Investigating associations between puberty and social anxiety

Adelaide Graham (‘24), senior PRYDE Scholar majoring in Human Development.

This summer, I had the opportunity to jump start my honors thesis investigating the role of puberty in the development of social anxiety during early adolescence. My findings indicated that both advanced physical maturation and earlier pubertal onset were associated with higher social anxiety symptoms. However, despite girls experiencing more social anxiety overall, this trend was only true for boys. I’m extremely excited to be contributing to the conversation attempting to understand the onset of social anxiety during adolescence and sex differences in social anxiety symptoms.

I was luckily able to draw upon a past dataset that was actually partially collected by PRYDE scholars who were in my lab before me! Furthermore, I found out that some of the data was sourced from youth participating in 4-H, our community partner in the PRYDE program. It’s amazing to see the projects that have come out of the PRYDE program and observe the various ways it has engaged generations of PRYDE Scholars cohorts!

Admittedly, I was initially a little disappointed that I would not be collecting my own data for my project. The PRYDE program has taught me the importance of engaging with the populations I am interested in learning from. However, another large portion of my summer was spent actually working with adolescent participants taking part in the Adolescent Transition Lab’s Code Red project! Through the project, I got the chance to meet with many adolescent girls and their parents and explore how their feelings about themselves, others, sleep, or food are related to their experience with their periods. While I’ve loved my independent research project, I really appreciated the opportunity to step away from the analysis process and interact with youth. As a graduating senior who is pondering my next steps, it also reminded me to consider what balance of research and practice I am looking for in my future career. One of my favorite parts about the PRYDE program is that it gives me the opportunity to do a little bit of both at the same time.

Finally, by staying on campus this summer, I was also able to work closely with Dr. Jane Mendle, my PRYDE mentor, as well as my graduate student mentor in the lab, Kathleen McCormick. They have been guiding me, and I’m extremely grateful for the time they’ve invested in my budding career as a researcher. Much of the summer was spent finalizing my findings and developing a poster with their help. Now, I am happy to say that I will be presenting my project at the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board Fall Forum. I also submitted an abstract to present at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence! I am elated to have the opportunity to disseminate my findings and learn from other researchers. While I have lots of theories regarding the mechanisms leading to social anxiety during adolescence, I hope that connecting with other researchers may spur ideas of translational implications. For example, how can we harness our understanding of puberty to prevent and treat social anxiety?

PRYDE Scholar, Adelaide Graham, disseminates her research investigating associations between puberty and social anxiety with the Cornell community.

I am incredibly grateful for the experiences I had this summer. My time spent studying social anxiety during adolescence as well as connecting with youth has solidified my interest in clinical psychology and researching adolescent well-being. Furthermore, the guidance I’ve received from my many mentors has set me up to present my hard work, connect with other researchers, and hopefully have an impact on the field of developmental psychopathology!