Feeling a sense of purpose in life appears to hold consistent benefits for positive aging and well-being. As such, it is important to consider the potential factors that promote or hinder the development of purposefulness over the lifespan. For instance, it remains unclear whether early life experiences, particularly adverse ones, may hold lasting influences on whether one feels purposeful into adulthood. The current study examined whether early life adversity predicted a diminished sense of purpose in adulthood using data from participants (N = 3835) in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. Reports of early life adversity were associated with lower levels of purpose in adulthood, and chronological age failed to moderate this relationship.
Contemporary research adopts an evolutionary theoretical perspective in which bullying is strategic behavior that is conducive to peer-group status enhancement. Within this view, a high social status (i.e., popularity) has been associated with bullying others, while a high affiliative status (i.e., preference) has been associated with defending others. This study investigated whether the associations between adolescents’ bullying role behavior (i.e., bully, follower, defender, outsider, and victim) and their peer-group status (i.e., popularity and preference) are cross-culturally similar. A multigroup path modeling analysis on a sample of Dutch (n = 219; 53.4% boys; M age = 13.8 years, SD = 9 months) and Indian (n = 480; 60.8% boys; M age = 13.8 years, SD = 12 months) adolescents suggested that these associations were indeed largely cross-culturally similar and consistent with previous findings, with one exception. While defending was associated with a relatively average popularity status position for Dutch adolescents, it was associated with a high popularity status position for Indian adolescents. In general, the findings are supportive of the evolutionary theoretical perspective, but the differential association between defending and popularity for Dutch and Indian adolescents seems to also require a cultural perspective.
The goal of the present study is to examine the stability of time attitudes profiles across a one-year period as well as the association between time attitudes profiles and several variables. These variables include attitudes towards alcohol, context of alcohol use, consumption of a full drink, and subjective life expectancy. We assessed the reliability and validity of time attitudes scores at baseline (mean age 12.5 years) and Wave 2 (mean age 13.5 years), the viability of time attitudes profiles at both time points, and the degree of stability in profile membership in Wave 2. A total of four latent profiles were identified (Positives, Ambivalents, Negatives, and Negative-Futures). Positives had higher scores on positive time attitude, Ambivalents did not report strong attitudes towards any of the time periods, Negatives had higher scores on negative time attitudes, and Negative-Futures were similar to Negatives, but tended to higher scores on both positive and negative time attitude for the future. Results showed that participants staying in the same time attitude profile across the first year of high school ranged from 33% to 50%. Transition to more negative profiles explained the instability, and those transitions were associated with less favorable outcomes. Having a Positive profile was associated with safer attitudes towards alcohol, lower reported uses of alcohol, and higher self-reported probability of surviving to at least the age of 35.
Although it has been proposed that maintenance of verbal information in adults’ working memory relies on two strategies, articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing, little is known about the interplay of these strategies in children. To examine strategy changes around the age of seven, children were asked to maintain digits during a retention interval introduced between encoding and recall. In Experiment 1, this interval was either unfilled in a delayed span task or filled with an attention-demanding task in a Brown-Peterson task. This concurrent task was either silent or aloud to vary the availability of rehearsal. Experiment 2 introduced variation in the attentional demand of the concurrent task, and an independent concurrent articulation. As predicted, recall performance was better in older children, but was reduced under concurrent articulation or when attention was less available, bringing further evidence in favor of two maintenance strategies. Moreover, the measure of the availability of attention for refreshing was correlated with recall performance in eight- and seven-year-olds, though only when rehearsal was impeded for seven-year-olds, but it did not correlate with six-year-olds’ recall. This could suggest that rehearsal is the default strategy in young children who can adaptively switch to refreshing when articulatory processes are unavailable.
