Canada Research Chair (Tier II) Adjustment and Well-Being in Children and Youth
Associate Professor
Brock University l Department of Child and Youth Studies
Associate Member
Brock University l Department of Psychology
Director of the Developmental Processes and Well-Being Lab
Dr. Molnar is a social/personality psychologist. At the broadest level, her multidisciplinary research is focused on understanding the biological, psychological, social, and developmental factors that contribute to health, adjustment, and well-being across the lifespan, with a particular focus on perfectionism during the developmental period of adolescence. Questions of interest in Dr. Molnar’s lab include: How do trait, cognitive, and behavioural elements of perfectionism differentially contribute to health, well-being or adjustment? What processes (e.g., stress, social disconnection) explain the links between perfectionism and adjustment/health/well-being? Within a family systems framework, how is perfectionism related to the quality of the adolescent-parent relationship and does the adolescent-parent relationship affect links between perfectionism and adjustment/health/well-being? From a lifespan perspective, do the associations between perfectionism and health or between perfectionism and well-being vary as function of the developmental period (e.g., middle childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood etc.)? Dr. Molnar draws from multiple perspectives such as psychology, sociology, immunology, and psychoneuroendocrinology and uses multiple methods (e.g., biomarkers, physiological assessments, surveys, photo elicitation, interviews, focus groups) to address the complexity of these research questions.
Dr. Molnar has a passion for statistics and a solid background in quantitative methods. She teaches foundational statistics courses at both the graduate and the undergraduate level and is particularly interested in statistical modeling, dyadic data analysis, and longitudinal data analyses. Please visit Dr. Molnar’s lab website.
Focused on understanding the biological, psychological, social, and developmental factors that contribute to health and well-being across the lifespan, with a particular focus on early and middle childhood.
