Elizabeth Meins
Professor

Profile

Biography

Elizabeth Meins completed her first degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, specialising in Psychology in her final year. She stayed in Cambridge to complete a PhD in Developmental Psychology. After 16 years in the Department of Psychology at Durham University, she moved to York in 2013. Her main area of research focuses on caregivers’ ‘mind-mindedness’ and its role in predicting children’s development.

Career

Staffordshire University, Lecturer, 1992-1997
Durham University, Lecturer to Professor, 1997-2013
Visiting Research Fellow, Macquarie University, 2002

Departmental roles

Chair of Departmental Research Committee and Impact Lead

Research

Overview

My research interests all focus on how individuals’ social environment relates to their cognitive performance. Much of my research has reported on the positive impact of parents’ ‘mind-mindedness’ (their ability to ‘tune in’ to their young children’s thoughts and feelings) on children’s social-cognitive and social-emotional development. I also conduct research on how children’s private speech relates to their social environment and cognitive performance, and on how young adults’ attachment representations relate to biases in attention and cognitive processing.

Projects

Current grants: Maternal mind-mindedness: Transmission mechanisms and predicting development into early adulthood

Research over the last 20 years has shown how caregivers’ early mind-mindedness (attunement to their infants’ internal states) predicts a wide range of positive outcomes in the child. This ESRC-funded project will address two major outstanding questions: (a) what are the developmental mechanisms via which mind-mindedness in the first year of life impacts on children’s later social-cognitive development? and (b) does mind-mindedness continue to predict development into young adulthood?

Research group(s)

Developmental Psychology

Grants

The majority of my research over the past 25 years has been funded by the ESRC, with additional funding from The Leverhulme Trust. In 2000, I received an outstanding contribution to research award from the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology.

Collaborators

Annie Bernier, University of Montreal
Jean-Francois Bureau, University of Ottawa
Stephanie Carlson, University of Minnesota
Kathleen Corriveau, Boston University
Marc de Rosnay, University of Sydney
Charles Fernyhough, Durham University
Simon Hackett, Durham University
Paul Harris, Harvard University
Chris Jones, Durham University
Patrick Luyten, University of Leuven
Carla Martins, University of Minho
Cathy McMahon, Macquarie University
Luna Muñoz-Centifanti, Durham University
Chris Moore, Dalhousie University
Elaine Reese, Otago University
Dana Shai, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya

Available PhD research projects

I am happy to hear from prospective PhD students with an interest in any of my research areas.

Publications

Selected publications

Meins, E., & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Mind-mindedness coding manual, Version 2.2 (PDF , 199kb) Unpublished manuscript. University of York, York, UK.
Meins, E., Bureau, J.-F., & Fernyhough, C. (2018). Mother–child attachment from infancy to the preschool years: Predicting security and stability. Child Development, 89, 1022-1038.
Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., & Centifanti, L. C. M. (2018). Mothers’ early mind-mindedness predicts educational attainment in socially and economically disadvantaged British children. Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13028
Zeegers, M. A. J., Colonnesi, C., Stams, G.-J. J. M., & Meins, E. (2017). Mind matters: A three-level meta-analysis on parental mentalization and sensitivity as predictors of infant–parent attachment. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 1245–1272 . DOI: 10.1037/bul0000114
Centifanti, L. C. M., Meins, E., & Fernyhough, C. (2016). Callous-unemotional traits and impulsivity: Distinct longitudinal relations with mind-mindedness and understanding of others. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57, 84–92.

Full publications list

See Google Scholar or the York Research Database.

Teaching

Undergraduate

1st Year Development and Language

Transition to Parenthood

External activities

Memberships

Member of the British Psychological Society and the Society for Research in Child Development

My research has informed the NSPCC’s All babies count and Minding the baby programmes and Baby steps perinatal education service. I am also working with clinical psychologists to deliver a mind-mindedness intervention programme to mothers hospitalised for a range of severe mental illnesses. This research was featured on Radio 4’s All in the mind.

Elizabeth Meins Professor