Parent-Child Relationships in Emerging Adulthood:

Impacts on Risk, Well-Being and Transitions into Adulthood

Co-Investigators: Elaine Scharfe (Trent University), Danielle Sirianni Molnar (Brock University) and Chloe Hamza (University of Toronto) 

Emerging adulthood (EA; ages 18-25) is a psychologically distinct and critical period of developmental transition (Arnett, 2000a) and a period of significant challenge and growth. In Canada, the large majority of emerging adults reside with their parents (Statistics Canada, 2011) and researchers have argued that parents play an important role for promoting healthy functioning within EA (Bucx & van Wel, 2008) and into adulthood (Arnett & Tanner, 2006; Fosco, Cruthers, & Dishion, 2012; Vanier Institute, 2013). While the popular press instils fear in parents, warning them against ‘helicopter parenting,’ the ‘failure to launch,’ and ‘Adultolescents’ (e.g., Ascher, 2015; Tyre, 2002), there is little guidance from researchers on how parents might hinder or support their EA child’s development during this critical time.  

Using a measurement burst design (Smyth & Heron, 2014) we will collect 30 days of data from emerging adults in each year of the 4-year study. This approach provides a unique and unprecedented opportunity to understand the structure and function of interactions between EAs and their parents; how they change over the course of EA; and how they impact – and are impacted by – risk and wellness behaviours, well-being and key transitions into adulthood. Findings from this study  will extend theoretical knowledge by grounding our understanding of the parent-EA relationship in critical theories of development, relational functioning, and well-being. The research will provide the basis for evidence-based prevention (i.e., identifying distal factors that contribute to challenges in EA), and intervention (i.e., identifying parent-emerging adult interaction patterns that are specific antecedents of risk behaviours and well-being).

This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Gambling to relax and gambling to forget: Questionnaire and daily diary studies of subtypes of coping motives for gambling

Principal Investigator: Dr. Sherry Stewart (Dalhousie University)

Co-Investigator: Dr. Roisin O’Connor (Concordia University)

The purpose of this study is to further explore coping motives for gambling and establish a more accurate assessment of coping motives that captures both coping with depression and coping with anxiety. This project involves two separate, but related studies. In Study 1, participants will be recruited to complete a new measure of gambling motives, which includes separate items for coping with depression and coping with anxiety. Participants will complete the same measure 6-month later to establish the test re-test reliability of the measure and further validate the dimensions for assessing coping motives. In Study 2, we will examine within-person relationships between daily moods (anxious and depressed moods) and gambling behaviour and will test whether coping motives (anxiety and depression) moderate specific mood-gambling relationships.

This research is funded by the Manitoba Gambling Research Program

Other ongoing research projects in our lab 

We explore many questions regarding the health and well-being of emerging adults and students in the lab develop their own unique interests within this area. Some sample thesis topics of students in Dr. Goldstein’s lab include:

Examining the convergence hypothesis - the impact of gender conformity on young women’s drinking

Self-regulation, executive functioning, and gambling behaviours

Perceptions of marijuana use among emerging adults

Motivational interviewing: interventions for reducing risk behaviours in emerging adulthood