From 9-11 March, the International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS) took place in our hometown Brussels – we were thrilled that so many world-renowned scientists presented their work on a few footsteps from our university!

The SAFE-SORRY team also contributed to the conference through two symposia. On Thursday, Stijn Van Petegem chaired a symposium that seeks to put parent-child relationships in their sociocultural context. The symposium featured two presentations of the ULB team: Elliana Lamprianidou presented work on gendered representations of parenthood, and Bénédicte Mouton on societal pressures and parental self-efficacy. Other presentations included contributions of Marta Zeglen (University of Warsaw, Poland) on cultural normativeness and of Terese Glatz (Örebro University, Sweden), who is also member of the SAFE-SORRY team, on cultural parental self-efficacy.

On Friday, Stijn also chaired a symposium on the determinants and consequences of overprotective parenting. This included presentations of Frederik De Spiegeleer (Ghent University),  also a SAFE-SORRY partner, who shared his results of a person-centered study on adolescents’ coping with overprotection. Stijn Van Petegem presented the results of a study on parents’ worries as a determinant of overprotective parenting, whereas Kate Gibb shared her work on the economic determinants of overinvolved parenting. This was also Kate’s last time that she presented her work, as she returned to Canada to pursue clinical work, so we use this opportunity to thank her for her contribution and involvement in the SAFE-SORRY project!

Finally, Şule Selçuk (Hacettepe University, Turkey) presented a poster on her research project on the role of culture for understanding adolescents’ interpretations of overprotective parenting that she will conduct in collaboration with the SAFE-SORRY team.