Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members
～Researcher’s Window～
This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Juan Del Toro. He is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
- What drew you to do work in your field?
Initially, the mentors. As an undergraduate, I read many of my mentors’ studies, and I was inspired by the issues they were addressing. Their mentorship style also made me feel like I could contribute to the change that they wanted out of their research. By doing research, I learned about the importance that early life experiences can have on individuals’ life courses, and I slowly began identifying as a developmental psychologist because I firmly believed in the importance of research in this area. That is not to say that other topics and fields are unimportant! To address racism, we need research via all lenses, including social psychology, sociology, public health, etc. However, where I feel like I can contribute is from my training in human development.
- Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?
My first memorable experience was with my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Desdamona ‘Desi’ Rios, whom I met during my second year in college, and I was majoring in chemistry at the time. We met at a first-generation welcome event, and Desi shared that she received her PhD in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. After her introduction, I approached her and naively asked, “You can get a PhD in that?” She responded that she did and that she was building her research lab, and I followed up with, “You have a lab?”, as I didn’t grow up learning that research could be extended to the social sciences. Thereafter, I began working with her on research, which was a defining point for my current career as an assistant professor of psychology.
- You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief.
There are two lines of work that I'm thrilled to work on, and they both pertain to resilience among adolescents of color. In one of my line works, I'm working to illustrate that the intended resilience tied to messages that youth receive about their race/ethnicity (i.e., racial/ethnic socialization) may not always be apparent in psycho-social measures but rather in distal indicators of well-being that can be captured in biological indicators of their health. I have been titling this phenomenon as "Hidden Resilience" because biomarker indicators of well-being are not visible to the naked eye but are rather hidden "underneath the skin." In a second line of work, I have been working to illustrate that messages from different agents of racial/ethnic socialization do not carry equal value, but rather racial/ethnic socialization from teachers may instill adolescents with more resilience than that from other agents (e.g., parents, peers). As most readers may recall from their own upbringings or even witnessing their teenage children's experiences, teenagers have a lot of pressure to be independent and autonomous outside the family, making them less inclined to want to listen and reach out to their parents for support. Instead, teenagers are more likely to lean on others, such as close adult figures in school, for support, and I'm finding that this support is promotive and protective in the context of racial/ethnic discrimination.
- Your one wish for the study of human development
One thing that I wish and am working to encourage is for the field to think of human development at the population level. As a field, human development mostly relies on individual-level data to make inferences about issues, like racism, affecting populations. However, the way to challenge racism is by targeting policies that perpetually support and reinforce racist cultures and practices. To change policy, we need large and population level data to make strong inferences about the particular policies that sustain racism.
- A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing
“If you’re not getting rejected, then you’re not aiming high enough.”
About the researcher
Dr. Juan Del Toro is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His primary appointment is in the Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavioral Genetics (PIB) program. He also holds affiliate faculty appointments in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research program, the Institute of Child Development, and the Minnesota Population Center. I received my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Advanced Quantitative Analyses from New York University, and he completed my postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh. As a developmental psychologist, he examines how specific perpetrators of ethnic-racial discrimination (e.g., peers, school adults, and law enforcement) and ethnic-racial socialization (e.g., parents, school adults, and peers) shape children’s life course trajectories. The goal of specifying perpetrators is to inform setting-specific policies and interventions working to improve the well-being of all youth.
Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu
SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee
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