Dr. Mirjana Majdandžić is assistant professor at the Department of Child Development and Education. She studied Behavioral biology and Bioinformatics at Utrecht University. Her research is focused on the measurement, relations and consequences of temperament (including anxiety) and parenting behavior. She conducted a longitudinal observational study on the relations between temperament, parenting behavior and behavioral problems in families with two children. She is currently involved in a study on the development of social anxiety, where she focuses in particular on the role of fathers' challenging parenting behavior in early anxiety development.  She teaches developmental psychology, behavioral genetics, and temperament & psychopathology at the undergraduate level, and measurement and interrelations of temperament & parenting behavior in the research master.

Research interests: The relations between child temperament and parenting behavior, in particular the role of challenging parenting behavior in the development of child anxiety. Factors of interest regarding these relations include:

• Observational and questionnaire measurement of temperament and parenting behavior.
• Child temperament, including child behavioral inhibition and anxiety.
• Parenting behavior, in particular challenging parenting behavior of fathers.
• Evolutionary theories on differences in parenting behavior between fathers and mothers.
• The role of coparenting in (child and parental) anxiety.
• The role of self-regulation in anxiety.
• Cross-cultural differences in the relations between temperament and parenting behaviour

A second area of interest is parenting processes and the development of children of single mothers by choice.

• www.sociale-ontwikkeling.nl

Publications

Aktar, E., Majdandžić, M., de Vente, W., & Bögels, S.M. (in press). The interplay between expressed parental anxiety and infant behavioural inhibition predicts infant avoidance in a social referencing paradigm. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry . (IF 4.36)

Möller, E.L., Majdandžić, M., de Vente, W. & Bögels, S.M. (in press). The evolutionary basis of sex differences in parenting and its relationship with child anxiety in Western societies. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology .

Majdandžić , M., de Vente, W., Feinberg, M., Aktar, E., & Bögels, S.M. (2012). Bidirectional associations between coparenting relations and family member anxiety: Areview and conceptual model. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 15: 28-42. (IF 2.31)

Colonnesi, C., Bögels, S.M., Vente, W. de, & Majdandžić, M. (2011). What the first coy smile says about positive shyness during infancy. Infancy . 1-19. (IF 1.51)

Majdandžić , M., Möller, E., Bögels, S.M., & Van den Boom, D.C. (2011). Verschillen tussen vaders en moeders in de relatie tussen opvoedingsgedrag en sociale angst van hun kinderen. Pedagogiek 31(1), 11-28 .

Vente, W. de, Majdandžić, M., Colonnesi, C., & Bögels, S.M. (2011). Intergenerational transmission of social anxiety: The role of paternal and maternal fear of negative child evaluation and parenting behaviour. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology 4, 509-530.

Bögels, S.M., Stevens, J. & Majdandžić, M. (2011). Parenting and social anxiety: Fathers' versus mothers' influence on their children's anxiety in ambiguous social situations . Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry . 52(5), 599-606. (IF 4.36)

Majdandžić , M., Vente, W. de, & Bögels, S.M. (2010). Rearing histories of individuals with and without social anxiety who become first time parents. Anxiety, Stress & Coping 23(3), 243 - 258. (IF 1.83)

Majdandžić , M., Van den Boom, D. C., & Heesbeen,  D.G.M. (2008). Peasin a pod: Biases in the measurement of sibling temperament?  Developmental Psychology  44(5), 1354 -1368. (IF 3.41)

Majdandžić , M., & Van den Boom, D. C. (2007). Multi-method longitudinal assessment of temperament in early childhood. Journal of Personality  75 (1), 121 -168. (IF 3.0)

Van den Boom, D.C. & Majdandžić, M. (2002). Onderzoek naar het effect van opvoeding: verleden en toekomst. In J.D. Bosch, A. Vyt, M.A.G. van Aken, R.J. van der Gaag en A.J.J.M.  Ruijssenaars (Eds.) Jaarboek Ontwikkelingspsychologie, orthopedagogiek en kinderpsychiatrie 2002-2003 , 5 e editie, 262-278.

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