J Belsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 32264 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Belsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Belsky |
| SIGNATURE | BELSKY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2191-2503 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 150 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1923 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 150 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 25 |
Practitioner Review
Attachment theory, with its core concepts, perspectives, and insights developed over the past five decades, is influential for professionals working with young children. However, practitioners face challenges translating attachment theory and research into practical applications. This manifests in attachment myths, theoretical misinterpretations, and inconsistency of application. This state‐of‐the‐art review is authored by 47 attachment researche…
Early and later susceptibility to effects of parenting
This study tests Frankenhuis and Panchanathan's (2011) evolutionary commitment hypothesis by examining individual differences in susceptibility to the effects of parenting during early and late childhood. Drawing from the Future of Families and Child Well-Being Study ( N = 4,898; 2,342 girls; White/Black/Latinx/other = 590/1,601/813/261) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Developme…
Early-life threat and deprivation
Extensive evidence documents negative consequences of adversity for children's development. Here, we extend such work by looking beyond average effects to consider variation in susceptibility to both threat and deprivation in terms of cognitive and social–emotional development, using an influence-statistic methodology. Data come from the ongoing Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 14,541, 49.1% female, age range: 6 month to 12 ye…
Neural correlates of face familiarity in institutionalised children and links to attachment disordered behaviour
BACKGROUND: One of the most well-documented sequelae of early maltreatment and institutionalisation is attachment problems, including behaviours under the labels of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED). Despite growing evidence of the neurobiological effects of institutionalisation, the neural correlates of these behavioural patterns are largely unknown. METHODS: The current study examined effects …
Parental history of positive development and child behavior in next generation offspring
This study examined whether positive development (PD) in adolescence and young adulthood predicts offspring behavior in two Australasian intergenerational cohorts. The Australian Temperament Project Generation 3 Study assessed PD at age 19–28 (years 2002–2010) and behavior in 1165 infants (12–18 months; 608 girls) of 694 Australian-born parents (age 29–35; 2012–2019; 399 mothers). The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Parenting Stu…
Focus Issue
Anthropogenic and environmental pressures on mountains result in land degradation, as well as in the loss of species and critical ecological functions and services.Concomitantly, average temperatures continue to rise and fluctuations in the amount and spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation increase (eg Hock et al 2019), exacerbating these trends.Hence, the urgency of restoring mountain ecosystems and landscapes is indisputable.Action is nee…
Longitudinal relations between gaming, physical activity, and athletic self-esteem
Youth are increasingly engaged in digital games; while physical activity rates are declining. This study examines whether the amount of time children spend on gaming is related to physical activity and athletic self-esteem. At ages 8, 10, 12, and 14, a community sample of children (n = 751, 379 girls) was interviewed about how often they played digital games, completed questionnaires regarding their athletic self-esteem and wore an accelerometer …
Parenting, Peers and Psychosocial Adjustment
Antecedents of Pregnancy Intention and Prenatal Father Engagement
Prior research indicates that unintended pregnancy is associated with poorer maternal well-being, decreased relationship stability, and compromised child health and development, whereas prenatal father engagement is linked to lower maternal stress and enhanced infant health. Here we extend such research, considering unintended pregnancy and prenatal father engagement in typological perspective to (1) identify different types of (prenatal) familie…
The Value of Dimensional Models of Early Experience
We review the three prevailing approaches—specificity, cumulative risk, and dimensional models—to conceptualizing the developmental consequences of early-life adversity and address fundamental problems with the characterization of these frameworks in a recent Perspectives on Psychological Science piece by Smith and Pollak. We respond to concerns raised by Smith and Pollak about dimensional models of early experience and highlight the value of the…
Childhood disadvantage and adolescent socioemotional wellbeing as predictors of future parenting behaviour
INTRODUCTION: In extending work on early life antecedents of parenting, we investigate associations between childhood family history of disadvantage, adolescent socioemotional wellbeing, and age at first parenthood and subsequent parenting behaviour. METHODS: Parent-child interactions were recorded when participants in the longitudinal Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (New Zealand) had a three-year-old child. Data were avail…
