About Lara Mayeux

I am a developmental psychologist on the faculty in the Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma. I specialize in the social development of children and adolescents, and my particular research interests include the relationships between peer status (likeability, popularity) and physical and relational/social forms of aggression. I’m also interested in how the interplay between status and aggression works differently for boys and girls. In addition to my research, I teach both undergraduate and graduate-level courses in Developmental Psychology.

Scientists in my field (we’re collectively known as “peer relations researchers”) often joke that they became interested in studying peer relationships because of their own, often challenging, experiences with schoolmates. My own career is part careful planning, part happy accident. I was never popular in school but I was never unpopular, either. (At least, I don’t think I was.) I had plenty of friends and I never felt lonely at school, but I certainly didn’t run with the powerful kids. I knew who they were, sure, and I was even friendly with some of them in high school. But I could never quite figure out what it was exactly that made these kids so powerful.

After high school in South Texas, I attended Texas Christian University, where my career goal changed from wanting to become some kind of therapist to more research-oriented stuff. I ended up at the University of Connecticut for graduate school in psychology, where I worked with Toon Cillessen. Toon happened to be working on some research on peer popularity with a colleague of his from Sacred Heart University named Kathy LaFontana. Up to that point, the word “popularity” had been used by developmental psychologists to mean something like “well-accepted” or “well-liked.” It described kids who were helpful, kind, and generally all-around nice. What Toon and Kathy were finding was that kids themselves were using the word “popular” to mean something entirely different—and the words they used to describe popular peers weren’t always nice. It started to become clear to peer relations people that being popular and being well-liked were two very different things sometimes.

I happened to join Toon Cillessen’s lab about the time this research was really taking off in our field. I can remember reading some of the papers he published with Kathy and thinking “Wow, people really do studies on this stuff?” It seemed so “non-scientific,” too run-of-the-mill for real scientific inquiry. What I soon came to appreciate was that applying rigorous scientific methods to the study of seemingly mundane aspects of childhood is what produces the best “Aha!” moments. Sometimes we have to start with studying phenomena that seem obvious in order to uncover the deeper reasons why kids act and think the way they do. Watching a lunchroom full of middle schoolers interact with each other may seem like a pretty boring task to the average person. To me, it’s better than cable TV: It’s a fascinating glimpse into the complex and sometimes mysterious world of adolescents.

Publications

Cillessen, A. H. N., & Mayeux, L. (2007). Developmental changes in the association between aggression and status in the peer system. In P. Hawley, T. Little, & P. Rodkin (Eds.), Aggression and Adaptation.

Mayeux, L., & Cillessen, A. H. N. (2007). Peer influence and the development of antisocial behavior. In H. Stattin, M. Kerr, & R. Engels (Eds.), Friends, lovers, and groups: Who is important in adolescence and why? London: Wiley.

Cillessen, A. H. N., & Mayeux, L. (2004). From censure to reinforcement: Developmental changes in the association between aggression and social status. Child Development, 75, 147-163.

Cillessen, A. H. N., & Mayeux, L. (2004). Sociometric status and peer group behavior: Previous findings and current directions. In J. B. Kupersmidt & K. A. Dodge (Eds.), Children’s peer relations: From development to intervention to policy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.

Underwood, M. K., Mayeux, L., & Galperin, M. (2004). Peer relationships in middle childhood: Gender, emotions, and aggression. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues (2nd ed.).

Mayeux, L., & Cillessen, A. H. N. (2003). The development of social problem solving in early childhood: Stability, change, and associations with social competence. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 164, 153-173.