As a teenager I was always interested in psychology so when I went to college I thought the clinical route was the way to go. In my sophomore year I got a job working at a psychiatric inpatient unit where I quickly discovered that clinical was not my particular cup of tea. Initially inspired by the work of Robert Wright, I became interested in learning about evolutionary approaches to understanding human behavior. I was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of two evolutionary minded scholars at my undergraduate institution, Kathleen Heath and Virgil Sheets, who encouraged me to read about evolution, development, and family dynamics. Subsequently, I spent two years getting my master's in Experimental Psychology at Western Illinois University under the advisement of Kristine Kelly and Eugene Mathus where I did research on differences in mate preferences between adolescents and their parents. After completing my master's I then went on to obtain my Ph.D. in Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona under Bruce Ellis. My dissertation consisted of three papers (two quantitative and one theoretical) that focused on parent-offspring conflict theory, an evolutionary biological approach to understanding the causes and consequences of conflict and competition within families.
More recently I joined the Arizona Center for Research and Outreach were I have worked as a Research Scientist studying how military deployment impacts children and families. In addition, I have done some work on postive youth development and after-school programs.
- Parent-Child Conflict
- Life History Theory
- Quantitative Analysis (missing data, SEM, MLM, LGM)
My primary area of research is in parent-offspring conflict theory (POCT). To this end I have recently published a theoritical paper on POCT in Psychological Review. My emperical work has focused on testing hypotheses about parent-child relations derived from my theortical work. In these projects I utilize a variety of statistical techniques including regression, multi-level modeling, structural equation modeling, as well as various methods for handling missing data.
My other research interests include life history theory, developmental plasticity, and methods for handling missing data. Most recently I have been conducting research on military deployment and child and family functioning as well as other work on youth after-school programming.
Graduate level statistics, adolescence, human development, introduction to psychology, undergraduate statistics and methods
Schlomer, G. L., Del Guidice, M., Ellis, B. J. (in press). Parent-offspring conflict theory: An evolutionary framework for understanding conflict within human families. Psychological Review.
Belsky, J., Schlomer, G. L., & Ellis, B. J. (in press). Beyond cumulative risk: Distinguishing harshness and unpredictability as determinants of parenting and early life history. Developmental Psychology.
Ellis, B. J., Schlomer, G. L. Butler, E. A. & Tilley, L. (in press). The impact of coercive paternal control on risky sexual behavior in daughters: A genetically and environmentally controlled sibling study. Development and Psychopathology.
Card, N. A., Bosch, L., Casper, D. M., Wiggs, C. B., Hawkins, S. A., Schlomer, G. L., &
Borden, L. M. (in press). A meta-analytic review of internalizing, externalizing, and academic adjustment among children of deployed military service members. Journal of Family Psychology.
Figueredo, A. J., Olderbak, S. G. Schlomer, G. L., Wolf, P. S. A., & Garcia, R. A. (in press). Program Evaluation: Principals, Procedures, and Practices. Oxford Handbook of Quantitative Methods.
King, A., Schlomer, G. L., & Ellis, B. J. (in press). Evolutionary Developmental Psychology. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior.
Schlomer, G. L., Ellis, B. J. & Garber, J. (2010). Mother-child conflict and sibling relatedness: A test of hypotheses from parent-offspring conflict theory. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20, 287-306
Schlomer, G. L., Bauman, S., & Card, N. A (2010). Best practices for missing data management in counseling psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57, 1-10
Borden, L. M., Perkins, D. F., Schlomer, G. L., Hawkins, S. A., Wiggs, C. B., Bosch, L., Card, N. A., Casper, C. M., Tokarski, B. T., Aronson, K. R., & DiNallo, J. M. (2010). The impact of deployment on children: A review of the quantitative and qualitative literature. Report submitted by request to the U.S. Department of Defense, October 2010.
*Ellis, B. J., Figueredo, A. J., Brumbach, B. H. & Schlomer, G. L. (2009). Fundamental dimensions of envionmental risk: The impact of harsh versus unpredictable envionments on the evolution and development of life history strategies. Human Nature, 20, 204-268.
*Reciepient of the George A. Miller Award, American Psychological Association, Division I: General Psychology.