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Jay Belsky
Robert M. And Natalie Reid Dorn Endowed Chair Professor
Interests: Social-Emotional, Family, Biological
Life Phases: Infancy, Early Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood
E-mail: jbelsky@ucdavis.edu
Research Profile
Research Interests
Professor Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of special expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years, the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning. Dr. Belsky's research is marked by a focus upon fathers as well as mothers, marriages as well as parent-child relations, and naturalistic home observations of family interaction patterns. It is both basic and applied in its character. He is a founding and collaborating investigator on the NICHD Study of Child Care and Youth Development (US) and that National Evaluation of Sure Start (UK). He is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and chapters and the author/editor of several books, including most recently The National Evaluation of Sure Start: Does Area-Based Early Intervention Work (The Policy Press, 2007).
Selected Publications
Belsky, J. & Pluess, M. (in press). Genetic Moderation of Early Child Care Effects on Behavior Problems and Social Competence Across Childhood: A Developmental Analysis. Child Development.
Belsky, J. (in press). The Development of Human Reproductive Strategies: Progress and Prospects. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
Belsky, J., Hancox, R.J., Sligo, J., & Poulton, R. (in press). Does Being an Older Parent Attenuate the Intergenerational Transmission of parenting? Developmental Psychology.
Van IJzendoorn, M.H., Belsky, J., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. (in press). Serotonin Transporter Genotype 5HTTLPR as a Marker of Differential Susceptibility? A Meta-Analysis of Child and Adolescent Gene-by-Environment Studies. Translational Psychiatry.
Widaman, K.F., Helm, J.L., Castro-Schilo, L., Pluess, M., Stallings, M.C. & Belsky, J. (in press). Distinguishing Ordinal and Disordinal Interactions. Psychological Methods.
Belsky, J. (in press). Why would natural selection craft an organism whose future functioning is influenced by its earlier experiences? In D. Narvaez, J. Panksepp, A. Schore & T. Gleason (Eds.). Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy. NY: Oxford University Press.
Belsky, J., Schlomer, G.L., & Ellis, B.J. (2012). Beyond Cumulative Risk: Distinguishing Harshness and Unpredictability as Determinants of Parenting and Early Life History. Developmental Psychology, 48, 662-673.
Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2012). Differential susceptibility to long-term effects of quality of child care on externalizing behavior in adolescence? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 36, 2-10.
Schlomer, G.L. & Belsky, J. (2012). Maternal Age, Investment, and Parent-Child Conflict: A Mediational Test of the Terminal Investment Hypothesis. Journal of Family Psychology, 26.443-452.
Nederhof, E., Belsky, J., Ormel, J., & Oldenhinkel, A.J. (2012). Effects of Divorce on Dutch Boys’ and Girls’ Externalizing Behavior in GXE Perspective: Diathesis Stress or Differential Susceptibility?. Development and Psychopathology, 24, 929-939.
Belsky, J., & Beaver, K.M. (2011). Cumulative-Genetic Plasticity, Parenting and Adolescent Self Regulation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 619-626.
Belsky, J. & De Haan, M. (2011). Parenting and Children’s Brain Development: The End of the Beginning. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 409-428.
Belsky, J. (2011). Family Experience and Pubertal Development in Evolutionary Perspective. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 425-426.
Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2011). Beyond Adversity, Vulnerability and Resilience: Individual Differences in Developmental Plasticity. in D. Cicchetti & G. Roismann (Eds.), Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology, Vol. 36: The Origins and Organization of Adaptation and Maladaptation (pp. 379-422). Mahwah, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Ellis. B.J., Boyce, W.T., Belsky, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J., & van Ijzendoorn, M.H. (2011). Differential Susceptibility to the Environment: A Neurodevelopmental Theory. Development & Psychopathology, 23, 1-5.
Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2011). Prenatal Programming of Post-Natal Plasticity? Development & Psychopathology, 23, 29-38.
Belsky J. (2011). Child Care and Its Impact on Young Children. In R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, R. DeV Peters & R.G. Barr (Eds.). Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, 1-7. [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development. Available at: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/BelskyANGxp3-Child_care.pdf.
Fearon, R.M.P. & Belsky, J. (2011). Infant-mother attachment and the growth of externalizing problems across the primary-school years. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 782-791.
Shai, D. & Belsky, J. (2011). When Words Just Won’t Do: Introducing Parental Embodied Mentalizing. Child Development Perspectives, 5, 173-180.
Belsky, J., Steinberg, L., Houts, R.M., Halpern-Felsher, B.L. & The NICHD Early Child Care Research Nework (2010). The Development of Reproductive Strategy in Females: Early Maternal Harshness? Earlier Menarche? Increased Sexual Risk Taking. Developmental Psychology, 46, 120-128.
Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential Susceptibility to Parenting and Quality Child Care. Developmental Psychology, 45, 379-390.
Vandell, D.L., Belsky, J., Burchinal, M., Steinberg, L., Vandergrift, N., & the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (2010). Do Effects of Early Child Care Extend to Age 15 Years? Child Development, 81, 737-756.
Influences. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 885-908.
Belsky, J. & Pluess, M. (2009). The Nature (and Nurture?) of Plasticity in Early Human Development. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 4, 345-351.
Belsky, J., Jonassaint, C., Pluess, M., Stanton, M., Brummet, B., & Williams, R. (2009). Vulnerability Genes or Plasticity Genes? Molecular Psychiatry, 14, 746-754.
Pluess, M., Belsky, J., & Neuman, R.J. (2009). Prenatal Smoking and ADHD: DRD4-7R as a Plasticity Gene. Biological Psychiatry, 66, e5-e6.
