SUNY Poly Associate Professor, Coordinator of the Psychology Program, and Chair of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences Dr. Kazuko Behrens recently published a paper with SUNY Poly alumnus David W. Franklin, Jr., in the special Issue of Youth Voice Journal.

The research, “Attachment Security and Self-Concept in Middle Childhood,” started when Dr. Behrens designed the study with support from SUNY Poly’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Under Dr. Behrens’ supervision, David led data collection as a senior student before proceeding to graduate school, and ultimately acting as lead author of the paper.

This study examined the relationship between attachment security and self-concept in middle childhood (N = 78, M = 8.9 years). The findings suggest that an important developmental milestone such as self-concept, a critical component for academic and relational success, can be predicted by attachment security in middle childhood, utilizing multiple user-friendly measures of attachment concurrently, i.e., family drawings and questionnaire-based attachment scales.

To facilitate the research, David, who also worked at the Tree House After School program, a local daycare in the region, recruited child participants. The preliminary findings were first presented together at a national conference the following year after the study was completed. Notably, as a doctoral student, David also taught several psychology courses as an adjunct professor at SUNY Poly.

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