To better address the many consequences of peer victimization, research must identify not only aspects of individuals that put them at risk for victimization, such as aggression, but also aspects of the context that influence the extent of that risk. To this end, this study examined the contextual influences of gender, same-sex peer group norms of physical and relational aggression, and nationality on the associations of physical and relational aggression with peer victimization in early adolescents from Canada, China, Brazil, and Colombia (N = 865; Mage = 11.01, SD = 1.24; 55% boys). Structural equation modeling was used to test for measurement invariance of the latent constructs. Multilevel modeling revealed that both forms of aggression were positive predictors of peer victimization, but physical aggression was a stronger predictor for girls than boys. Cross-national differences emerged in levels of peer victimization, such that levels were highest in Brazil and lowest in Colombia. Cross-national differences were also evidenced in the relationship between relational aggression and victimization: the relationship was positive in China, Brazil, and Canada (listed in descending order of magnitude), but negative in Colombia. Above and beyond the cross-national differences, physical aggression was a stronger predictor of victimization in peer groups low in physical aggression, and relational aggression was a stronger predictor in peer groups low in relational aggression. Ultimately, this research is intended to contribute to a better theoretical understanding of risk factors for peer victimization and the development of more effective and culturally-appropriate prevention and intervention efforts.
A growing body of literature has begun to explore social attention in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with hopes of identifying early differences that are associated with later ASD or other aspects of development. The present study used eye-tracking to familiar (mother) and unfamiliar (stranger) faces in two groups of 6-month-old infants: infants with no family history of ASD (low-risk controls; LRC), and infants at high risk for ASD (HRA), by virtue of having an older sibling with ASD. HRA infants were further characterized based on autism classification at 24 months or older as HRA- (HRA without an ASD outcome) or HRA+ (HRA with an ASD outcome). For time scanning faces overall, HRA- and LRC showed similar patterns of attention, and this was significantly greater than in HRA-. When examining duration of time spent on eyes and mouth, all infants spent more time on eyes than mouth, but HRA+ showed the greatest amount of time looking at these regions, followed by LRC, then HRA-. LRC showed a positive association between 6-month attention to eyes and 18-month social-communicative behavior, while HRA- showed a negative association between attention to eyes at 6 months and expressive language at 18 months (all correlations controlled for non-verbal IQ; HRA- correlations held with and without the inclusion of the small sample of HRA+). Differences found in face scanning at 6 months, as well as associations with social communication at 18 months, point to potential variation in the developmental significance of early social attention in children at low and high risk for ASD.
The present study examined patterns of romantic pathways in 100 Israeli emerging adults (54 males) who were followed from age 22 to 29 years. Analyses of interviews at age 29 yielded four distinctive romantic pathways differing in stability and ability to learn from romantic experiences: Sporadic, Lengthy Relationships but Absence of Experiential Learning, Moving from Casual to Steady Involvements, and Steady Relationships. Low efficacy, immature dependency, and level of maternal support measured 7 years earlier, predicted less optimal romantic pathways; Sporadic, and Lengthy relationships but absence of experiential learning. Distinctive gender pathways suggested that men are more likely to embark on a sporadic romantic pathway, while women tend more to prefer a stable romantic pathway. Findings of the study suggest that gender, intrapersonal capabilities, and maternal support can predict the pattern of the romantic pathway on which young people embark during their twenties.
How toddlers’ attention is distributed in the visual field during a magic trick was examined using three expectation conditions. Results showed that 2.5-year-old children assigned to the condition with major task-relevant information (i.e., a verbal cue to attend to one of the visual targets) (i) outperformed those who were assigned to the condition with no task-relevant information, (ii) displayed more attentional switches between visual targets than those who were assigned to the condition with no task-relevant information, and (iii) did not look significantly longer at one of the visual targets in contrast to children assigned to the condition with no task-relevant information. The findings of an additional control condition suggest that the performance by children in the condition with major task-relevant information cannot merely be the consequence of the larger quantity of auditory information that was given during the interaction prior to the magic trick. In our task, verbal cue affected the switching of attention, not the prioritization of a specific region of space. These results are discussed in terms of advantage conferred by a diffuse mode of attention.
Being surrounded by peers who are accepting of aggression is a significant predictor of the development and persistence of aggression in childhood and adolescence. Whereas past research has focused on social reinforcement mechanisms as the underlying processes, the present longitudinal study analysed the role of external control beliefs as an additional mediator explaining the link between peers’ acceptance of aggression and the development of aggressive behaviour. Drawing on a large community sample of N = 1,466 male and female children and adolescents from Germany aged between 10 and 18 years, results of latent structural equation modeling were consistent with the hypotheses that peer acceptance of aggression would predict external control beliefs in the social domain, which in turn, should predict aggressive behaviour over time. Additional multigroup analyses showed that the predicted pathways were consistent across gender and age groups.