Beyond early years versus adolescence
Developmental scholars, parents, and policymakers alike have long heralded the opening years of life as disproportionately influential. Recent work on adolescence has revealed, however, greater influence of these later years-but without considering how experience during these two periods interact. We address this issue by studying adverse experiences (e.g., parental divorce, incarceration) measured at ages 0-5 years and 13-18 years on problematic…
The co‐occurrence between symptoms of internet gaming disorder and psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence
BACKGROUND: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is highlighted as a condition for further study in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Some studies indicate that IGD appears comorbid with other psychiatric disorders. We examine concurrent and prospective links between symptoms of IGD and symptoms of common psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence to determine whether observed comorbidity is a resu…
Time Spent Gaming and Social Competence in Children
Electronic games are popular and many children spend much time on this activity. Here we investigate whether the quantity of time children spend on gaming is related to their social development, making this the first study to examine this relationship in children. We examine prospective relations between time spent gaming and social competence in a community sample of Norwegian 6 year olds (n = 873) followed up at ages 8, 10, and 12, controlling …
Testing three hypotheses about effects of sensitive–insensitive parenting on telomeres
Telomeres are the protective DNA-protein sequences appearing at the ends of chromosomes; they shorten with each cell division and are considered a biomarker of aging. Shorter telomere length and greater erosion have been associated with compromised physical and mental health and are hypothesized to be affected by early life stress. In the latter case, most work has relied on retrospective measures of early life stressors. The Dutch research ( n =…
Does prenatal stress amplify effects of postnatal maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms on child problem behavior
Emerging evidence suggests that prenatal stress does not solely undermine child functioning but increases developmental plasticity to both negative and positive postnatal experiences. Here we test this proposition using the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study while implementing an extreme-group (i.e., high vs. low prenatal stress) design (n = 27,889 children for internalizing and n = 27,892 for externalizing problems). To measure prenatal str…
General Psychopathology and Dysregulation Profile in a Longitudinal Community Sample
Genetics of nurture
Twin studies have documented that parenting behavior is partly heritable, but it is unclear how parents' genetics shape their caregiving. Using tools of molecular genetics, the present study investigated this process by testing hypotheses about associations between a genome-wide polygenic score for educational attainment and parental caregiving in 702 members of the Dunedin Study, a population-representative birth cohort. Data have been prospecti…
Longitudinal pathways between mental health difficulties and academic performance during middle childhood and early adolescence
There is a growing appreciation that child functioning in different domains, levels, or systems are interrelated over time. Here, we investigate links between internalizing symptoms, externalizing problems, and academic attainment during middle childhood and early adolescence, drawing on two large data sets (child: mean age 8.7 at enrolment, n = 5,878; adolescent: mean age 11.7, n = 6,388). Using a 2-year cross-lag design, we test three hypothese…
Constitutionality in Montana
Predictors of eating behavior in middle childhood
Children's eating behavior influences energy intake and thus weight through choices of type and amount of food. One type of eating behavior, food responsiveness, defined as eating in response to external cues such as the sight and smell of food, is particularly related to increased caloric intake and weight. Because little is known about the potential determinants of such behavior, we focus herein on child and parent predictors of food responsive…
Interactive effects of early-life income harshness and unpredictability on children’s socioemotional and academic functioning in kindergarten and adolescence
This research investigates whether and how two fundamental environmental factors-harshness and unpredictability-interact in regulating child and adolescent development, informed by life-history theory and drawing on data from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development ( N = 1,364). Early life harshness was operationalized as the typical level of family income-to-needs based on six re…
The Social Lives of Forests
The Social Lives of Forests: Past, Present, and Future of Woodland Resurgence, by Susanna B. Hecht, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Christine Padoch, eds.." Society & Natural Resources, 30(9), pp. 1179–1180
Change in parenting, change in student–teacher relationships, and oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR)
