The Transactional Model of Development

Arnold Sameroff, PhD, a developmental psychologist, is currently professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, where he is also chair of the Developmental Psychology Graduate Training Program and director of the Development and Mental Health Research Program at the Center for Human Growth and Development.

His influential theoretical work on ecological transactional models of development has helped to move researchers to more dynamic, system-based research efforts for understanding healthy child development, and his research on environmental risk and promotive factors has fostered a more comprehensive understanding of what is necessary to improve the cognitive and social amp ndash emotional welfare of children. Among the high-risk groups he is currently studying are infants with physiologic regulatory problems, children with depressed parents, adolescents living in low-resource neighborhoods, and adults reared in families with parental mental illness.

He has published numerous research articles and 2 books and monographs, including The Five to Seven Year Shift: The Age of Reason and Responsibility Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology Treating Early Relationship Problems: Infant, Parent, and Interaction Therapies and, with Sheryl Olson, the forthcoming Regulatory Processes in the Development of Behavior Problems: Biological, Behavioral, and Social amp ndash Ecological Interactions.

Among his honors are the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Research in Child Development and the G. Stanley Hall Award from Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. He is former president of Division 7 of the American Psychological Association and the International Society for Infant Studies and is current president of the Society for Research in Child Development.