This article demonstrates the use of structural equation modeling to develop norms for a translated version of a standardized scale, the Supports Intensity Scale – Children’s Version (SIS-C). The latent variable norming method proposed is useful when the standardization sample for a translated version is relatively small to derive norms independently but the original standardization sample is larger and more robust. Specifically, we leveraged a large, representative US standardization sample (n = 4,015) to add power and stability to a smaller Spanish (n = 405) standardization sample. Using a series of multiple-group mean and covariance structures confirmatory factor analyses using effects-coded scaling constraints, measurement invariance was tested across (a) Spanish only and (b) both US and Spanish age bands (5–6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12, 13–14, and 15–16). After establishing measurement invariance across the US and Spain, tests for latent means and variance differences within age-bands were only performed for Spanish data; the latent means and variances in the US sample were freely estimated. The study findings suggest that the information in the US data stabilized the overall model parameters, and the inclusion of the US sample did not influence on the norms of the SIS-C Spanish Translation.
The present article proposes a new developmental model of how young infants adapt and respond to complex contingencies in their environment, and how this influences development. The model proposes that typically developing infants adjust to an increasingly complex environment in ways that make it easier for them to allocate limited attentional resources and increase opportunities for positive learning experiences. Increased positive experiences with contingency lead to improvements in contingency detection, social behavior, and, ultimately, the development of social and communicative competency. Research relevant to the proposed model will be reviewed and analyzed. In addition, implications for atypical development in the case of autism spectrum disorder will be examined. Specifically, it is predicted that difficulty detecting and responding to increasingly complex contingencies in the environment would lead to particular deficits in interacting with the social world due to the inherent relative complexity of the social world compared to the non-social world. Furthermore, experiences with an unpredictable and confusing social world may lead individuals to increase their experiences with predictability and contingency through restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests. Limitations and areas for future research are presented.
The goal of the current investigation was to test emotion dysregulation as a mechanism explaining the longitudinal association between peer rejection and depressive symptoms across 1 school year in middle childhood and to determine whether this process differed based on gender and grade. Youth in Grades 3 through 6 (N = 131; 71 girls) and their primary school teachers (n = 8) were recruited from a Midwestern elementary school. Youth reported on their emotion dysregulation and depressive symptoms at two time points (T1 and T2), approximately 6 months apart. Teachers completed ratings of peer rejection at T1. Peer rejection at T1 predicted youth-report of depressive symptoms at T2, even after controlling for depression at T1. Moderated mediation suggested that change in emotion dysregulation mediated the relation of peer rejection to depressive symptoms over time, but only for older boys. Results underscore the importance of considering gender-specific processes within interpersonal risk models of depression, and provide support for peer rejection as a critical social process shaping emotion regulation in middle childhood.
Older adults tend to have lower emotion-perception accuracy compared to younger adults. Previous studies have centered on individual characteristics, including cognitive decline and positive attentional preferences, as possible mechanisms underlying these age differences in emotion perception; however, thus far, no perceiver-focused factor has accounted for the age differences. The present study focuses on perceived social-context factors and uses the Social Input Model as the framework for investigating the relation between the expressivity of the social environment and emotion-perception accuracy in younger and older adults. Younger (n = 32) and older adults (n = 29) reported on the make-up of their social circles and the expressivity of their three closest social partners and then completed a static facial emotion-perception task. Older adults reported greater positive and negative expressivity in their social partners compared to younger adults. Moreover, older adults were marginally less accurate than younger adults when perceiving emotions. Positive expressivity of the social partners predicted lower emotion-perception accuracy in younger but not older adults. Our findings mark the first step to identifying possible characteristics of the social environment that may contribute to the age difference in emotion-perception accuracy.
Missing data are a persistent problem in psychological research. Peer nomination data present a unique missing data problem, because a nominator’s nonparticipation results in missing data for other individuals in the study. This study examined the range of effects of systematic nonparticipation on the correlations between peer nomination data when nominators with various levels of popularity and social preference are missing. Results showed that, compared to completely random nominator missingness, systematic missingness of raters based on popularity had a significant impact on the correlations between various peer nomination variables. Systematic missingness based on social preference had a smaller impact. These results demonstrate varying (and potentially large) effects of systematically missing nominators on studies using nomination data. It is important that researchers using peer nomination data explore whether nominators are missing in any sort of systematic way and include these results as part of each study. Future research into the nature of systematic nominator missingness could make it possible to use advanced methodologies, such as multiple imputation, in an attempt to minimize the issues associated with systematic missingness.
