrero, & Sentse, 2010). Previous work on legitimacy beliefs emphasized domain-based beliefs and normative change in legitimacy beliefs but devoted little attention to individual differences. In the BRFTP papers, I demonstrated that although legitimacy beliefs weaken developmentally, weaker legitimacy beliefs relative to same-age peers are anteceded by premature autonomous experiences, parental psychological control, and adolescent resistance to being controlled by others. Weak legitimacy beliefs are associated with more adolescent behavior problems and I argued that legitimacy beliefs likely reflect adolescents’ internalization of parents’ rules and expectations. Legitimacy beliefs also appear to be an important moderator of the effectiveness of parents’ socialization attempts. Parental solicitation or questioning is more effective at reducing behavior problems among adolescents reporting weak legitimacy beliefs than among adolescents reporting strong legitimacy beliefs. Solicitation is not as necessary in families where adolescents report strong legitimacy beliefs as adolescents are more likely to disclose information to parents and are also less likely to misbehave. Legitimacy believes are also strong predictors of compliance with specific rules imposed by parents as well as with parents’ rules more generally.
I am continuing to study many of these same themes in my Teen Driving Project (TDP). The TDP was funded by a grant from the W. T. Grant Foundation and focuses on parent-teen negotiations and interactions during the early stages of driving. Injuries suffered in car crashes are by far the leading cause of death during adolescence. Parenting is a neglected and understudied source of social influence on adolescent driving and public health researchers have identified parental restrictions of adolescents’ driving as a primary target for intervention. The TDP takes advantage of a naturally occurring developmental transition to study parent-child negotiations of restrictions in a context with substantial real-world implications (Laird, 2011). Data collection for the TDP was recently completed, and data analysis and dissemination will be ongoing for the next several years.
Methodological Interests and Contributions
I also have recently established a line of work focused on finding better ways to answer research questions with respect to informant discrepancies (i.e., the degree of disagreement among multiple informants). More specifically, my first paper in this area critiqued the use of difference scores and explained why common interpretations of results produced using difference scores are invalid (Laird & Weems, 2011). Subsequent papers have demonstrated and illustrated how polynomial regression models (i.e., regression models with interaction terms) can be used to test informant discrepancy hypotheses both when the informant discrepancy functions in the hypothesis as the independent variable (Laird & De Los Reyes, 2013) and when the informant discrepancy serves as the dependent variable (Laird & LaFleur, 2014). Recent collaborations have extended the work to longitudinal applications (De Los Reyes, Ohannessain, & Laird, 2016) and the reach of this critique to physiological variables where the analysis of difference scores is the norm (Meyer, Lerner, Reyes, Laird, & Hajcak, 2017).