Prior research suggests that parenting affects children's relationships, including those with teachers, although there is variation across individuals in such effects. Given evidence suggesting that oxytocin may be particularly important for the quality of social relationships, we tested the hypotheses (a) that change in parenting from 4 to 6 years of age influences and predicts change in the student-teacher relationship from 6 to 8 years of age …
Change in attachment predicts change in emotion regulation particularly among 5-HTTLPR short-allele homozygotes
In view of the theory that the attachment relationship provides a foundation for the development of emotion regulation, here, we evaluated (a) whether change in attachment security from 4 to 6 years predicts change in emotion regulation from 6 to 8 years and (b) whether 5-HTTLPR moderates this relation in a Norwegian community sample (n = 678, 99.7% Caucasian). Attachment was measured with the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, and teachers …
Child maltreatment
Beyond diathesis stress
Evolutionary-biological reasoning suggests that individuals should be differentially susceptible to environmental influences, with some people being not just more vulnerable than others to the negative effects of adversity, as the prevailing diathesis-stress view of psychopathology (and of many environmental influences) maintains, but also disproportionately susceptible to the beneficial effects of supportive and enriching experiences (or just th…
Etiology of child maltreatment
This article applies a developmental-ecological perspective to the question of the etiology of physical child abuse and neglect by organizing the paper around a variety of "contexts of maltreatment." The roles of parent and child characteristics and processes are considered ("developmental context"), including an examination of intergenerational transmission. The "immediate interactional context" of maltreatment, which focuses on the parenting an…
Early human experience
Beyond cumulative risk
Drawing on life history theory, Ellis and associates' (2009) recent across- and within-species analysis of ecological effects on reproductive development highlighted two fundamental dimensions of environmental variation and influence: harshness and unpredictability. To evaluate the unique contributions of these factors, the authors of present article examined data from a national sample 1364 mothers and their children participating in the NICHD S…
Patterns of Marital Change across the Transition to Parenthood
The purpose of this investigation is to advance the study of marital change across the transition to parenthood by moving beyond the study of central tendencies to examine variation in the matter and extent to which spouses experiences of their mates and their marital relationships changed from the last trimester of pregnancy through 3 years postpartum. Analyses of marital data collected at 4 points in time on 128 middle and working-class familie…
Mothers' representations of their relationships with their toddlers
Mothers (N = 125) and their firstborn sons were studied over an 11-month period to examine relations between mothers' representations of their relationships with their children (measured at 15 months by using the Parent Development Interview [PDI]), adult representations of attachment (measured at 12 months by using the Adult Attachment Interview [AAI]), and observed mothering (measured at 15 and 21 months). Results indicate (a) that mothers clas…
Marital Change Across the Transition to Parenthood
Recent studies of the transition to parenthood which advance understanding over to earlier, cross sectional and retrospective investigations are examined with regard to what they indicate about how marriages change that occur in marital activities/interactions and sentiments, design issues pertaining to this recent research are considered, specifically the need for and meaning of a childless comparison group. An analysis of studies which employ a…
The “Effects” of infant day care reconsidered
Patterns of Marital Change and Parent-Child Interaction
Origins of infant-mother attachment
The development of reproductive strategy in females
To test a proposition central to J. Belsky, L. Steinberg, and P. Draper's (1991) evolutionary theory of socialization-that pubertal maturation plays a role in linking early rearing experience with adolescent sexual risk taking (i.e., frequency of sexual behavior) and, perhaps, other risk taking (e.g., alcohol, drugs, delinquency)-the authors subjected longitudinal data on 433 White, 62 Black, and 31 Hispanic females to path analysis. Results show…
Parent-child antecedents of 5-year-olds' close friendships
A longitudinal study of 73 families was extended to examine links between early parent-child relationships measured at 1 (in the Strange Situation) and 3 (in a laboratory observation) years and the target child's relationship with a close friend at 5 years of age (in a laboratory observation). Path analysis was used to test developmental models of parent-child antecedents of dyadic positive and negative friendship behavior
Parental and Nonparental Child Care and Children's Socioemotional Development
Jay Belsky, Parental and Nonparental Child Care and Children's Socioemotional Development: A Decade in Review, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 52, No. 4, Family Research in the 1980s: The Decade in Review (Nov., 1990), pp. 885-903
