Dr. Chen’s research focuses on children and adolescents’ socioemotional functioning and its role in social, school, and psychological adjustment from a contextual-developmental perspective. He is interested in the developmental processes of social competence, shyness-inhibition, and aggression, and dispositional/biological and socialization factors that are involved in the processes. He has conducted, in collaboration with his international colleagues, a series of longitudinal projects in Chinese, North American, and several other societies. The projects are based largely on a theoretical framework he has developed concerning how cultural values are involved in two fundamental systems of socioemotional functioning, social initiative, and self-control, during development. The projects have tapped (1) the joint and interactive contributions of early temperamental characteristics and parenting practices to human development in changing social, economic, and cultural contexts, and (2) the role of social interactions and relationships in mediating and moderating contextual influences on development. In addition, his team has conducted several studies of adjustment experiences, including the difficulties and strengths, of different generations of Asian children and adolescents in North America.
