USF Parent-Adolescent Relationships (PAR) Lab

The Parent-Adolescent Relationships (PAR) Lab is a developmental research laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus directed by Dr. Wendy Rote.

The PAR lab does research on adolescents’ and emerging adults’ relationships with their parents, perceptions of parenting, and the broader family and cultural dynamics contributing to these processes. We are interested in how parents’ and adolescents’ different goals within the relationship, developmental needs, and individual and contextual characteristics impact the way they interact as well as perceive and respond to parenting practices.

Our research particularly focuses on issues of adolescent autonomy development, parental socialization practices (including inductive discipline, guilting, and praise), and helicopter parenting. We examine these topics using a combination of survey measures and observational methods, including video-guided recall tasks and quantitative coding of interactions. See our Research Projects tab for more details on past and current projects.