Multiple Determinants of Father Involvement during Infancy in Dual-Earner and Single-Earner Families
Stability and Change in Marriage across the Transition to Parenthood
In order to assess marital change in response to the birth of a first-born or later-born infant, 72 volunteer couples were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the ninth postpartum month. Joint couple interviews; individual spousal questionnaires; and naturalistic, in-home, behavioral observations were used. Analyses of mean scores revealed modest yet highly reliable changes in marital adjustment (as assessed by the…
Early and Extensive Maternal Employment and Young Children's Socioemotional Development
Jay Belsky, David Eggebeen, Early and Extensive Maternal Employment and Young Children's Socioemotional Development: Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Nov., 1991), pp. 1083-1098
The intergenerational transmission of parenting
Long-standing interest in the intergenerational transmission of parenting has stimulated work focused on child maltreatment, harsh parenting, and warm-supportive rearing. In addition to documenting significant, even if modest, continuity in parenting across generations, research in this area has addressed questions of mediation and moderation. This special section extends work in this general area, with 2 studies further chronicling intergenerati…
From exploration to play
40 infants, divided into 10 evenly spaced age groups between the ages of 7.5 and 21 mo, were observed playing with 2 sets of toys in their own homes for up to 30 min. Narrative records of Ss' behavior were coded in terms of a 12-step sequence of play development. Analysis of individual performance i
Classroom Effects on Children’s Achievement Trajectories in Elementary School
This nonexperimental, longitudinal field study examines the extent to which variation in observed classroom supports (quality of emotional and instructional interactions and amount of exposure to literacy and math activities) predicts trajectories of achievement in reading and math from 54 months to fifth grade. Growth mixture modeling detected two latent classes of readers: fast readers whose skills developed rapidly and leveled off, and a typic…
Stability and Change in Marriage across the Transition to Parenthood
This 2nd longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood focuses on 67 middle class caucasian primiparous couples residins in Pennsylvania US and substitutes a measurement system more differentiated than the widely used Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) for evaluating marital change. The instruments selected for this 2nd longitudinal study require respondents to rate their subjective evaluations of various interaction events of their partners and …
Continuity and discontinuity in infant negative and positive emotionality
This study was based on the premise that much of the instability evident in research on infant emotionality/temperament is a function not so much of measurement error (as typically presumed) but lawful discontinuity. Infants who changed from high to low and from low to high levels of negative or positive emotionality between 3 and 9 months of age were compared with infants who remained stable during the period on distal measures of the family env…
Mother–father–infant interaction
Testing a series of causal propositions relating time in child care to children’s externalizing behavior
Prior research has documented associations between hours in child care and children's externalizing behavior. A series of longitudinal analyses were conducted to address 5 propositions, each testing the hypothesis that child care hours causes externalizing behavior. Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were used in this inve…
Child-rearing antecedents of intergenerational relations in young adulthood
Data gathered from mothers on parenting and family climate when almost 1,000 children in the Dunedin, New Zealand, longitudinal study were 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 15 years of age were used to predict intergenerational relations between young adult children (age 26) and their middle-aged parents. Analyses focused on distinct developmental epochs revealed greater prediction from the middle-childhood and early-adolescent periods than from the early-chil…
The Effects of Day Care
BELSKY, JAY, and STEINBERG, LAURENCE D. The Effects of Day Care: A Critical Review. CHmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 929-949. Although research on day care has increased substantially in volume during the last 8 years, our actual knowledge of its effects is exceedingly limited. Generally, investigations have been conducted within high-quality centers which are not representative of most substitute-care environments. More seriously, most studies have …
Mother-father-infant interaction
Mother–father–infant interaction
The Interrelation of Parental and Spousal Behavior during Infancy in Traditional Nuclear Families
Jay Belsky, The Interrelation of Parental and Spousal Behavior during Infancy in Traditional Nuclear Families: An Exploratory Analysis, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 749-755
Clarifying a sentence
Clarifying a sentence
Child maltreatment
Child maltreatment
Child maltreatment
From exploration to play
