About the Project

We are conducting a large-scale research project with adolescents aged 11-16 years throughout Coventry, Warwickshire and Birmingham. The purpose of this study is to understand how young people between these ages interact with others, how they view themselves and others, and to understand more about their health and emotions. The project will be conducted within secondary schools and will mostly involve the completion of various questionnaires about themselves and others, or tasks using pictures in which social situations or emotions are interpreted.

By conducting such a detailed and large-scale project, we hope to gain further understanding about the effects of different peer relationships. This is important for developing interventions in the future for young people who are having difficulties with their relationships, health or emotions.

Researchers

Kirsty Lee

My name is Kirsty Lee and I am a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick. Last year I graduated from the University of York after completing a Master’s degree in Health Services Research. I obtained my undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Wolverhampton in 2007. I have spent several years working with children and adolescents, as a Research Assistant, Assistant Psychologist, and in other health and research related roles. The aim of my PhD is to investigate the causes and effects of different types of peer relationships on young people’s physical health and how they feel about themselves and their bodies.

Alexa Guy

My name is Alexa Guy and I am a PhD student at the University of Warwick. I completed my Bachelor and Masters degree in Psychology at the University of Birmingham where I gained experience of working with young people in schools. For my degree, I studied how 4 and 5 years-olds develop in the way they think about events and consequences and I have also worked as a research assistant investigating language development in 2-5 year-olds.

I want to find out how different types of peer relationships in adolescence can affect social and emotional development. In particular, I am interested how these relationships can affect how we understand social situations or behaviours of others and our understanding of emotions.

Project Supervisor

Professor Dieter Wolke

Hi, my name is Dieter Wolke. I am Professor of Developmental Psychology and Individual Differences at the University of Warwick Department of Psychology and also affiliated with Warwick Medical School, Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing. I head the Lifespan Helath and Wellbeing Research Stream in Psychology and I am the principal investigator of our study on precursors and consequences of peer bullying. My major field of research is to understand why and how some children develop psychological problems and others are protected or resilient to adverse influences. In the last 25 years I have investigated a range of risk factors for psychopathology and we are now able to look at the long lasting effects into adulthood. To investigate the impact of prenatal, perinatal (e.g. preterm birth), early childhood individual differences (e.g. regulator problems such as crying, sleeping or feeding problems), parenting and peer influences, I am leading, co-leading or work on several projects with a number of large longitudinal studies. These include the Bavarian Longitudinal Study, Understanding Society (UK Household Panel Study), EPICure, ALSPAC, Millennium Cohort and the Great Smokey Mountain Study.

Publications:

• Tippett, N. Wolke, D. (2014) 'Socioeconomic Status and Bullying: A Meta-Analysis', American Journal Of Public Health, 104 (6), e48 - e49 (0090-0036) [article]
• Johnson, S., Marlow, N., Simms, V., Wolke, D. (2014) 'Screening for childhood mental health disorders: Are two heads better than one?', Developmental Medicine And Child Neurology, 56 (5), 453 - 459 (0012-1622) [article]
• Wolke, D., Erygit-Madzwamuse, S., Gutbrod, T. (2013) 'Very preterm/very low birthweight infants' attachment: infant and maternal characteristics', Archives Of Disease In Childhood: Fetal And Neonatal Edition, online first (1359-2998) [article]
• Wolke, D. Copeland, W. E. Angold, A. Costello, E. J. (2013) 'Impact of bullying in childhood on adult health, wealth, crime and social outcomes.', Psychological Science, 24 (10), 1958 - 1970 (0956-7976) [article]
• Wolke, D., Woods, S. and Samara, M. (2009) 'Who escapes or remains a victim of bullying in primary school?', British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27 (4), 835 - 851 (0261-510X) [article]