Sharing a classroom environment with other victimized peers has been shown to mitigate the adverse effects of peer victimization on children’s social and psychological adjustment. By extension, this study hypothesized that classroom reductions in the proportion of victims would be harmful for children who remain victimized. Data were collected at the end of 2 subsequent school years from 4,466 fourth- to sixth-graders (mean age = 11 years), as part of the implementation of the Finnish anti-bullying program KiVa (an acronym for Kiusaamista Vastaan, "against bullying"). Multiple regression analyses were conducted on a subsample of 170 stable victims (children reporting being victimized at least 2–3 times a month at both time points) to test whether a decrease in the proportion of victims in their classrooms had an effect on their adjustment at Time 2. Stable victims felt more depressed, more socially anxious and were less liked at Time 2 in classrooms where the proportion of victims had decreased in 1 year compared to stable victims in classrooms where it had increased or remained the same. These effects were not moderated by the intervention status of the classroom. Paradoxically, an improved social environment can be detrimental for some children. These findings point to the necessity to maintain anti-bullying intervention efforts especially when successful.
While maternal influences on young children’s sleep are increasingly documented, the study of paternal contributions to this important sphere of child functioning is only just beginning. In addition, much of this emerging research has focused on infancy only or has relied on parental reports of child sleep. The current study aimed to examine the associations between paternal involvement and child sleep during toddlerhood, a period that witnesses both increased paternal involvement in child care and marked developments in child sleep. Fathers (N = 85) reported on their involvement when their toddlers were aged 2 years, and sleep was assessed objectively with actigraphy at age 3. Results indicated that above and beyond several key covariates, fathers who reported engaging more frequently in emotional support with their 2-year-old child, and those who reported evoking the child more often, had children who slept longer at night 1 year later. These results are among the first to suggest potential paternal influences on children’s sleep after the infancy period. They raise the possibility that interventions seeking to enhance paternal involvement may carry benefits for toddlers’ sleep and consequently, for aspects of cognition, behavior, and emotion that depend on adequate sleep regulation.
This study examined interrelations between three indicators of main challenges during adolescence: academic achievement, self-perceived peer acceptance, and self-esteem. An additional aim was to investigate whether the findings hold for girls and boys and across school types (academically oriented track vs. non-academically oriented track). We used a large German longitudinal study (N = 7,977; mean age at t 1= 13.5 years) with three measurement points over a period of four years (start of seventh grade, end of seventh grade, end of tenth grade). Cross-lagged panel and multi-group models revealed seven main findings: (1) We found general positive associations between academic achievement, perceived peer acceptance, and self-esteem. (2) Higher academic achievement predicted higher self-esteem, but not vice versa. (3) Self-esteem and peer acceptance showed mutual associations, but only in older adolescents between the end of seventh and end of tenth grades. (4) Peer acceptance slightly predicted lower levels of academic achievement in students on the non-academically oriented track. (5) The results held for both girls and boys, but (6) changed over the course of adolescence and (7) differed between school types. Taken together, our findings offer comprehensive insight into the relations between salient developmental tasks in adolescence.
The current longitudinal study examined the association of temperamental inhibition (assessed by behavioral observation and parental reports) at three years old with reward and punishment bias (measured by a spatial cueing task) and mothers’ and teachers’ reports of internalizing behaviors and social competence at five years old in 153 Chinese children. As predicted, behavioral inhibition positively predicted later mother-rated internalizing behaviors. In addition, punishment bias moderated this relation such that children with higher punishment bias showed a positive inhibition–internalizing link. Furthermore, inhibition negatively predicted both mother-rated and teacher-rated social competence. However, novel findings were that reward bias moderated the relation between inhibition and teacher-rated social competence, such that inhibited children showed an increased risk of low competence when they had lower reward bias.
This study examined how shyness–sensitivity and unsociability were associated with social, school, and psychological adjustment in Chinese children and adolescents. Participants included 564 children (272 boys, M age=9 years) and 462 adolescents (246 boys, M age=13 years) in a suburban region in China. Data were obtained from peer assessments, sociometric nominations, teacher-ratings, self-reports, and school records. The results showed that relations of shyness and unsociability with adjustment differed in middle childhood and early adolescence. Shyness tended to be associated with social and psychological problems more evidently in adolescence than in childhood. In contrast, unsociability was associated with problems more evidently across domains in childhood than in adolescence. The results indicate that the implications of the two main forms of social withdrawal may vary across developmental periods.
