Research
My research explores how early relationship and developmental experiences may influence the ways people understand themselves, experience personal agency, respond to expectations, and navigate achievement.
I am particularly interested in the connections among attachment and relational experiences, locus of control, perfectionism, achievement anxiety, and human development, and in using research to ask not only what people experience, but how those experiences may have developed over time.
The Question Connecting the Work
What shapes our sense of what we can do?
Across my research, I keep returning to questions about how people develop a sense of themselves in relation to the world around them.
How might early relationships influence whether we experience the world as something we can act upon or something that happens to us? How do expectations, from ourselves and from others, become connected to achievement, anxiety, or perfectionism? And what experiences may help strengthen a person's sense of agency over time?
These questions currently guide my work with adolescents, emerging adults, and young adults and continue to shape the research direction I hope to pursue.
Current Research
RELATE
The RELATE STUDY
Early Relational Experiences, Locus of Control, Perfectionism, and Achievement Anxiety in Young Adults
Principal Investigator · 2026 - Present
The RELATE Study is an independent mixed-methods correlational research project examining relationships among early parent-child relational experiences, locus of control, multidimensional perfectionism, and achievement-related anxiety in emerging and young adults.
Drawing from attachment, social learning, and perfectionism research, the study asks how experiences of parental care and overprotection may relate to perceptions of personal agency, perfectionistic tendencies, and anxiety surrounding achievement and evaluation.
Quantitative measures are paired with qualitative questions to explore experiences and perspectives that standardized measures alone may not fully capture.
Current Status
IRB protocol under revision prior to participant recruitment and data collection.
Power Within
The Power Within
Positive Youth Development · Adolescent Agency · School-Based Research
Student Researcher · 2025 - 2026
Principal Investigator: Angela DeSilva Mousseau, PhD
Merrimack College
The Power Within is a school-based Positive Youth Development research and psychoeducational initiative exploring how structured programming designed to strengthen internal developmental assets may support adolescent well-being, personal agency, self-efficacy, and sense of purpose.
The project uses mixed methods to examine measurable outcomes and students' experiences of the program, combining quantitative data with reflections and qualitative perspectives.
My contributions as a student researcher included research analysis, literature review, program development for a subsequent phase, scholarly writing, poster development, and research dissemination through conference presentations.
Selected Dissemination
Locus of Control Development in Adolescents: The Power Within Pilot Findings
Eastern Psychological Association Annual Meeting · 2026
First Author & Presenter
Listening to Students; A Qualitative Look at What Helps Adolescents Thrive in School
Massachusetts School Counselors Association Spring Conference · 2026
Author & Presenter
Research Themes
How caregiving, attachment, and relational experiences may contribute to the beliefs people develop about themselves and others.
Early Relationships
How people develop beliefs about control, influence, self-efficacy, and their capacity to affect what happens next.
Agency
How perfectionism, expectations, evaluation, and performance pressures interact with anxiety and self-concept.
Achievement
How these processes emerge and change across adolescence, emerging adulthood, and later developmental transitions.
Development
Selected Research & Presentations
2026 · Eastern Psychological Association Annual Meeting
Locus of Control Development in Adolescents: The Power Within Pilot Findings
Jenna Amara & Angela DeSilva Mousseau, PhD
Poster Presentation · First Author & Presenter
2026 · Massachusetts School Counselors Association Spring Conference
Listening to Students: A Qualitative Look at What Helps Adolescents Thrive in School
Jenna Amara, Dianna Ingersoll, & Angela DeSilva Mousseau, PhD
Poster Presentation · Author & Digital Presenter
Research Approach
Numbers tell part of the story. People tell us more.
I am drawn to mixed-methods research because human experience rarely fits neatly into a single measure.
Quantitative methods allow us to examine patterns, relationships, and change. Qualitative inquiry can help us understand how people experience those patterns in their own lives and sometimes reveal questions we did not know to ask.
I am particularly interested in research that allows these forms of knowledge to inform one another: using empirical measurement without losing sight of the people who experiences the data are intended to represent.
Continue the Conversation
If you're curious about the questions I'm exploring, the research behind them, or the ideas that emerge through my writing and educational work, I'd love to have you follow along.
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