Welcome to the Development, Risk, and Resilience Lab!
Welcome to the Development, Risk, and Resilience Lab. Directed by Dr. Rina Eiden, our goal is to understand when and under what circumstances developmental trajectories of children begin to diverge from normative trajectories among families who are struggling with substance abuse and related issues (e.g., mental health symptoms; caregiving unpredictability). The Development, Risk, and Resilience Lab is interested in how prenatal and early adversities shape the development of children’s self-regulation; how these associations may be mediated or moderated by parenting quality; and applying this understanding to prevention. We are also working to understand protective factors that promote resilience in children in the face of early adversities.
Our research is funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Dr. Eiden is accepting graduate students for Fall 2025. Please reach out to rina.eiden@psu.edu for more information if you are interested in joining the lab as a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at Penn State.
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Graduate Student Madison Kelm’s Paper Accepted For Publication In Neurotoxicology and Teratology
Kelm, M.R., Schuetze, P., & Eiden, R.D. (2024). Prenatal tobacco and tobacco-cannabis co-exposure and unpredictability in maternal anger/hostility: Implications for toddler reactivity. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 106, 107399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2024.107399
Some highlights of their findings include:
- Prenatal tobacco/tobacco-cannabis use was comorbid with mother anger/unpredictability.
- Prenatal anger & unpredictability predicted toddler reactivity via infant reactivity.
- Prenatal anger & co-use predicted toddler reactivity via postnatal cannabis exposure.
- Prenatally co-exposed males had blunted reactivity compared to non-co-exposed males.