Author: Dick Anthony

Taking closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Toni Antonucci, Program Director and Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program of the Institute for Social Research, and the Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

I was always intrigued as a young person when people said 'psychologically speaking' even when I was too young to know what it really meant.  In the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I took a non-matriculated course in psychology at a local college.  Fortunately, I grew up in Brooklyn (NY) so that any university was only a train ride away.  After that course, I was definitely hooked. Early on, I became interested in a new field called 'life span developmental psychology'.  I did my masters' thesis on older men, so it seemed natural to do my dissertation on infants.  I thought that would show real commitment to life span human development.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcherwho had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

In graduate school I had two mentors, Robert Kastenbaum and Carolyn Shantz.  One was a pioneer in the field of aging, the other a classic Piagetian.  They were both important and very positive influences on me.  Kastenbaum was a brilliant and unusual scholar who took a winding path to academia.  Shantz was among the few successful female academics and willingly took me on as a Ph.D. student even though my topic area, infancy, wasn't really her field.  Turns out I was her first Ph.D. student.  We both learned a lot.

Regarding moments in my professional journey.  Bob included Death and Dying in his research portfolio - and once was featured in The Enquirer.  He laughed it off and never thought much about it.  That taught me, not to sweat the small stuff….and years later when I was quoted in the Enquirer (a fact one of my mother’s neighbors pointed out), I did the same thing.

Carolyn helped me through some trying times - especially in how to navigate in the male world of academia.

3. 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. 

One of my favorite papers is our first paper on the Convoy Model with Robert Kahn. In reflecting on it, I benefitted from Bob’s background in social and organizational psychology and I believe he felt the same about my background in lifespan developmental psychology. The Convoy Model benefits from both perspectives and, in my opinion, is better for it.

Another paper that I am fond of is a paper with Kristine Ajrouch and Mary Janevic examining the association between Social Relations and Health.  There is a well-known finding in the field that people with higher socioeconomic status have better health. Using wave 1 data from our Detroit area study, we were able to demonstrate that middle-aged men who were not highly educated (a proxy for socioeconomic status) but had children with whom they could confide were as healthy as highly educated men of the same age.

a. Your current project and/or key projects?

We now have a third wave of the Detroit area Social Relations, Age and Health (SRS) SRS which is a community based, life-span study of people from 8 to 93, and additional waves about to be collected of specific subgroups being collected now and in the near future.

We are proposing another wave on the original complete sample with the addition of a new parallel sample.  We are expanding our research to include cognitive functioning so that we can examine how social relations both cross-sectionally and longitudinally are associated with AD risk and resilience.  This is a new direction for me and I am very excited about.

We are also just completing an examination of race and ethnic differences in Forgiveness, Humility and Health which has yielded some intriguing findings.

b. Contributions of your projects/research to the study of human development.

It is my hope that my work contributes to our understanding of social relations and how social relations influence other aspects of life. The finding I noted above about how low educated middle-aged men who can confide in their child have the same level of health as higher educated peers is a case in point.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

a. If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be?

For the one wish volume I wished for respectful interdisciplinary team science.

I still believe this is important but given recent events I would also add a wish that human development perspectives be recognized as fundamental across the life span and that there be norms of reasonable, kind and caring behavior.

b. How would it advance the field? 

As we care for others, we care for ourselves.  This makes us better people and creates a better world.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing.

Seek advice from those close and far and always try to include people you know disagree with you.

 

About the researcher

Toni Antonucci has a Ph.D. in life-span developmental psychology.  She is Program Director and Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program of the Institute for Social Research, and the Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology all at the University of Michigan.  She has been the recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institute on Aging as well as several research awards from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations. She has been President of the  Society for the Study of Human Development and Gerontological Society of America.  She’s also been President of the American Psychological Association’s Division 20 on Adult Development and Aging and is Past Program Chair for Division 9, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.  She is Past-Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Associate Editor for Developmental Psychology.  She served as Chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs, Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest and the Committee on Aging-  all of APA, and is currently Secretary-General (Vice President) of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics and is President-Elect of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development.  She is an elected fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Science and Phi Kappa Phi. And finally, she has mentored undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral scholars at the University of Michigan, received the APA Division 20 Master Mentoring award, an APA Presidential Citation in recognition of her mentoring and is currently the Director of the ISSBD\Jacob Foundation International Mentored Fellowship Program which includes fellows from the developed and developing world.

Edited and launched by Deborah J. Johnson & Yoko Yamamoto

SSHD Publicity Committee

Visit our website for more information! www.sshdonline.org

Like us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!

