Personal Information

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004
B.A., Lawrence University, 1997

Research Interests:
    My research examines trajectories toward psychological well- and ill-being in adolescence and emerging adulthood.  These pathways are illuminated in the context of developmental transition periods, such as puberty and school transitions (into middle school, high school, and college).  I am especially interested in exploring the characteristics, contexts, and mechanisms that place adolescent girls and young women at elevated risk for internalizing problems, including depression, body image and eating disturbance, anxiety, and self-injurious behavior.  It is my hope that this program of research will inform family-, school-, and community-based interventions aimed at building resiliency in adolescents and emerging adults, in the face of normative and atypical developmental challenges.      

    Grounded in a developmental psychopathology perspective, my research examines the dynamic interplay between individuals and their developmental contexts over time, and the interacting contributions from multiple systems – biological, psychological, cognitive and social/interpersonal.  Toward this end, my research has examined the contributions of individual factors (gender, pubertal development and timing, socio-cognitive styles) and interpersonal factors (peer stress, family relationships, relational styles, friendship values), as well as the interactional and transactional processes by which these factors relate to each other and to psychosocial distress.     

    In one of my current projects, I am collaborating with Maryse Richards, another Loyola faculty member, on examining the fourth wave of data collection from her Youth and Adolescence Study (e.g., Larson, Moneta, Richards, & Wilson, 2002).  This large, grant-funded project has produced many interesting findings and papers on adolescent development, but the data on the emerging adulthood developmental period remain largely untapped.  Graduate students interested in this study are welcome to get involved.  This is a great opportunity to work with a rich, complex, longitudinal data set that has already been collected.      

    I am also starting up a couple of new studies in my lab.  In one project, I plan to examine the transition to college as a context for psycho-social risk versus resilience.  Through this research, I hope to extend my earlier work on sex differences in adolescent internalizing psychopathology, into emerging adulthood.  I am also hoping to start a project that involves designing, implementing, and empirically evaluating a mental health prevention program for college students.  I welcome graduate student collaborators who are interested in college student mental health and prevention programming.      

    In my experience, the most successful researchers strike a good balance between “zooming in” (being diligent and meticulously attentive to detail), and “zooming out” (envisioning big-picture ideas, being self-directed and inventive).  Accordingly, my approach to mentoring graduate students in research combines top-down and bottom-up approaches: While I provide structure, support, and guidance for students, I also urge them to develop their own independent project ideas and research skills.  I also encourage my students to take their research endeavors beyond the lab, by publishing in peer-reviewed journals and presenting at national conferences (such as SRA, SSEA, ABCT, APA, APS). 

Recent Publications:
Rudolph, K. D., Caldwell, M. S., & Conley, C. S. (2005).  Need for approval and children’s well-being.  Child Development, 76, 309-323.  

Rudolph, K. D., & Conley, C. S. (2005).  The socioemotional costs and benefits of social-evaluative concerns:  Do girls care too much?  Journal of Personality, 73, 115-137.

Conley, C. S., Flynn, M., Caldwell, M. S., Dupre, A. J., & Rudolph, K. D. (2004).  Parenting and mental health.  In M. Hoghughi & N. Long (Eds.).  Handbook of parenting: Theory, research, and practice.  London: Sage Publications.  

Conley, C. S., Haines, B. A., Hilt, L. M., & Metalsky, G. I. (2001).  The Children’s Attributional Style Interview:  Developmental tests of cognitive diathesis-stress theories of depression.  Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 29, 445-463.

Rudolph, K. D., Kurlakowsky, K. D., & Conley, C. S. (2001).  The developmental and social-contextual origins of control-related beliefs and behavior.  Cognitive Therapy and Research, 25, 447-475.