The focus of my research is on processes and mechanisms underlying the development of attachment, emotion regulation and social cognition. I study how these processes are shaped by specific characteristics of the child and its caregivers, relationships and interactions between family members, and other important contextual influences. I further analyse the outcomes and impact of these developmental processes, on the family as a system, and for the well-being of individual family members.

To this end, I have developed clinical, attachment-based psychometric tools, and novel materials for assessing social cognition in young children, and have been licensed for several attachment-based clinical instruments developed by others. I lead longitudinal, intervention, and participatory projects focusing on interactions between the child’s caregiving environments and the child’s development and wellbeing. My methodological approaches often combine in-depth clinical investigation with epidemiological survey and quasi-experimental and experimental techniques, as well as approaches to and organization of participatory research, also with children and youth. Some current projects concern preventing detrimental effects of childhood trauma through trauma-informed psychoeducation (funding from FORTE, Crafford Foundation, the Children’s Welfare Foundation, Sweden); understanding socioemotional development with growing up with two homes (växelvis boende) and in other modern family forms (funding from VR and Crafoord Foundation); determining assessment of parental caregiving quality to provide information for supporting families (Vinnova); Consequences of minority social identities – developmental perspective and call for structural competence (BRCMH).

I am Director of the Division of Developmental Psychology, coordinator of the research profile “Children’s voices, rights and development: Future practices for a resilient childhood”, and affiliate of the Birgit Rausing Centre for Medical Humanities. 

I am responsible for and teach the courses of Developmental Psychology within the (Clinical) Psychologist Program and within the International MSc Psychology Program.