Myrto Dolcetti

LIFE Fellow since 2024, University of Zurich

Since April 2023 I have been a research assistant and PhD candidate in both the Gerontopsychology and Gerontology Unit and the Clinical Psychology for Children/Adolescents and Couples/Families Unit of the Department of Psychology at UZH. My research focuses on studying the micro-longitudinal, dynamic communication and emotional processes taking place within couples during real-time interactions and how these dynamics manifest themselves and develop across the lifespan. Moreover, I aim to use innovative technologies and to contribute to the development of analytical methods to examine the within-dyad interaction dynamics and to analyze the high-density dyadic data collected in the Dyadic Dynamics Analytics Lab. Close relationship and lifespan developmental science already shaped my thinking during my Bachelor’s studies in Psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece—my home country. In my thesis, I applied qualitative research methods to investigate the importance of parent-child attachment during childhood for the quality and development of romantic relationships in adulthood. Later, for my Master’s in Psychology at UZH, I studied how nonverbal synchrony between the romantic partners and their facial emotional expressions unfold during couples’ conflict interactions in the laboratory by using quantitative research methods and innovative technologies. From 2020 to 2022, I contributed to the last wave of a longitudinal study, which investigated how romantic relationships develop over a period of 10 years in a sample of couples belonging in three age cohorts. In parallel to my academic studies, I have completed several clinical internships both in Greece and in Switzerland that provided me with unique insights into how child-parent as well as parents’/couples’ relationships and interactions manifest themselves in real life and change over time thanks to therapeutic interventions.