Introduction

Marcel A.G. van Aken (1958) studied developmental psychology and in 1991 defended his PhD thesis at the University of Nijmegen, on a longitudinal study on the development of competence. In 1990 he accepted a post-doc position at the Max-Planck-Institute for psychological research in Munich, Germany. There he worked at the division for Developmental Psychology (director prof.dr. Weinert), mainly on the LOGIC-study, a multidomain longitudinal study on the development of individual competencies. Together with colleagues from the LOGIC-project, he conducted several longitudinal studies on social and personality development.

     In 1993, he returned to the Netherlands. After several years as an assistant and later associate professor at the University of Nijmegen, he moved to Utrecht University in 2001. Since 2003, he is full professor and chair of the Department of Developmental Psychology at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the development of psychosocial problems in children, more particular the way that transactional relations between personality characteristics of children and elements of their social relationships with parents and peers may result in either competence or maladaptation.

     Marcel van Aken and his co-workers have published numerous articles on social and personality development. He has also been involved in various international organizations and review committees. Recently, he has been treasurer/membership secretary of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, and momentarily he is editor of the journal of that society, the International Journal of Behavioral Development.

CV

2003 - present Full professor and chair ‘Developmental Psychology’, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University.

2001 - 2003 Full ‘Van der Leeuw’ - professor ‘Diagnostics and Prevention of Psychosocial Problems in Children’, Department of Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University.

1998 - 2000 Associate professor ‘Social Development’, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Nijmegen.

1995 - 1998 Assistant professor, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Nijmegen.

1993 - 1995 Postdoc fellow / Assistant professor, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Nijmegen.

1990 - 1993 Postdoc fellow, Max-Planck-Institute for psychological research section Developmental Psychology, München (Germany). (Director: Prof. Dr. Franz E. Weinert).

1985 - 1990 PhD-student, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Nijmegen.

1984 - 1985 Clinical and Research Assistant, Child Oncology Centre (University Hospital Nijmegen).

Introduction

My research program focuses on personality development, more specifically the way that personality and the social environment of a person (i.e., family, peers) interact during development, with successful or less successful development as a result. As such, I study, for example, the role of temperament and personality in the development of problem behavior in young children, but also in the development of sexuality in (early) adolescence, and of job-searching in later adolescence.

For a part, my research concerns issues of stability and change in personality. I am involved with several longitudinal data-sets (LOGIC, G&P, RADAR, TRAILS, sometimes as PI, sometimes as associate). In several of these data-sets, we have found that personality shows fairly much stability, that is, individual rank orders in all kinds of temperament or personality dimensions do not tend to change much, especially after the age of 3 years old. At the same time, personality is nowhere near perfectly stable, meaning that individuals do change, for better or for worse, in their personality. The amount of change, but even more so the precursors or consequences of change are part of my research focus.

For another part, my research addresses the factors that influence stability and change in personality development. Recently, a conceptual model has been formulated (Fraley & Roberts, 2005) that stipulates three mechanisms in personality development: a developmental constant, transactional mechanisms, and stochastic influences. Understanding these mechanisms and how they relate to the consolidation of personality that occurs during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood is part of my research focus. In several studies, we have found that transactional processes are related to personality development: temperament or personality is found to influence children’s relations with parents or peers, which in turn influence their personality. But also stochastic influences have been found to play a role: for parents, their personality seems to be influenced a bit by what happens to their children, and for adolescents, we found that the experience of significant life-events influences their personality.

My research also explicitly addresses the role of the environment, not only in personality development itself, but also in the way that personality ‘translates’ into problematic behaviour. Regarding this, we repeatedly found evidence for what meanwhile is labelled in terms of ‘differential susceptibility’: some children are, presumably because of their more difficult temperament or personality, more vulnerable to the effects of aversive environmental factors, such as inadequate parenting. This way of looking at the role of the environment in the ‘translation’ of personality into problematic behaviour also has consequences for prevention and intervention, since it means that the focus should not so much be on trying to change the personality of a child, but rather teach children themselves and their environment to handle this personality.  With a study in which we are collecting data now, on a program that addresses social anxiety, we hope to be able to show that this way of applying our knowledge on person-environment transactions has positive effects on the functioning of youth.

More recently, I am also moving the focus of my research somewhat more into the direction of psychopathological development. I collaborate with a large institute for mental health in the south of the Netherlands. Recent studies have demonstrated that ‘normal’ personality development and the development of personality disorders can be seen as closely related. For example, the Big Five framework turns out to be quite useful for the diagnostics and description of personality disorders. This would also mean that the two bodies of knowledge could be combined, so that everything we know about personality development (including, for example, the knowledge of person-environment transactions from my own research line) could be used to understand the development of personality disorders. This could lead to new knowledge, not only in terms of the precursors of personality disorders, but also in terms of the developmental course and the role that the (family, peer) environment might play in this.

Key publications

Contact me for a full list of publications

Five key publications

Asendorpf, J.B., Denissen, J.J.A., & van Aken, M.A.G. (2008). Inhibited and aggressive preschool children at 23 years of age: Personality and social transitions into adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 44, 997-1011.

Denissen, J.J.A., Asendorpf, J.B., & van Aken, M.A.G. (2008). Childhood Personality Predicts Long-Term Trajectories of Shyness and Aggressiveness in the Context of Demographic Transitions in Emerging Adulthood. Journal of Personality, 76, 67-99.

Karreman, A., van Tuijl, C., van Aken, M.A.G., & Dekovic, M. (2008). Parenting, co-parenting, and effortful control in preschoolers. Journal of Family Psychology, 32, 30-40.

Van Aken, M.A.G., Denissen, J.J.A., Branje, S.J.T., Dubas, J.S., & Goossens, L. (2006). Associations of Midlife Concerns with Short-Term Personality Change in Middle Adulthood. European Journal of Personality, 20, 497-513.

Hutteman, R., Denissen, J. J. A., Asendorpf, J. B., & Van Aken, M. A. G. (2009). Changing dynamics in problematic personality: A multiwave longitudinal study of the relationship between shyness and aggressiveness from childhood to early adulthood. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 1083-1094.

Introduction

Marcel van Aken teaches in general topics on developmental psychology (in the Introduction in Developmental Psychology, in the obligatory general part of the bachelor in Psychology). Also, he teaches guest lectures on personality development in various other courses, and coordinates a course in the Dasca research master. In addition, he supervises master theses in the master Child- and Adolescentpsychology, and in the master Youth Studies.

Courses

* Introduction in Develomental Psychology, General part of the Bachelor Psychologie.

* Topical/experimental seminar in development and socialization research, Dasca research master.

Outside activities

• Reviewer/editorial board diverse (inter)nationale tijdschrijften
• Reviewer/committee member diverse NWO en ZonMW gremia.
• Editor International Journal of Behavioral Development
• Member Executive committee International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development.

Outside of academia

Member of the Board of Governace SKOMEN (Primary education Noord-Limburg)

Contact Information