Dr. Robert Larzelere

Dr. Robert Larzelere’s interest is in collaborating with others who are concerned about the best scientific evidence on important questions about family and family-type relationships. Making progress on that huge goal has led Robert to emphasize improving research methodology and research on parental discipline in his research program and mentoring.

He investigates specific disciplinary processes that account for the effectiveness of the authoritative parenting combination of warmth, communication, just-firm-enough control and increasing autonomy.

Robert is interested in comparing the effectiveness of alternative disciplinary responses to misbehavior and searching for alternative tactics that are more effective than non-abusive spanking in situations where the latter has traditionally been used.
In terms of research methodology, his research involves discriminating between and enhancing causal evidence from non-randomized research designs.