Most family-system research on triangulation processes has been undertaken in the West, with little known about this family dynamic in the East. The present cross-sectional study analysed 1,073 Chinese 3rd–12th-graders’ self-reported exposure to three kinds of triangulation—cross-generation coalition, scapegoating, and parentification—in relation to family and child factors and with respect to children’s school and social adjustment. Age-related analyses generally indicated that older children were less frequently exposed to all three dimensions of triangulation than younger ones. Children residing with only their parents experienced more scapegoating than those living in extended families; and boys were exposed to cross-generation coalition and scapegoating more than were girls. Higher levels of coalition and scapegoating exposure were related to poorer school adjustment and greater depression of children. Higher levels of parentification exposure, however, were associated with better school adjustment and social functioning. Findings are discussed in terms of theory and research on parent–child triangulation and cultural differences between East and West.
This longitudinal study focused on clarifying the direction of effects between social anxiety and victimization in a community-based sample. In addition, we studied the moderating effect of gender on this association. A total of 1,649 children (45% boys, approximately 12 years old) of 65 secondary-school classes participated in the study. Self-reports and peer nomination data of victimization as well as self-reports of social anxiety were gathered in the fall of Grade 1 (T1, wave one) and in the spring of Grade 1 (T2, wave 2). Latent multiple-group cross-lagged analyses were conducted. Results showed that higher social anxiety scores predicted incremental change in future peer- and self-reported victimization in boys, but not in girls, over and above the stability of victimization. Reverse cross-lagged effects of victimization predicting incremental change in future social anxiety, were not found. Although gender differences were significant, they were small.
The present study was designed to understand differences between unaccompanied refugees who retained or achieved good mental health (healthy or resilient) and those who maintained or developed poor mental health (clinical and vulnerable). Using person-based analyses, the role of pre-migration traumatic exposure and acculturation-related factors in long-term trajectories of psychological adjustment among unaccompanied refugees was explored. This study included three waves of data collection in a population-based sample. The participants were 918 unaccompanied refugees who had received asylum and residence status in Norway. The pattern of change in depression symptoms over time was used to characterize subgroups displaying resilient, vulnerable, clinical or healthy trajectories. Results indicated that the extent of post-migration acculturation hassles and heritage culture competence, as well as pre-migration traumatic events and gender, distinguished the refugee groups in terms of mental health trajectories. The implications for clinical practice and immigration policy are discussed.
The aim of the present study was to investigate whether parental daily distress in terms of negative emotions is associated with the daily variation in parental use of psychological control with their children. Whether parental positive emotions play a role in the use of psychological control was also investigated. The participants were 149 Finnish families with a child between the ages of 6 and 7 years. Parents’ negative and positive emotions, children’s misconduct, and parental use of psychological control when interacting with their children were measured daily using diary questionnaires filled in by the mothers and fathers over 7 successive days in the fall term of the children’s first grade and, for replication purposes, again in the spring term. The results of multilevel modelling showed that, after controlling for the level of children’s misconduct on a particular day, mothers’ and fathers’ negative daily emotions were related to a high level of psychological control in parenting. This relation was evident particularly when combined with parental perception of a high level of child misconduct. Positive emotions, in turn, were not found to be related to the daily variation in the use of psychological control. The results showed further that, at the level of individuals, mothers’ and fathers’ high overall level of negative emotions across the week was related to a high overall level of psychologically controlling parenting.
Poverty is a well-established risk factor for behavior problems, yet our understanding of putative family mediators during early childhood (i.e., before age 5 years) is limited. The present study investigated whether the association between poverty and behavior problems during early childhood is mediated simultaneously by perceived parenting, family dysfunction and/or maternal depression symptoms. Outcomes measures were high trajectories of physical aggression and hyperactivity between 1.5 and 5 years. Poverty was defined as living 2–4 years below the low-income thresholds defined by Statistics Canada. Using data from the first five rounds of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, logistic regressions models showed that poverty was associated with a higher likelihood of being assigned to the high trajectory of physical aggression and hyperactivity. Overprotection and maternal depression symptoms mediated observed associations. Interventions targeting maternal depression, parenting, and poverty should help reducing children’s risk for early behavior problems.
