Intergenerational transmission

My postdoc was part of Dr. Tina Kretschmer’s ERC funded project Ghosts from the Past: Consequences of Adolescent Peer Experiences across Contexts and Generations (CAPE).

In this project we investigated whether and how peer experiences are transmitted a) to adult friendships and romantic relationships, and b) across generations, i.e., passed on to offspring, to shed light on how the “ghosts from peer past” affect young adults’ relationships and their children’s early social development.

Our methods included examining longitudinal links between adolescent peer and young adult close relationships and testing whether parents’ peer experiences affect offspring’s peer experiences. We used data from the TRAILS cohort that has been followed since age 11. To study intergenerational transmission, the TRAILS NEXT sample of participants with children is substantially extended.