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Marinus H. van IJzendoorn (Tiel, May 14, 1952) is Full Professor of Child and Family Studies at the Leiden University, Netherlands. His work focusses on the social, psychological and neurobiological determinants of parenting and child development, with special emphasis on attachment, emotion regulation, differential susceptibility hypothesis, and child maltreatment. His research is part of PEARL – Program for Emotion regulation and Attachment Research in Leiden, which is the research program of the Centre for Child and Family Studies at Leiden University. At Erasmus University Rotterdam he is professor of human development and one of the co-leaders of Generation R.

Biography
In 1976 Van IJzendoorn graduated cum laude at the University of Amsterdam. Two years later he obtained his PhD magna cum laude at the Free University of Berlin/Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education (West Germany). After this he continued his work at the Leiden University. In 1981, at age 29, he became Full Professor. Van IJzendoorn worked as a guest researcher at several places in the United States and Israel. He received a Pionier-grant from the Dutch NWO in 1991, which was used for the start of a new research group. In 1998 he became a fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 1998 and 1999 he was the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. In 2004 Van IJzendoorn received the Spinoza Price for his work. In 2007 he was awarded for his Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development by the Society for Research in Child Development, and in 2008 he received a honorary doctorate at the University of Haifa. In 2011 he received the Aristotle Prize of the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFP), and the Bowlby-Ainsworth Founder Award of the Center for Mental Health Promotion and The New York Attachment Consortium. In 2013 he was awarded the Dr. Hendrik Muller Prijs from the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW). He has been a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) since 2011.

Van IJzendoorn is one of the founders of the Lolle Nauta Foundation (LNF) to stimulate the study of education, developmental psychology, and child and family studies on the African continent. The LNF can be called upon only by African students and faculty members at African universities and by African institutions for university education and research in order to promote the knowledge and expertise of child and family studies, pedagogics, education and developmental psychology in African countries with severely limited educational means.

Attachment
Van IJzendoorns main research topic is attachment. Attachment has been briefly defined as children’s “strong disposition to seek proximity to and contact with a specific figure and to do so in certain situations, notably when they are frightened, tired or ill. Inspired by Darwinian evolutionary theory and Harlow’s experimental work with rhesus monkeys, Bowlby was the first to propose that human genetic selection had favored attachment behaviors since they increased infant-parent proximity, which in turn enhanced the chances for infant survival. Although Bowlby (1969) did not use the concept of ‘inclusive fitness’ to hint at the transmission of parental genes into the next generations, he can certainly be considered the first evolutionary psychologist after Darwin. Attachment is considered to be an inborn capacity of every exemplar of the human species. Individual differences in the quality of attachment emerge in the first years of life, and central to attachment theory is the idea that parenting, more specifically parental sensitive responsiveness to the infant’s distress signals, determines whether children develop a secure or an insecure attachment relationship with their primary caregiver. We study attachment across the life-span in various non-clinical and clinical populations and cultural groups, and focus on determinants (the interplay between genes and environment) and biobehavioral consequences of attachment security and insecurity for current wellbeing of the children and for their future development.

Video-Feedback Intervention
In the Video Intervention to promote Positive Parenting (VIPP) program, parent/caregiver and infant are videotaped during daily situations at their home, e.g., playing together or bathing the infant. Reviewing the tape at the institute the intervenor prepares her comments for the next session. During the next visit the videotape is shown to the parent, and the intervenor discusses some selected fragments with him or her, with a special emphasis on positive interaction sequences. Video feedback provides the opportunity to focus on the infant’s videotaped signals and expressions, thereby stimulating the parent’s observational skills and empathy for his/her child. It also enables positive reinforcement of the parent’s moments of sensitive behavior shown on the videotape. Before or after the video feedback the parent receives a brochure on sensitive responding, e.g., about crying and comforting, or about playing together. VIPP consists of four themes that are elaborated successively during the four home visits: 1) the baby’s contact-seeking and explorative behavior, 2) the accurate perception of the infant’s (subtle) signals and expressions, 3) the relevance of prompt and adequate responding to the infant’s signals, and 4) affective attunement and sharing of emotions. By explicitly acknowledging the parent as an expert on his/her own child, the parent is encouraged to participate in the discussion actively. For example, when the intervenor attempts to “speak for the baby”, the parent is invited to take part, and provide “subtitles” for the infant’s behavior. In two booster sessions with both parents te issues of the first four sessions are re-visited and integrated. In the Video Intervention to promote Positive Parenting, Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) to each of the sessions thematic discussions about limit setting issues are included, based on Patterson’s ideas about coercive cycles, in order to support parents of ‘terrible two’s and three’s’ to deal with discipline in a consistent and warm manner.