 

 

Edited and launched by Deborah J. Johnson & Yoko Yamamoto

SSHD Publicity Committee

Please check out the August 2017 Researcher's Window: Dr. Amy Marks!

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Kristine J. Ajrouch, the current SSHD president and a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University. 

Taking closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

1.  What drew you to do work in human development?

My doctoral research focused on social relationships between U.S. born adolescents and their immigrant parents in the pursuit of understanding ethnic identity formation. One subtle theme articulated by the adolescents included insistence that their ethnicity was evident through a firm commitment to ensuring their parents would never have to “be put” in a nursing home. These narratives steered me to begin asking questions about the aging experience, and led me to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan. My post-doctoral training centered on the study aging, but involved working with individuals from different disciplines. Through this training I was introduced to the life span and life course perspectives. I became firmly committed to using these frameworks to examine and better understand social life.  I came to realize that aging is a life-long process, and a pillar of the human condition. Human development, as an interdisciplinary field, emphasizes the importance of all life stages/ages and moves beyond the individual to highlight links between multiple levels of human life including the biological, social and cultural.  This premise appealed to my commitment to the scientific study of social life.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

The mentor and researcher who had substantial influence on my path is the developmental psychologist Toni Antonucci.  Her name appeared on a list of faculty who would be willing to mentor during my postdoctoral training in aging. Above and beyond social relations, she listed cross-cultural issues as her interest and expertise.  I made an appointment to meet with her, to ask if she would be willing to work with me during my fellowship.  Knowing that I was trained as a sociologist, and wise to the importance of disciplinary mentoring for future career trajectories, she advised me to meet with a well-known and influential sociology colleague also listed as a willing mentor with expertise in race and ethnicity. She then told me that if after meeting with him I remained interested to work with her, to come back and see her.  There was something appealing about the way Toni conveyed her advice that reinforced my initial interest to work with her.  And so, after meeting with the suggested faculty member, I promptly went back and told her I appreciated the advice to meet the other faculty member, but believe my interests align more closely with hers.  Since that day she has been an important influence on my professional journey and scholarly endeavors.  She introduced me to the field of human development, and I have been committed ever since.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development.

My research interests have focused on three areas: 1) social relations; 2) Arab Americans; and 3) the Middle East.  I have used multiple methodologies to study these topics, including the collection and analysis of survey data, focus group discussions, and in-depth one-on-one interviews. Facility with multiple methods has enabled me to identify key trends at the population level, but also to discover unique meanings at the cultural level. Recognizing that social relations are multidimensional, my program of research investigates the complex ways that stratifying factors influence their form and function.  A key contribution to the study of human development may be found in recent work I carried out with colleagues that investigated variations in social networks among adults aged fifty and older in diverse regions of the world: Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, and the United States. This analysis attends to the significance of national context for advancing understanding of links between social networks and age. Identical measures of social networks and closeness were collected in each nation.  Findings illustrated, on the one hand, a universal pattern concerning the presence of children in the networks of older adults; that is, older age was associated with a higher proportion of children, and children were also most likely to be nominated as one of the closest relationships in all four nations. This finding may reflect that a universal characteristic of human bonding involves keeping children close, even in late-life. Yet, other dimensions of social networks showed differences by age that were sensitive to national context. In particular, only in the U.S. was older age associated with smaller networks. Age was not associated with network size in Japan or Mexico, suggesting continuity between mid- and later- life with regard to the number of people identified as close and important. In Lebanon, contrary to the pattern in the U.S., increasing age is associated with larger social networks. Hence, links between age and network size are unique; they vary within national context.  Identifying universal and unique characteristics of social networks in later life provides a preliminary empirical basis upon which to advance developmental science as a useful framework to inform policies that can facilitate health and well-being among middle-aged and older people around the world.  

4. If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be?

My wish is to incorporate culture as a more central aspect of studies in human development.  Culture signifies a fundamental aspect of human life.  It facilitates human interaction by providing meaning to lived experience. Accounting for culture in both theories and methods potentially advances the field by connecting the macro (contextual) and micro (personal) levels of human experience. Yet, culture should be understood as dynamic and complex. It fundamentally shapes individuals and simultaneously is shaped by individuals. Attention should be placed on making distinctions between ideal aspects of culture and pragmatic realities as well as developing ways to make culture more visible in both research and in public discussions.  Attention to culture holds great potential for advancing understanding of life trajectories in human development.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

Education and hard work are necessary to succeed, but alone are usually insufficient. Getting to know others in the field, building social networks and cultivating social capital through those connections will lead to opportunity and resources.

