I am honored to receive APA Division 7’s Dissertation Award in Developmental Psychology. As an applied developmental scholar focusing on early childhood development in global contexts, violence against children, and the impacts of climate change, this recognition inspires me to continue advancing developmental theory, policy, and practice to be more rigorous, actionable, and generalizable.
In my three-paper dissertation, I contributed to the ongoing conversations on the consequences of violence for underrepresented children living in low- and- middle-income countries (LMICs) and presented formative research to inform Apapacho, a violence prevention parenting program designed for Colombia and other LMICs.
Social learning theory, social information processing theory, attachment theory, and contemporary neurodevelopmental perspectives indicate that physical punishment can negatively affect children’s lifelong development across countries and cultures. Despite this rationale, prior quantitative syntheses of related evidence have primarily relied on bivariate associations, therefore raising concerns about causality, and have largely overlooked international evidence and from LMICs more specifically.
In Study 1, I aimed to address issues of causality and generalizability by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the associations and variation in associations between physical punishment and individual outcomes in LMICs. I searched for quantitative studies published in six languages in peer-reviewed journals. I extracted all study-level relevant effect sizes and transformed them into the metric of Cohen’s d. I employed random effects multilevel meta-analysis to analyze the data.
Findings showed that (1) there is evidence from 91 (or 60% of all) LMICs on the association between physical punishment and individual outcomes, (2) physical punishment is consistently associated with detrimental across the life course (d=0.35 SD), and (3) the observed negative associations are robust but vary somewhat according to contextual and study-level characteristics. These results strengthen the argument that physical punishment can increase the risk for negative developmental trajectories (causality) across countries and cultures (generalizability).
To complement findings from the meta-analysis, in Study 2 I used more internally valid methods to assess the plausibility of a causal effect of spanking on early developmental outcomes in four LMICs. I used comparable data on young children’s (N=3,048) exposure to spanking and development as measured by the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). Findings from more internally valid child fixed-effects models (leveraging longitudinal within child variation) demonstrate that spanking relates to negative cognitive, social-emotional, and motor outcomes in the full sample (Cohen’s d = -0.06 to -0.24 SD). Country-specific estimates showed that while all point estimates were negative, there was variation in effect sizes between countries, which warranted further investigation. These results strengthen the causal argument that spanking early in life can undermine foundational skills in LMICs.
Findings from Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the urgent need for science-based innovations targeting the prevention of VAC in LMICs. In response, in Study 3 I aimed to conduct extensive formative research to inform the design of Apapachoopens in new window, an open-access, culturally relevant, and scalable violence prevention parenting program targeted toward Colombia. I conducted a literature review of the core components of evidence-based programs and an analysis of the existing programs targeting the prevention of VAC in Colombia (Aims 1 and 2). Furthermore, I conducted interviews and focus groups with Colombian policymakers (N = 10), program facilitators (N = 20), and parents (N = 38) regarding their perspectives on VAC prevention. I employed thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to code the data (Aim 3).
The integration of theory, evidence, and contextual considerations revealed the critical role of intersecting and interacting factors at different levels of the ecology of human development in exacerbating risks/imposing barriers vs. protecting/promoting VAC prevention. The results also informed the theory of change of Apapacho, including its core content and delivery approaches. As an Assistant Professor at NYU, I have continued advancing the Apapacho program, completing an initial pilot study and evaluation with 267 families to guide its future optimization and scalability.
I am grateful to my wonderful PhD advisor, Dana McCoy, PhD, my dissertation committee—Hiro Yoshikawa, Aisha Yousafzai, and Chuck Nelson—and to my other mentors at Harvard and beyond, including Jack Shonkoff, Liz Gershoff, Helen Henningham, and Drew Bailey. I am also grateful to my colleagues, friends, and family, whose unwavering support and encouragement have filled this journey with joy and meaning.