PHD position Tilburg University

Depression, substance use, and minor delinquency steeply increase during adolescence. Parents are in a unique position to counter these adaptation problems, but each family is different. Tailoring advice to the family-specific needs and strengths may help parents in their important task of promoting adolescent behavioral and emotional well-being. Unfortunately, theoretical knowledge of how parenting processes operate at the level of individual families is missing. The ADAPT-program, of which this PhD-position will be part, aims at obtaining these fundamental theoretical insights into how parenting promotes adolescent well-being in individual families.

The project has a strong focus on applying new methods to this question, but it also entails data collection among high school students. It will use smart phones to obtain highly frequent, real-time, multi-informant assessments of parent-child interactions (i.e., Experience Sampling Methods). To analyze these intensive data, the project involves first applications of state-of-the-art data-analytical approaches to intensive longitudinal data (e.g., Continuous-Time structural equation modeling; time series models for dyadic data). Thus, in order to quantify the complex reality of parenting adolescents at the level of individual families, the PhD-student will embrace technological and data-analytical innovations.

The project is funded by a NWO-VIDI grant, awarded to Loes Keijsers. The PhD-student will be part of a larger project-team working on solving similar theoretical problems and developing applications to translate novel theoretical findings into e-health applications. Moreover, (s)he can rely on a broader network of expertise of the Tilburg Experience Sampling Center for analytical and methodological support.

Deadline: 22 Dec

Additional information about the vacancy can be found on academic transfer:
https://www.academictransfer.com/en/51360/phd-student-at-developmental-psychology-08-fte-4-years/