German Posada

Areas of Expertise

• Child-Parent attachment relationships; naturalistic observational methodology
• Early childhood social competence
• Cross-cultural research
• Naturalistic observational methodology

HHS Signature Research Area(s)

• Developmental Health and Wellness

Department of Human Development and Family Science Research Area(s)

• Culture and Diversity
• Interpersonal Relations

Biography

My primary research program focuses on the development of child-parent attachment relationships during the first six years of life. Specifically, I study the organization of child behavior during interactions with parents, quality of caregiving, and processes involved in the development of attachment mental representations.  I am particularly interested in the study of interactions in naturalistic settings. Also, I investigate the association between child-parent attachment relationships and social competence during early childhood.

An important aspect of my research involves national and international collaborations concerned with the universality and cultural specificity of parental and child behavior, attachment relationships, and implications of those relationships for children’s interactions with peers and other adults.

I am a founding member of the Attachment Ibero-American Network (RIA), an organization of scholars that promote the research capacity, clinical applications, and public policy implications concerned with child-parent relationships and family welfare in Latin-and Iberian-American countries.

Accepting graduate student applications for the December 1, 2024 deadline.

Education

• Post-Doctoral, Fellowship, 1994 - SUNY at Stony Brook
• PhD, 1990 - SUNY at Stony Brook

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• ADVANCE

Current Courses

• HDFS 311 - Child Development
• HDFS 658 - Attachment Relationships

Selected Publications

• Trumbell, J. M., Posada, G., Anaya, L. (2022). Interparental conflict predicts developmental trajectories of maternal sensitivity across early childhood. Family Relations. DOI: 10.1111/fare.12770
• Posada, G., Waters, E., Vaughn, B. E., Pederson, D., & Moran, G. (2021). Mary Ainsworth, ethology, and maternal sensitivity. In E., Waters, B. E., Vaughn, and H. S., Waters (Eds.), Measuring attachment: Developmental assessment across the life-span (pp. 1-38). New York: Guilford.
• Posada, G., Vaughn, B. E., Verissimo, M., Lu, T., Nichols, O., El-Sheikh, M., Trumbell, J. M., Anaya, L., & Kaloustian, G. (2019). Preschoolers’ secure base script representations predict teachers’ ratings of social competence in two independent samples. Attachment & Human Development, 21, 238-252.
• Vaughn, B. E., Posada, G., & Verissimo, M. (2019). Secure base scripts and social competence in preschool children. Attachment & Human Development. Vol 21. No. 3.
• Posada, G. & Waters, H. S. (2018). The mother-child attachment partnership in early childhood: Secure base behavioral and representational processes. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. Vol. 83, No.4.

Selected Honors/Awards

• The Bowlby-Ainsworth Award - The New York Attachment Consortium - April, 2004
• NSF-CAREER Award - 2007
• Nomination for the Mary L. Matthews Outstanding Teaching Award - Purdue University. - 2007
• Colombia Brain-Drain List - Revista Poder - 2008

Professional Affiliations

• Society for Research in Child Development
• Society for the Study of Human Development
• RIA - Iberian-American Attachment Network
• COLCIENCIAS (Colombian National Institute of Sciences)