40 infants, divided into 10 evenly spaced age groups between the ages of 7.5 and 21 mo, were observed playing with 2 sets of toys in their own homes for up to 30 min. Narrative records of Ss' behavior were coded in terms of a 12-step sequence of play development. Analysis of individual performance i
Early human experience
A principled approach to intervention with families in the newborn period
Employing the Brazelton scale to influence mothering
Stability and Change in Marriage across the Transition to Parenthood
In order to assess marital change in response to the birth of a first-born or later-born infant, 72 volunteer couples were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the ninth postpartum month. Joint couple interviews; individual spousal questionnaires; and naturalistic, in-home, behavioral observations were used. Analyses of mean scores revealed modest yet highly reliable changes in marital adjustment (as assessed by the…
The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, III
Jay Belsky, Michael Rovine, Dawn G. Taylor, The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, III: The Origins of Individual Differences in Infant-Mother Attachment: Maternal and Infant Contributions, Child Development, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jun., 1984), pp. 718-728
The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, I
In order to further understanding of the development of the father-infant relationship, patterns of mothering and fathering in 72 families were observed longitudinally (at 1, 3, and 9 months) and from the perspective of the family system. Analyses of variance revealed comparable developmental change in maternal and paternal behaviors, but striking differences between parents, with mothers engaging in far more interaction at all ages studied. Anal…
The Determinants of Parenting
Assessing performance, competence, and executive capacity in infant play
Social-Network Contact, Family Support, and the Transition to Parenthood
In order to assess the effect of a new baby on social-network contact and family support, 72 volunteer families were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the ninth postpartum month. Analyses of open-ended and closed-ended interview questions at three points in time revealed that mean levels of contact with parents'families of origin increased with time, as did contact with other parents with young children. Emotiona…
Forest-product trade in a lowland Filipino village
Exploring Individual Differences in Marital Change across the Transition to Parenthood
The major purpose of this investigation is to test the hypothesis that spouses whose prenatal expectations proved too positive or insufficiently negative relative to their actual postnatal experiences would experience the greatest decline in marital functioning across the transition to parenthood. A 2ndary goal involves the simple comparison of prenatal expectations and postnatal experiences to determine the general accuracy of prenatal expectati…
Stability and Change in Marriage across the Transition to Parenthood
This 2nd longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood focuses on 67 middle class caucasian primiparous couples residins in Pennsylvania US and substitutes a measurement system more differentiated than the widely used Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) for evaluating marital change. The instruments selected for this 2nd longitudinal study require respondents to rate their subjective evaluations of various interaction events of their partners and …
Marital Change During the Transition to Parenthood and Security of Infant-Parent Attachment
To extend research on the characteristics and determinants of marital change during the transition to parenthood to include the consequences of such change, the security of infant-parent attachment was examined. Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of infant and family development, groups were formed on the basis of attachment security at one year and compared in terms of patterns of marital change displayed by mothers and fathers. Mothers o…
The Work-Family Interface and Marital Change Across the Transition to Parenthood
This article examines the effects of work-family interference and support on couples experiencing the transition to parenthood. Correlational relationships between measures of work-family interference and support and assessments of marital change (based on measures taken prenatally and at three- and nine-months postpartum) were examined. The findings suggest that husbands and wives experiencing high levels of work-family interference report an in…
Sex typing and division of labor as determinants of marital change across the transition to parenthood
This investigation examines the proposition that wives who describe their personality in ways that deviate from sex stereotypes will become less positive and more negative about their marriage from before to after they become mothers, particularly when the transition to parenthood is accompanied by an increase in the traditionalism of marital roles. Sixty-one couples were studied longitudinally from the last trimester of pregnancy through the thi…
Psychology (131 works) · Developmental psychology (119 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (62 works) · Social Psychology (61 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (47 works) · Social Psychology (43 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (38 works) · Medicine (35 works) · Child development (28 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (26 works)