VIPP-SD
The Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD), is an attachment-based intervention aimed at enhancing sensitive parenting and adequate discipline strategies of parents with the ultimate goal of promoting positive parent-child relationships and reducing behavior problems in children. The VIPP-SD program can be used with families and in day care settings (VIPP-CC). VIPP-SD is based on an integration of attachment theory and coercion theory. While sensitivity is the central parenting concept in attachment theory, coercion theory emphasizes how ineffective parental discipline strategies result in increasingly difficult and challenging child behavior (‘coercive cycles’). Instead of rewarding negative child reactions - without intending to do so - by giving in to difficult child behavior, parents should reinforce children’s positive behaviors and discipline them in adequate ways. For example, in the VIPP-SD program the parent is encouraged to use induction, that is, providing the reason for a prohibition or parental intervention, thus helping the child to (gradually) understand the parental rules and develop empathy with other people’s interests. Twenty years of thoroughly testing the VIPP-SD program in randomized trials in various at-risk and clinical groups have demonstrated its efficacy in improving positive parenting skills: The combined effect size on parenting sensitivity is d = 0.47. That is, after the intervention caregivers are on average half a standard deviation more sensitive than without the intervention. Separate modules have been developed for use with home-based and center-based child care (VIPP-CC), Turkish-Dutch families (VIPP-TM), and families with a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (VIPP-AUTI).

Differential susceptibility
The differential susceptibility hypothesis proposed by Jay Belsky   is another interpretation of findings that are usually discussed according to the Diathesis-stress model. Both models suggest that people's development and emotional affect are differentially susceptible to experiences or qualities of the environment. Where the Diathesis-stress model suggests a distinct and mostly negativity-sensitive group, Belsky describes a group that is sensitive to negative experiences but also to positive experiences. These models may be complementary, if some individuals are dually or uniquely positivity-sensitive, while other people are uniquely negativity-sensitive.

Methylation
How is it possible that one twin of a monozygotic twin pair develops cancer or depression and the other twin remains free of physical or mental illness? The answer is simple: if identical twins have spent large part of their adult lives exposed to different environments they are not identical anymore. Their genome undergoes epigenetic (Greek epi=’above’ the genome) modifications that impact gene expression without actually changing the sequence of the DNA letters. ‘Epigenetics’ can be defined as the study of biochemical modifications of the DNA influencing gene expression without altering the structural base-pair sequence itself. The epigenome is not a stable entity but is designed to dynamically interact with the environment. Although during the life course changes in structural DNA sequences (mutations) occur rarely, epigenetic changes resulting in permanent alterations in gene expression, including silencing of genes, occur more frequently than we ever had imagined. Child development might be conceptualized as experiences becoming sculpted in the organism’s DNA through methylation, one of the major epigenetic mechanisms of change. The application of epigenetics to the study of child development is a fascinating next step in unraveling the intricate interplay between rearing environment and the child’s genome shaping child development. New questions about intergenerational transmission of epigenetic changes, and reversibility of DNA methylation in children through psychosocial intervention or pharmacological treatment emerge. From an epigenetic perspective divisions between genes, brain and behavior are artificial as the environment becomes embodied in the epigenome. It is the epigenomic modified DNA sequence that results in protein synthesis which in turn canalizes development. In fact, to a large extent nature is nurture. Methylation matters if one wants to understand how the early environment leaves its lasting imprint on the child.

Oxytocin
In humans, oxytocin has been shown to be associated with delivery, mood regulation, sexual functioning and parenting behaviors. Emerging studies are showing an increasing link between oxytocin levels in humans and parent-child relationships. One idea is that increased oxytocin levels facilitates postnatal parental behaviour and the formation of an emotional bond between parent and infant, in mothers and fathers alike, by acting to reduce anxiety and ameliorate responses to external stresses. Parents who have a less anxious state of mind are able to increase their focus on infant care, improve mood and facilitate the capacity to read non-verbal infant cues and stimulate the social learning and reward system in response to infant cues. Although there are strong animal models for the role of oxytocin in parental behavior, one of the key questions in the development of a psychobiology of human caregiving and attachment is the degree to which the considerable variation in parenting can be accounted for through similar biological mechanisms such as the mediating role of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms and experimentally indiced oxytocin levels. Van IJzendoorn and colleagues conducted several correlational studies documenting the role of OXTR in parenting, and carried out various randomized control trials showing that oxytocin enhances male and female sensitivity to child signals, in natural play settings as well as with a cry paradigm, using behavioral assessments, EEG/ERP and fMRI. A meta-analysis on experimental studies with intranasal oxytocin administration was conducted showing that feelings of trust are elevated and that the expected lowering of out-group trust was not confirmed.

