Tina Malti is a Canadian-German child psychologist of Palestinian descent. She currently holds an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Early Child Development and Health as the first child psychologist and female psychologist in the award's history. She directs the Alexander von Humboldt Research Group for Child Development as research chair at Leipzig University. She is also a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and founding director of the Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy at the University of Toronto.
Tina is the current president of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD).
She is known for her research on social-emotional development and mental health in children experiencing varying levels of adversity. Based on this work and a humanistic approach to child development, Dr. Malti creates and tests interventions that help children reach their full potential, overcome the negative effects of trauma, adversity, and violence, and cultivates kindness and ethical strengths.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Malti has directed multidisciplinary research, training, and policy efforts on positive child development and mental health in children from all walks of life. She works closely with local and international communities and agencies to provide and act on evidence to improve the development of all children and reduce exposure to trauma and violence across diverse contexts.
Tina Malti earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Free University of Berlin, under the supervision of Wolfgang Edelstein . She also obtained a postgraduate M.A. in clinical child psychology from the Academy of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Children and Adolescents in Switzerland and a Habilitation in psychology from Free University of Berlin. She is a registered psychologist.
Tina’s research focuses on social-emotional development and mental health in children experiencing varying levels of adversity.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Based on this work and a humanistic approach to child development, she creates and tests interventions that help children cultivate kindness and overcome the negative effects of exposure to violence, war, and trauma.[8] To achieve these goals, Tina conducts and directs multidisciplinary research, training, and policy efforts that capitalize on inclusive principles and technological innovations to reach every child.[9]
Tina is a co-editor of the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Aggression[10] and the Cambridge Handbook of Prosociality.[11] Her research has been profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, as well as other media outlets.
She and her team work closely with local and international communities and agencies to provide research-informed knowledge that can help nurture the development, wellbeing, and potential for kindness in children from all walks of life. Her work has been funded by all three federal funding agencies in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as international foundations and funding agencies.[12] Her multi-cultural team has published over 200 publications in the areas of child development, mental health, and intervention research.
In 2019, Tina created and established the Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and she became its founding director. The vision of this multi-disciplinary research centre is to foster every child’s healthy development and potential for kindness, both locally and globally. She has been named recipient of Germany’s most valuable research award, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship.[13] In 2024, Tina created the Humboldt Science Center for Child Development (HumanKind) at Leipzig University. HumanKind aspires to nurture the wellbeing and humanity of every child.
Yavuz, M.H., Galarneau, E., Colasante, T., & Malti, T. (2024). Empathy, sympathy, and emotion regulation : A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 150 (1), 27-44. doi: 10.1037/bul0000426.
Malti, T., & Davidov, M. (Eds.) (2023). The Cambridge handbook of prosociality. Development, mechanisms, promotion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Peplak, J., Bobba, B., Hasegawa, M., Caravita, S.C.S., & Malti, T. (2023). The warm glow of kindness: Developmental insight into children’s moral pride across cultures and its associations with prosocial behavior. Developmental Psychology, 59(12), 2320-2332. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001613
Malti, T., & Speidel, R. (2022). Prosocial cascades: Understanding and nurturing the potential for positive developmental trajectories. Advances in Child Development and Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2022.10.002
Colasante, T., Jambon, M., Gao, X., & Malti, T. (2021). A process model linking physiological arousal and fear recognition to aggression via guilt in middle childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 33(1), 109-121. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579419001627
Malti, T. (2020). Children and violence: Nurturing social-emotional development to promote mental health. Social Policy Report (SPR). Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), 33(2), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1002/sop2.8
Malti, T. (2020). Kindness: A perspective from developmental psychology. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(5), 629-657. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2020.1837617
Dys, S.P., Peplak, J., Colasante, T., & Malti, T. (2019). Children’s sympathy and sensitivity to excluding economically disadvantaged peers. Developmental Psychology, 55(3), 482–487.
Malti, T., & Cheah, C.S.L. (2021). Towards complementarity: Specificity and commonality in social-emotional development. Child Development, 92(6), e1085-e1094. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13690
Malti, T., & Rubin, K. H. (Eds.) (2018). Handbook of child and adolescent aggression. New York: Guilford Press.