Nicholas Wagner

Director: Biobehavioral and Social-Emotional Development Lab

My research examines the enduring impact of early experiences and relationships (e.g., parent-child relationships, sibling relationships) on children’s social and emotional development. I am particularly interested in the processes through which psychobiological and environmental factors promote psychosocial adaptation or contribute to the emergence of psychopathology. Key to this work is elucidating how young children’s self-regulatory capacities influence associations between early experiences with parents and emotional, cognitive, and social development. One line of ongoing research examines early experiential and biological processes that contribute to later behavioral and emotional problems, with a specific focus on callous-unemotional traits. A second line of research broadens my focus to include anxiety, behavioral inhibition, and social withdrawal. Cutting across the entirety of this program of research is an appreciation for the influence of the social environment (e.g., peer relationships, school contexts) on patterns of biobehavioral adaptation or the emergence of both externalizing and internalizing psychopathology.