About the researcher

Kristine J. Ajrouch, PhD is Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University.  She is also Adjunct Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Her research has focused, for over twenty years, on Arab Americans in the U.S. beginning with ethnic identity formation among adolescent children of immigrants followed by a focus on aging from the perspective of older adults in the metro-Detroit Arab-American and Muslim communities.  A core area of study concerns links between social networks and health with focused attention to how stratification and immigration influence network form and function. She recently initiated a program of study concerning the topic of family ties, aging and health in Beirut, Lebanon following a Fulbright award in 2008.  Professor Ajrouch also studies the topics of forgiveness and immigrant integration in comparative perspective. She currently serves as President of the Society for the Study of Human Development, and works on projects that enhance global awareness and promote cross-cultural understanding.

Edited and launched by Deborah J. Johnson & Yoko Yamamoto

SSHD Publicity Committee

Taking closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Masami Takahashi, Professor of Psychology and Gerontology at Northeastern Illinois University.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

I wasn’t drawn to human development at all in the beginning. Instead, like many psychology undergrads, I had this vague and grandiose notion of wanting to help people, especially older adults simply because I saw my parents getting old. It was my adviser (Dr. Howard Eisner) at University of Houston-Clear Lake who introduced me to the field. Instead of getting into a very specific field like gerontology or Social Work, he told me to keep my options open by pursuing “mainstream” psychology. Because he taught aging-related courses and he came from Duke/Michigan developmental psychology programs, he suggested that I apply to developmental psychology programs.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

It was my graduate adviser at Temple University, Dr. Bill Overton, who converted me. Prior to knowing his work, I thought psychology was about finding a bunch of factors, both genetic and environmental, that influenced human behavior. I thought, at one point, it was kind of boring. However, it was Bill who taught me that it is critical that we be creative in theorizing developmental processes of an underlying psychological mechanism on which these factors may operate. When we presented our proposed projects to him in class, he would often ask us, “What’s developmental about this?” He really emphasized the developmental underpinning of the research.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development.

a. Your current project and/or key projects 

I am interested in developmental constructs that relate to aging such as wisdom and spirituality. A cross-cultural or global perspective is particularly important in examining these concepts. For example, when I attended a symposium several years ago about religion and spirituality in a large academic conference, I was astounded to hear everyone talking about spirituality only in the Christian and American context. In recent years, I have been involved with a consortium of Japanese researchers conducting empirical research on religion and spirituality, leading to the publication of a couple of books. These efforts are noteworthy because in the last half a century no books on the subject of psychology and religion have been published in Japan. This is largely due to a unique and ambivalent feeling toward religion/spirituality among Japanese people including scientific researchers. While a large majority of Americans claim some degree of religious belief and affiliation, 70-90% of the Japanese report that they are not religious. However, they are involved in “religious” activities throughout years including Shinto New Year’s celebration, Buddhist summer festivals, and Christmas.  Also, religion plays a significant role during the aftermath of natural disasters such as the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. We are currently trying to translate one of the books into English for distribution to a broader audience.

b. Contributions of your projects/research to the study of human development

Since the field of aging is often described as “data rich but theory poor”, my approach helps to restore the theory/data equilibrium given the emphasis in my work on a developmental understanding of our aging process.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development. If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be?

Because of my personal interest, I produced a documentary film in 2005 about the former suicide pilots (The last kamikaze: Testimonials from WWII Suicide pilots, Documentary Educational Resources). Because the project focused more on the visual documentation than data collection, I interviewed only a dozen people (they were quite advanced in age at the time, and many passed away soon after). My one wish would be to interview additional pilots providing further empirical data given the extraordinary significance of suicide operations past and present.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“You are grown-up. Do whatever you like.”

I need to explain a bit here. Toward the end of my dissertation process, I became frustrated and really needed a break. I thought about taking a vacation to restore my sanity. Coming from a very strict teacher-student relationship tradition in Japan, I thought my dissertation adviser would oppose my plan. One day, I mustered up my courage and popped the question, “Could I take a break from my writing and take a trip to somewhere relaxing, say, the Caribbean?” This was his reply above and also by “To which island are you going?”

About the researcher

Dr. Masami Takahashi is a professor of psychology and gerontology at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, IL. He received a B.A. and M.S. in psychology from University of Houston-Clear Lake and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Temple University.

His primary research interests are: (a) definition, operationalization, and evaluation of psychological strengths, such as wisdom and spirituality, in late adulthood; (b) evaluation of psychosocial profile of the former kamikaze pilots with implications in other suicide operations around the world; and (c) exploration of longevity factors in the Blue Zones (e.g., Okinawa).