This longitudinal study examined developmental changes in conflict inhibition and error correction in three cohorts of children (5, 7, and 9 years of age). At each point of assessment, children completed three levels of Luria’s tapping task (1980), which requires the inhibition of a dominant response and maintenance of task rules in working memory. Findings suggest that both conflict inhibition and error detection and correction improve significantly during middle childhood. When cognitive demands were high, conflict inhibition, as shown by initial response accuracy, improved steadily across middle childhood. In contrast, the ability to detect and correct for errors improved between 5 and 6 years of age. Further, variability in conflict inhibition decreased with age and individual differences in conflict inhibition were stable across the 1-year period in the 7- and 9-year-old cohorts, but not 5-year-old cohort. These findings are discussed in relation to previous research on the development of inhibition.
The current studies examined the hypothesis that maturity fears are increasing among undergraduate men and women from the United States over time. Study 1 used a time-lag method to assess generational effects of maturity fears among a large sample (n = 3291) of undergraduate men and women assessed in 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012. Results revealed that both men and women reported significantly higher rates of maturity fears across time. Study 2 replicated these findings, and used a more restricted time frame to more closely examine the rate of change. Undergraduate women (n = 673) were assessed in 2001, 2003, 2009, and 2012. Maturity fears were again found to increase from 2001 to 2012. Recent cohorts of emerging adults seem more reluctant to mature than previous cohorts. Many contributing factors may be at play, including challenging economic times, social pressures to remain youthful, and/or internal fears of assuming increased responsibility.
Research has previously shown a gap of near 0.5 of a standard deviation (SD) in cognition and language development between the top and bottom household wealth quartile in children aged 6–42 months in a large representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. The gaps in fine motor and socio-emotional development were about half that size. Developmental deficits increased with age. The current study explored the associations amongst child development, household socio-economic status (SES), and a set of potential mediating variables—parental characteristics, child biomedical factors, and the quality of the home environment—in this sample. We ran mediation tests to quantify the contribution of these variables to the SES gap, and explored the role of age as a moderator. Parental education, particularly maternal education, and the quality of the home environment mediated the SES gap in all outcomes examined. Height-for-age mediated a small amount of the deficit in language scales only. More educated mothers provided better home stimulation than less educated mothers and the home environment partly mediated the effect of maternal education. These results suggested that in interventions aimed at promoting child development, those focusing on the quality of the home environment should be effective.
This study used longitudinal data from the Young Lives Project in Ethiopia to examine the main factors relating to preschool access and their potential effects on cognitive performance of children aged five and eight years. The results show that only one quarter of the preschool-aged children have the opportunity to attend this vital stage of education, with significant disparities by family wealth, education and regional location. Regardless of its limited coverage, preschool attendance is shown to have statistically significant positive effects on cognitive performance, measured by receptive vocabulary and mathematics tests. The effects do not also seem to fade away at a later age, as the inequality in cognitive abilities at age five continues to exist at the age of eight. Furthermore, using mediation analyses, causal chains between family backgrounds and cognitive performance were thoroughly analyzed. Bootstrap results show that preschool attendance mediates about one third of the direct effects of family wealth, education and regional location on child cognitive performance. Nevertheless, despite the importance of preschool education, public investment in this area is currently very limited, with the private sector taking the key role and exacerbating the inequality that exists between children of the rich and poor. These findings thus emphasize the need for government involvement in the form of public investment to this subsector to increase access for all children and reduce future educational inequalities.
A special section of the International Journal of Behavioral Development devoted to the topic of pathways underlying the impact of poverty on developmental inequality of children from low and middle income countries.
A strong relationship between article background and educational outcomes fuels a negative inequality cycle. This paper explores the interplay between student socioeconomic status and educational outcomes, and the mediating role of Opportunity-to-Learn (OTL) in high- and middle-income countries. Using data from PISA 2012, we find that the relationship between OTL and mathematics achievement is mostly positive. The magnitude of this relationship is higher in more affluent societies. Our results raise the possibility that unobserved teacher quality, school leadership, or other features of schools in lower-income countries make OTL less productive than in more developed nations. This lends support to the "complementary process" hypothesis and the notion that success (or riches) begets success. The analysis also shows that OTL mediates the effect of individual socioeconomic and cultural background on educational outcomes. This finding lends support for a policy emphasis on classroom-level practices as one key lever for improving learning and upward mobility for disadvantaged students.
