This thesis generated insights into the neural and affective signatures of connectedness between parents and adolescents and between people in general, which is operationalized by responses to eye... Show moreThis thesis generated insights into the neural and affective signatures of connectedness between parents and adolescents and between people in general, which is operationalized by responses to eye contact and empathy. Overall, our findings show that during adolescence, parents are still highly attuned to their child at the neural and affective level. In addition, adolescents report to feel more connected with their parents than with unknown others, although this was not directly reflected in stronger neural responses. Another interesting finding is that making eye contact for a prolonged period generally enhanced the socio-emotional connection between people, both between parents and adolescents and with unknown others. For individuals with a history of CEM and depressed adolescents eye contact is less socially rewarding, however, and does not seem to foster a stronger connectedness with others. Studying the psychobiological underpinnings of affiliative bonding, including the parent-adolescent bond, brings us a step closer to unraveling how such bonds are established and maintained during adolescence. And even more important: Once we know how these bonds are established, we might be better able to modify and repair these bonds in situations in which they for some reason got disrupted. Show less
Adolescents can perceive parenting quite differently than parents themselves and these discrepancies may relate to adolescent well-being. The current study aimed to explore how adolescents and... Show moreAdolescents can perceive parenting quite differently than parents themselves and these discrepancies may relate to adolescent well-being. The current study aimed to explore how adolescents and parents perceive daily parental warmth and criticism and whether these perceptions and discrepancies relate to adolescents' daily positive and negative affect. The sample consisted of 80 adolescents (M-age = 15.9; 63.8% girls) and 151 parents (M-age = 49.4; 52.3% women) who completed four ecological momentary assessments per day for 14 consecutive days. In addition to adolescents' perception, not parents' perception by itself, but the extent to which this perception differed or overlapped with adolescents' perception was related to adolescent affect. These findings highlight the importance of including combined adolescents' and parents' perspectives when studying dynamic parenting processes. Show less
