Prestigious prize to Håkan Stattin
Håkan Stattin, professor in psychology at Örebro University has received the prestigious William T. Preyer Award for Excellence in Research on Human Development. Stattin and his late wife, Professor Margaret Kerr, are rewarded for their internationally recognised research on child and youth development.
The award ceremony takes place when the European Association of Developmental Psychology, EADP, opens its 16th European conference on developmental psychology. Attended by 1,600 scientists, the conference is held in Lausanne, Switzerland. The award is given to a European psychologist, or a group of psychologists, recognised internationally for original and substantial contributions to a better understanding of human development and its contexts, as demonstrated by first-rate publications in scholarly journal
The 2013 award committee has paid particular attention to the major longitudinal studies that Håkan Stattin and Margaret Kerr have worked on, involving the development of children, adolescents, and young adults across a variety of adjustment issues, including antisocial behaviour, delinquency, depression, shyness, anxiety, psychopathic traits, and civic engagement, but also in terms of “healthy functioning” and protective factors, crime prevention, parent-child interaction and communication.
Future research
In conjunction with the award ceremony, Håkan Stattin will in a 45 minute speech address the assembly, summarising the current trends in youth research internationally, its strengths and limitations, what the burning future research issues are, and how they should be tackled.
William Thierry Preyer (1841-1897), who has lent his name to the award, was born in England but was active for many years at the University of Jena, Germany. He was inspired by Charles Darwin and is seen as an important pioneer in the study of human development based on observation and experiment.
Text: Lars Westberg