Human Development

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 1986 from the University of Virginia, and did three years of postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. From 1992-1998 he was Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Missouri where he taught a 300-student lifespan development course every semester. From 1998-2005 he was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development at the University of Maryland. In the fall of 2005 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

His primary scholarly interest for the past 10 years has been in emerging adulthood. He coined the term, and has conducted research on emerging adults concerning a wide variety of topics, including risk behavior (especially cigarette smoking) and media use (especially music), involving several different ethnic groups in American society. He is the editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research, and is on the Editorial Board of four other journals. He was Editor-In-Chief for two encyclopedias published in 2007, the International Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Routledge, two volumes) and the Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media (Sage, two volumes). He has published many theoretical and research papers on emerging adulthood in peer-reviewed journals, as well as the books Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (2010, 4th edition, Pearson); Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties (2004, Oxford University Press); and Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation (1996, Westview Press). He has also edited (with Jennifer Tanner) the book Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century, published in 2006 by APA Books.

He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts with his wife Lene Jensen and their nine-year-old twins, Miles and Paris. For more information on Dr. Arnett and his research, see www.jeffreyarnett.com.