The talk, “Positive Parenting and Positive Development in Children” will take place Wednesday, Nov. 17, from noon to 1pm at the Executive Learning Centre, X106 Seymour Schulich Building, Keele campus. A reception will follow, from 1 to 2pm at the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research. Everyone is welcome to attend, but as space is limited, it is requested that you RSVP for both the talk and the reception at owhchair@yorku.ca.

Right: Marc Bornstein

Armed with the knowledge that things do not always go well in child development, policy-makers, educators and parents share the laudable and well-intentioned goal to develop preventions, interventions and remediations in the service of children, says Bornstein. “But treatment is not just fixing what is broken; it is also nurturing what is best. My talk takes a ‘positive youth development’ perspective as its starting point.”

In the first part of the talk, Bornstein will look to the literature to define prominent positive characteristics and values in children. In the second part, he will address the important goal of how children can be best helped to achieve those positive characteristics and values.

“To do this, I will show how parents, who are children’s primary advocates and their front-line defence, are the corps most available and in the greatest number to lobby and labour for children,” says Bornstein. “I discuss direct effects of parents on children as well as indirect effects. I focus on both childhood and adolescence and incorporate new work on brain development. Finally, I discuss a specificity principle that may guide future thinking and action in positive child development.”

As a researcher, Bronstein has received numerous awards for his research from such organizations as the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, the American Psychological Association, the National Institutes of Health, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the American Mensa Education & Research Foundation. In 2008, he was recognized by the Society for Research in Child Development for his efforts in the international and cross-cultural realm with its Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development Award.

Bornstein has been a faculty member at Princeton University and New 91ŃÇÉ«, and a visiting scientist, fellow and professor at more than eight universities and research institutes, including the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, University College London, UniversitĂ© RenĂ© Descartes in Paris, the University of Tokyo and the Sorbonne.

In addition to hundreds of scientific papers, he is co-author of the widely used book series and editor of other book series, including The Crosscurrents in Contemporary Psychology, Monographs in Parenting and Handbook of Parenting. He is the founding editor of and has written several children's books.

Bornstein is also co-editor of a new book that 91ŃÇÉ« psychology Professor Maria Legerstee is publishing with University of Toronto Professor David Haley. The book, , will be released later this year by Guilford Press.

Bornstein’s research interests include the origins, status and development of psychological constructs, structures, functions and processes in the first two years of life; the effect of child characteristics and activities on parents; and the meaning of variations in parenting and in the family across different socio-demographic and cultural groups.

The talk is joint venture hosted by the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research, Echo’s Ontario Women’s Health Council Chair in Women’s Mental Health Research and The Lillian & Don Wright Foundation.

For more information, visit the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research website. For more information on the LaMarsh Speaker Series, visit the Faculty of Health website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin

The post LaMarsh Centre brings Professor Marc Bornstein to 91ŃÇÉ« for positive parenting talk appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

As a researcher, Bronstein has received numerous awards for his research from such organizations as National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, the American Psychological Association, the National Institutes of Health, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the American Mensa Education & Research Foundation.

Right: Marc Bornstein

He is the co-author of the Development in Infancy book series and editor of other book series, including , and . Bornstein's research interests include the origins, status and development of psychological constructs, structures, functions and processes in the first two years of life; the effect of child characteristics and activities on parents; and the meaning of variations in parenting and in the family across different socio-demographic and cultural groups.

Bornstein is also co-editor of a new book that 91ŃÇÉ« psychology Professor is publishing with University of Toronto Professor David Haley. The book, , will be released later this year by Guilford Press. The book offers new insights into the development of the human child by bringing together international scholars from various disciplines who study the multiple domains that contribute to social-cognitive neuroscience development.

"The work is guided by extensive research into the reciprocal role of infant core abilities and social relationships in neural and behavioural development. The interdisciplinary scientists who contribute use the latest behavioural, hormonal, genetic, and imaging technologies to discover how infants’ sensory, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social capacities interact in social-cognitive development," says Legerstee. "This afternoon, during his visit to 91ŃÇÉ«, Dr. Borrnstein will be presenting from a chapter he is writing for the book, titled 'Toward a Behavioural Neuroscience of Parenting'."

The reading is free and open to members of the community. It will take place today, from 4:30 to 6:30pm, in the Norman Endler Room, 163 Behavioural Sciences Building, on 91ŃÇÉ«'s Keele campus.

