Claremont McKenna College

Families Reuniting after Work

RENA REPETTI

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2005

Professor of psychology, Rena Repetti, is a core faculty member in the Center for the Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) at UCLA, an interdisciplinary research center funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Repetti adopts a social ecological approach to study family and individual health and development. She is interested in how experiences outside of the family (primarily at work and at school) shape the patterning of family interactions and, ultimately, the emotional and social functioning of all family members (both children and parents). A central component of the CELF study is a microscopic investigation of a "week in the life" of a sample of families.

Repetti is also interested in the role of early family rearing environments in shaping long-term physical and mental health. The Risky Families Model (Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002) delineates biological and psychological processes through which a child's healthy development can be hindered by certain family characteristics. Their studies show how stressors spillover into the home and influence the family social environment, including both marital and parent-child interaction.

Dr. Repetti's Athenaeum lecture is sponsored the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at Claremont McKenna College.