"What promotes children’s development in the early years and what can hinder it? The more knowledge we have about this question, the better parents, other caregivers, and society as a whole can support children in their early development. My current focus is on the role of positive emotions, sleep, and early adverse experiences for development in the first years of life and beyond."

Selected publications

Seehagen, S., Konrad, C., Herbert, J. S., & Schneider, S. (2015). Timely sleep facilitates declarative memory consolidation in infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 1625-1629. doi:10.1073/pnas.1414000112

Seehagen, S., Schneider, S., Rudolph, J., Ernst, S., & Zmyj, N. (2015). Stress impairs cognitive flexibility in infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 12882-12886. doi:10.1073/pnas.1508345112

Seehagen, S., Bartnick, C., Kärtner, J., Krasko, J., Luhmann, M., Schaal, N., Schneider, S., Witt, S., & Zmyj, N. (2025). Belong, broaden, and build: The role of positive emotions in early human development. Child Development Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.70002

Seehagen, S., Schneider, S., *Sommer, K., *Rocca, L. L., & Konrad, C. (2021). State-dependent memory in infants. Child Development, 92(2), 578–585. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13444

Müller, D., Teismann, T., Hirschfeld, G., Zmyj, N., Fuths, S., Vocks, S., Schneider, S., & Seehagen, S. (2019). The course of maternal repetitive negative thinking at the transition to motherhood and early mother-infant interaction: Is there a link? Development and Psychopathology, 31, 1411-1421. https://doi:10.1017/S0954579418000883