 

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto & Deborah J. Johnson

SSHD Publicity Committee

Taking closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

 This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Jayanthi Mistry, a professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

As a high school student I was drawn to literature and literary analysis. Eventually my fascination with character development and story lines in fiction led me to psychology as a field of study. Later as a graduate student, I vividly recall feeling that my own developmental contexts and history were not represented in the mainstream knowledge base of human development. This triggered my interest in learning about cultural perspectives on human development and led to an NIMH post-doctoral fellowship with Barbara Rogoff. Since then, the application of socio-cultural perspectives to understanding children’s development has remained at the center of my scholarship. As a parent raising two children in the U.S., guiding our children as they navigated their multiple worlds and identities precipitated a more specific interest in the development of children from immigrant and culturally diverse backgrounds. At that time, I took advantage of opportunities at Tufts University to work with colleagues across disciplines (e.g., in interdisciplinary programs such as International Relations, Asian American Studies). These were transformative experiences that convinced me of the value of cross-disciplinary dialogue.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

Two mentors have had substantial influences on my professional trajectory. Professor T.S. Saraswathi was my MA program advisor and has remained a valued and wise mentor who keeps me grounded in global perspectives on human development. Professor Barbara Rogoff was my mentor for the NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship and introduced me to sociocultural theory.  Barbara’s influence on my scholarship is best reflected in the following story. Once during a discussion of with her team of postdocs, Barbara shared her professional goal.  In the mid-1980s when cultural perspectives in human development were as yet nascent, she explained her intention to bring culture to the core of human development.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development.

At this point in my career I am most committed to interweaving my theoretical and empirical scholarship. Here I mention two recent publications that best represent my theoretical contributions to the field. The first publication is a chapter (Mistry & Dutta, 2015) in the seventh edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology & Developmental Science, in which my colleague and I document the emerging convergence of cultural psychology and developmental science perspectives as both emphasize the mutually constitutive nature of individual development and culture. The second publication (Mistry et al., 2016) presents a conceptual framework that highlights the interrelated nature of developmental contexts, developmental domains, and culturally-situated interpretive processes. This is part of a connected set of papers published as a Special Section on Asian American Children and Youth in Child Development. The conceptualization of culture integrates both the broadly generalizable ideologies and practices shared by groups, as well as, the meaning-making processes through which individuals interpret their environmental contexts as they act in, with and upon their environmental contexts in the developmental process.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development. If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be?

My one wish for the study of human development is best presented in Mistry & Dutta (2015). In this chapter we document that discussions of the mutually constitutive nature of individual development and culture were occurring concurrently nearly two decades ago among cultural psychologists (e.g., Cole, 1996; Rogoff, 1990), developmental scientists (e.g., Overton, 1997), and cognitive scientists (e.g., Rowlands, 1999). However, scholars were too often engaged in parallel discussions and not in dialogue across perspectives. The following excerpt from the chapter explains this wish best:

“The convergences we have highlighted in this chapter can pave the way for developing theories of human development that are culturally inclusive and relevant globally. The need for such a global orientation stems from the state of science and technology that situates us in an interconnected world bringing diverse people together on scientific, economic, and social fronts. In this climate of interconnectivity and coexistence of diverse peoples, we call for greater dialogue and discourse as a critical mechanism for the development of culturally inclusive theories and knowledge of human development. We hope that the emerging convergences we have delineated in this chapter will promote the dialogue that can promote integration and synthesis of perspectives.” (p. 401).

The viability of such cross-perspective dialogue has been brought home to me in the recent experience of preparing the Special Section on Asian American Child Development with members of the SRCD Asian Caucus. The opportunity for sustained dialogue and discussion through which we bridged and synthesized our varying theoretical perspectives was most rewarding.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

Mentoring is at the core of being a transformative educator. As a mentor I strive to be “an empowering mentor” and one who “offers encouraging yet deep and critical feedback that promotes a more nuanced and deeper understanding of the field.”

About the researcher

Dr. Jayanthi Mistry is a professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. Dr. Mistry received her doctorate degree from Purdue University in 1983 and then completed an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Utah. Her current research projects include investigations of multiple ethnic identities among ethnic minority, immigrant, and under-represented communities in the United States; an evaluation of a teen parenting program, with a focus on understanding the lived experiences of young immigrant and ethnic minority mothers; and a research and curriculum development project based on home-school collaborations with teachers and parents of dual language learners in Head Start classrooms serving two distinct communities of recent immigrants (from China and Central America).

 

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto & Deborah J. Johnson

SSHD Publicity Committee