This article documents differences in cognitive development, as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), between children from households with high and low socioeconomic status (SES) in two different phases of early childhood in four developing countries. A large number of potential mediators, such as urban residence, preschool attendance, early nutrition, caregiver’s education, and primary school attendance are discussed. Overall, the SES gradient is reduced but persists in most countries even when controlling for all the mediators. The mediational analysis shows that, while urban residence, caregiver’s education and early nutrition appear as significant mediators of the SES-PPVT relation for all countries and most ages, the size of the effect varies widely. For instance, after adding all mediators, the magnitude of the SES-PPVT relation drops by almost half in Peru (mainly due to urban residence), India (mainly due to caregiver’s education at age 5 and urban residence at age 8) and Vietnam at age 5 (mainly due to caregiver’s education). However, it only drops by one third in Ethiopia (mainly due to caregiver’s education at age 5 and urban residence at age 8). The relative importance of each mediator also changes depending on children’s age. Preschool attendance only appears as a minor mediator in Ethiopia and Vietnam at age 5, while primary school attendance does not appear as a significant mediator in any country.
Economic inequities are common in low and middle-income countries (LMIC), and are associated with poor growth and development among young children. The objectives are to examine whether maternal education and home environment quality: 1) protect children by attenuating the association between economic inequities and children’s growth and development, or 2) promote children’s growth and development, regardless of economic inequities. The sample includes 512 infants and 321 preschoolers in 26 villages in rural India (Project Grow Smart). Data for children: physical growth (weight and length/height measured) and development (Mullen Scales of Early Learning); for mothers/households: economic inequities measured by household assets, education, depressive symptoms, and home environment (HOME Inventory). Data are analyzed with linear mixed models (LMM) for infants and preschoolers separately, adjusted for village/preschool clustering, including asset-by-education/home interactions. Among infants, but not preschoolers, the education/home factor attenuates relations between assets and growth, eliminating differential relations in infant growth between high/low-asset families, suggesting protection. Among infants and preschoolers, the education/home factor is significantly or marginally associated with most child development scales, regardless of economic inequities, suggesting promotion. Strategies to enhance maternal education and home environment quality may protect infants in low-asset families from poor growth, promote development among infants and preschoolers, and prevent early disparities.
Studies from both high and low-middle income (LAMI) countries have documented how being reared in poverty is linked to compromised child development. Links between poverty and development are mediated by the timing and extent of exposure to both risk factors nested under poverty and to protective influences which can attenuate the impact of risk. While children from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are exposed to similar types of developmental risks, children from low- and middle-income countries are exposed to a greater number, more varied and more intense risks. Given these contextual differences, cumulative risk models may provide a better fit than mediated models for understanding the nature of pathways linking economic insufficiency and developmental inequality in low- and middle-income countries, and for designing interventions to promote development of children from these countries. New evidence from a large scale UNICEF data set illustrates the application of a cumulative risk/protective perspective in low- and middle-income countries.
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have shown mixed effects on child development outcomes in the context of poverty. Direct parenting support integrated with CCTs may improve the effectiveness of CCTs for children’s development, and benefits could occur via improvements in parenting practices or the home environment. Here, we use data from a randomized effectiveness trial to examine the pathways connecting parenting support and child development. The parenting program (EI: Educación Inicial) was implemented at scale among beneficiaries of Prospera (a CCT, previously Oportunidades and Progresa). Participants included children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old (n = 1,362) from 91 rural communities in three Mexican states. Communities were stratified by indigenous classification and randomized to one of three arms: (T0) Comparison group (CCT benefits only); (T1) CCT benefits plus availability of EI in the community; or (T2) CCT benefits plus promotion and encouragement by the CCT program to participate in EI. Findings were that participation in the T2 arm of the study was associated with a 13% increase in the number of play activities that parents engaged in with their children, particularly shared storybook reading and singing. Parents in T2 showed nearly two times greater odds of reading daily to their children. In mediation analyses, the amount of play activities and shared book reading explained up to 32% of the effects of the EI parenting program on child development outcomes. In this study, collaboration and integration of two social programs was critical for program impact, which occurred through pathways relating to parental engagement in reading and play.