In 2008, Bornstein was recognized by the Society for Research in Child Development for his efforts in the international and cross-cultural realm with its Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development Award. In just the last three years, Bornstein has published at least five books, 42 book chapters and 61 papers.

The reading is supported with a grant from the 91ŃÇÉ« Seminar in Advance Research from the Office of the Vice-President of Research & Innovation.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin

The post Marc Bornstein, child development researcher, to speak at 91ŃÇÉ« this afternoon appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

, a psychology PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health at 91ŃÇÉ«'s Centre for Infancy Studies, describe her research, which was conducted under the direction of Professor Maria Legerstee and published in the Journal Infancy. The clip runs approximately 10 minutes.

Edited by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

The post Listen to 91ŃÇÉ« PhD student describe research on babies and manipulation appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

A study by 91ŃÇÉ« researchers reveals that infants as young as six months old know when we’re “playing” them – and they don’t like it.

Researchers in 91ŃÇɫ’s examined six- and nine-month-old babies’ reactions to a game in which an experimenter was either unable or unwilling to share a toy. Babies detected and calmly accepted when an experimenter was unable to share for reasons beyond her control, but averted their gazes and became agitated when it was clear she simply wouldn’t share.

“Babies can tell if you’re teasing or being manipulative, and they let you know it,” says study lead author Heidi Marsh, a PhD student who worked under the direction of psychology Professor , head of the Centre for Infancy Studies in 91ŃÇɫ’s .

“These results are exciting as it’s the first demonstration that used infants’ social behaviour to successfully show that at six months they comprehend the goals of our actions. Previously, there was only evidence based on visual habituation (observing the pattern of infants’ gazes towards stimuli) which is prone to interpretative issues, and even those results were very mixed,” Marsh says.

Other studies have concluded that this ability doesn’t develop until nine months of age. However, that research used measures which Marsh proposes are unsuited to younger infants.

“A six-month-old as compared to a nine-month-old has different ways of expressing what they know,” says Marsh. “The innovative aspect of this research is that we used measures that are consistent with a six-month-old’s everyday behaviour in order to understand what they comprehend. We recorded their social responses, such as sadness, gaze aversions, smiles and vocalizations, in addition to more physical responses such as reaching and banging,” she says.

The study looked at 40 infants, evenly divided between genders. Infants sat in their mothers’ laps at a table, with the experimenter seated across from them. In half the test trials, the toy was not passed to the infant because the experimenter was unwilling to share it, and in the others, it was not passed because the experimenter was trying, but unable, to pass it.

Infants were administered three tasks: block, mock and play. Each task differed with respect to the toy that was shared and the nature of the sharing game, but in all tasks there was a corresponding unwilling and unable condition. For instance, in the mock task, a rattle was held out toward the infant and then pulled back teasingly (unwilling condition), and a ball was "accidentally" dropped and rolled back to the experimenter (unable condition).

The visible movements of both the experimenter and the toy were matched across conditions, as was the outcome that the toy was not shared. This meant that the main difference between conditions was the experimenter’s intent.

“We also used the experimenter’s facial expressions to convey unwillingness or inability, as they’re important cues for babies to understand others’ goals,” says Marsh.

Infants at both ages averted their gazes during unwilling trials. They also reached more in the unable conditions, suggesting they understood there was a problem and were trying to elicit the adult’s assistance. The nine-month-olds banged their arms in the unwilling conditions, whereas the six-month-olds showed more negative affect, such as frowns, in those trials, and positive affective behaviours in unable conditions.

“Our finding that affective measures are stronger for younger infants may be related to their level of independence,” Marsh says. “As infants become more independent, they decrease affective behaviour such as crying, and increase physical actions such as actively resisting. These distinctions point to the importance of studying infants’ social and cognitive abilities not only over time, but also in paradigms that capture the spectrum of their social behaviours.”

The study, “”, is co-authored by Legerstee, Jennifer Stavropoulos and Tom Nienhuis. It was published online in in January 2010.

This research was supported by grants from the .

By Melissa Hughes, Media Relations Officer.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Think baby knows when you tease? Study from Centre for Infancy Studies says six-month-olds know difference between play and teasing appeared first on UAP 2026-30.