Child Maltreatment
Maltreating parental behaviors are probably some of the most frightening behaviors a child may be exposed to, and serious dysfunctions in the parent-child relationship have been observed in maltreating families. Notably, disciplinary practices of maltreating parents have been described as highly inadequate, with parents being more likely to inconsistently use threat, punishment, coercion, and power assertion to gain child compliance. In particular, abusive parents have shown more aversive, intrusive, and controlling behavior toward their child, in contrast to neglecting parents who seem to display greater inconsistencies in response to their child behavior and a lack of ability in establishing age-appropriate limits. Not only are maltreating parents insensitive, and do not regulate and buffer their child’s experience of distress, but they also activate their child’s fear and attachment systems at the same time. The resulting experience of fright without solution is characteristic of maltreated children, and is probably the most salient process through which maltreated children develop attachment disorganization.

NPM 2005
The first nationwide prevalence study of child maltreatment in the Netherlands (NPM-2005) was designed as a replication of the National Incidence Studies (NISs) conducted in the United States. Child maltreatment cases were reported by 1,121 professionals from various occupational branches, trained in a detailed registration system of six types of abuse and neglect. In addition, cases registered by the Dutch Child Protection Services (CPS) were analyzed. For 2005, the overall prevalence rate was estimated to be 107,200 (95% CI 102,054-112,882) maltreated children aged 0 to 18 years, or 30 cases per 1,000 children. Neglect was the most prevalent type (56% of all cases) and sexual abuse the least prevalent type (4%). Of the maltreated children, 47% experienced more than one type of maltreatment. Major risk factors were very low parental education and unemployment.

NPM-2010
In the second National Prevalence study on Maltreatment (NPM-2010), the same three methods to examine the prevalence of child maltreatment were used in the NPM-2005, that is (1) sentinel reports, (2) substantiated CPS cases, and (3) high school students’ self-report. 1,127 professionals from various occupational branches (sentinels) reported each child for whom they suspected child maltreatment during a period of three months. There were 22,661 substantiated cases reported in 2010 to the Dutch Child Protective Services. 1,920 high school students aged 12–17 years filled out a questionnaire on their experiences of maltreatment in 2010. The overall prevalence of child maltreatment in the Netherlands in 2010 was 33.8 per 1,000 children based on the combined sentinel and CPS reports and 99.4 per 1,000 adolescents based on self-report. Major risk factors for child maltreatment were parental low education, immigrant status, unemployment, and single parenthood. A cross-time comparison of the prevalence of child maltreatment in the Netherlands showed a large increase in CPS-reports, whereas prevalence rates based on sentinel and self-report did not change between 2005 and 2010. Based on these findings a likely conclusion is that the actual number of maltreated children has not increased from 2005 to 2010, but that professionals have become more aware of child maltreatment, and more likely to report cases to CPS.

Samsom
At the request of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Dutch Ministry of Justice (commissie Samsom), a study on the prevalence of sexual abuse in youth living in out-of-home care was conducted in the Netherlands in 2008-2010. The aim of the study was broadened to include also physical abuse in out-of-home residential care and foster care, and to examine physical and sexual victimization of youth care workers in residential care.

Adolescents (N = 329) between 12 and 17 years of age living in residential and foster care reported on their experiences with physical abuse during the year 2010. Twenty-five percent of all participating adolescents experienced physical abuse, which is a nearly three-fold increase in risk compared to the general population (NPM-2010). Prevalence rates in residential care, especially in secure care, were significantly higher than in foster care. The prevalence of physical abuse in juvenile detention did not differ from either foster care or the general population. Boys reported more physical abuse in out-of-homecare than girls. Age, ethnicity, and education did not affect the prevalence of physical abuse. The findings indicate that children in out-of-home care, and especially in residential care, are not well protected against violence or maltreatment.

The prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) in residential and foster care in 2010 year was measured and compared it with prevalence rates in the general population. We used two approaches to estimate the prevalence of CSA, professionals working in residential or foster care (sentinels) reported CSA for the children they worked with (N = 6,281), and adolescents staying in residential or foster care reported on their own experiences with CSA. Sentinels and adolescents were randomly selected from 82 Dutch out-of-home care facilities. We found that 3.5 per 1,000 children had been victims of CSA based on sentinel reports. In addition, 248 per 1,000 adolescents reported having experienced CSA (compared to 58 per 1,000 adolescents in the general population). The highest prevalence rates were found in residential care. Prevalence rates in foster care did not differ from the general population. Children and adolescents in residential care seem to be at increased risk of CSA compared to children in foster care. Unfortunately, foster care does not fully protect children against sexual abuse either, and thus its quality needs to be further improved.

In out-of-home care for children with a mild intellectual disability, 9.8 per 1000 children were victims of sexual abuse. This prevalence was significantly higher than in regular out-of-home care and in the general population. Adequate education and support for both children and caregivers is necessary to recognize and prevent further sexual abuse.

Holocaust
Marinus van IJzendoorn has been personally interested and deeply involved in a series of studies on the Holocaust, including the (long-term) effects on the first, second, and third generation of Holocaust survivors.

In one of the first studies that avoided recruitment of participants through convenience groups (e.g., mental health clinics, Holocaust-related organizations, and advertisements), basic population-wide demographic information provided by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior were used to invite participants. Approximately 30,000 standardized telephone calls to recruit two groups—Holocaust and matched comparison subjects. Subjects in the Holocaust group (child survivors) were born in Europe between 1926 and 1937; thus, they were 4–14 years old during World War II. They immigrated as orphans to Israel during or soon after the war (1945). Their children (the second generation) were all born in Israel between 1947 and 1970 and had at least one healthy child between the ages of 12 and 15 months (the third generation). Subjects in the comparison group were in the same age range, were also born in Europe, did not experience the Holocaust, and immigrated to Israel as children before the war. Their Israeli-born daughters (now mothers) also had at least one healthy infant between the ages of 12 and 15 months. The results showed that Holocaust survivors (now grandmothers) had more signs of traumatic stress and more often lack of resolution of trauma than comparison subjects, but they were not impaired in their general adaptation. Also, the traumatic effects did not appear to transmit across generations. Thus, Holocaust survivors may have been able to protect their daughters from their war experiences, although they themselves still suffer from the effects of the Holocaust.

In the first population-based retrospective cohort study of the Holocaust, it was tested whether surviving genocidal experiences, like the Holocaust, leads to shorter life-expectancy. Such an effect is conceivable given that most survivors not only suffered psychosocial trauma but also malnutrition, restriction in hygienic and sanitary facilities, and lack of preventive medical and health services, with potentially damaging effects for later health and life expectancy. The study included the entire population of immigrants from Poland to Israel (N = 55,220), 4–20 years old when the World War II started (1939), immigrating to Israel either between 1945 and 1950 (Holocaust group) or before 1939 (comparison group; not exposed to the Holocaust). Hazard of death – a long-term outcome of surviving genocidal trauma – was derived from the population-wide official data base of the National Insurance Institute of Israel. Cox regression yielded a significant hazard ratio (HR = 0.935, CI (95%) = 0.910–0.960), suggesting that the risk of death was reduced by 6.5 months for Holocaust survivors compared to non-Holocaust comparisons. Thus, against all odds, genocidal survivors were likely to live longer. Differential mortality during the Holocaust and ‘‘Posttraumatic Growth’’ associated with protective factors in Holocaust survivors or in their environment after World War II can be suggested as explanations for these findings.

Single studies on the aftermath may show divergent outcomes. In the end, the meta-analytic combination of results found in the individual empirical studies are more informative on the overall effects, and enable the identification of potential moderators that explain heterogeneity in the effects found. In a set of meta-analyses the long-term psychiatric, psychosocial, and physical consequences of the Holocaust for 1st generation survivors was examined. In 71 samples with 12,746 participants Holocaust survivors were compared with their counterparts (with no Holocaust background) on physical health, psychological wellbeing, posttraumatic stress symptoms, psychopathological symptomatology, cognitive functioning, and stress-related physiology. Holocaust survivors were overall less well adjusted, as apparent from studies on non-selected samples (combined effect size d= 0.22, N= 9,803) and from studies on selected samples (d= 0.45, N= 2,943). In particular, they showed substantially more posttraumatic stress symptoms. They did not lag behind their comparisons in several other domains of functioning (i.e., physical health, stress-related physical measures, and cognitive functioning) and showed remarkable resilience. In most domains of functioning no differences were found between Israeli samples and samples from other countries. The exception was psychological well-being: For this domain living in Israel rather than elsewhere seems to serve as a protective factor.

Hans Keilson (1979) coined the term “sequential traumatization” for the accumulation of traumatic stresses confronting the Holocaust survivors before, during, and after the war. A central question is whether survivors are able to raise their children without transmitting the traumas of their past. Through a series of meta-analyses on 32 samples involving 4,418 participants, the hypothesis of secondary traumatization in Holocaust survivor families was tested. In nonclinical studies, no evidence for the influence of the parents’ traumatic Holocaust experiences on their children was found in the set of studies with random sampling (no convenience groups). Secondary traumatization emerged only in studies on clinical participants, who were stressed for other reasons.

The transmission of trauma to the third generation offspring (the grandchildren) of the first generation’s traumatic Holocaust experiences (referred to as ‘tertiary traumatization’) was tested in 13 non-clinical samples involving 1012 participants. Meta-analysis showed no evidence for tertiary traumatization in Holocaust survivor families.

Together, the studies on Holocaust survivors and their offspring indicate a remarkable resilience of profoundly traumatized survivors in most of their functioning in family life and the society.