The current study demonstrates the application of an analytic approach for incorporating multiple time trends in order to examine the impact of cohort effects on individual trajectories of eight drugs of abuse. Parallel analysis of two independent, longitudinal studies of high-risk youth that span ages 10 to 40 across 23 birth cohorts between 1968 and 1991 was conducted. The two studies include the Michigan Longitudinal Study (current analytic sample of n = 579 over 12 cohorts between 1980 and 1991 and across ages 10–27) and the Adolescent/Adult and Family Development Project (current analytic sample of n = 849 over 11 cohorts between 1968 and 1978 and across ages 10–40). A series of nonlinear, multi-level growth models controlled simultaneously for cohort and age trends in substance use trajectories. Evidence was found for both age and cohort effects across most outcomes as well as several significant age-by-cohort interactions. Findings suggest cohort trends in developmental trajectories of substance use are sample and drug-specific in the adolescent and early to mid-adult years. Thus, studies that do not control for both trends may confound cohort and developmental trends in substance use. For this reason, demonstration of one analytic approach that can be used to examine both time trends simultaneously is informative for future multi-cohort longitudinal studies where change over time is of interest.
A father’s mental health is important for family well-being, but research is scarce on paternal symptoms during the transition to fatherhood. This study identified fathers’ latent mental health trajectory classes from the pre- to postnatal period and examined their associations with early fathering experiences. It further analysed, whether a family’s infertility history was associated with mental health trajectory classes and moderated their effects on fathering experiences. Finnish fathers (N = 773) reported psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire; GHQ-36) and depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory; BDI-13) in pregnancy (T1), and at 2 months (T2) and 12 months (T3) postpartum. They further reported their fathering experience (Parenting Stress Index; PSI-36) at T2 and T3. Results revealed five paternal mental health trajectory classes, differing in timing and course of symptoms across the pre- and postpartum: stable low (79%) and moderate increasing (9%) levels of symptoms, and prenatal (5%), early fatherhood (3%) and heterogeneous high levels of (4%) problems. The trajectory classes were associated with fathering experiences within parental, interactive and child domains, across the child’s first year. The stable low levels of symptoms-class showed the most positive experiences and the heterogeneous high levels of problems-class the most negative ones; mental health problems in the early fatherhood-class reported negative fathering experience, but only when the child was 2 months old. A family’s infertility history neither showed any significant association with trajectory classes nor moderated their impact on early fathering, supporting the growing evidence that infertility treatments do not place an additional burden on early fatherhood.
This article examines the political socialization of young children who live under conditions of intractable conflict. We present four premises: First, we argue that, within the context of intractable conflict, political socialization begins earlier and faster than previously suspected, and is evident among young children. Second, we propose that the agents of political socialization impart narratives of the ethos of conflict and of collective memory in young children that support continuation of the conflict. Third, we maintain that the great majority of the young children form systematic and coherent systems of beliefs, attitudes, and emotions that support the conflict as a result of political socialization and direct exposure to conflict. Finally, we suggest that the conflict-related contents absorbed by children have lasting effects on the solidification of children’s later socio-psychological repertoire. Our arguments highlight the serious consequences of political socialization processes on very young children in societies involved in intractable conflict.
In this article, we aim to shed light on a technique to study intra-individual variability that spans the time frame of seconds and minutes, i.e., micro-level development. This form of variability is omnipresent in behavioural development and processes of human experience, yet is often ignored in empirical studies, given a lack of proper analysis tools. The current article illustrates that a clustering technique called Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), which is widely used in fields outside of psychology, is an accessible technique that can be used to capture intra-individual variability of multivariate data. We illustrate this technique with a case study involving self-experience in the context of a parent–adolescent interaction. We show that, with techniques such as SOM, it is possible to reveal how multiple components of an intra-individual process (the adolescent’s self-affect and autonomy) are non-linearly connected across time, and how these relationships transition in accordance with a changing contextual factor (parental connectedness) during a single interaction. We aim to inspire researchers to adopt this technique and explore the intra-individual variability of more developmental processes, across a variety of domains, as deciphering such micro-level processes is crucial for understanding the nature of psychological and behavioural development.
The visual preferences of infants for adult versus infant faces were investigated. Caucasian 3.5- and 6-month-olds were presented with Caucasian adult vs. infant face pairs and Asian adult vs. infant face pairs, in both upright and inverted orientations. Both age groups showed a visual preference for upright adult over infant faces when the faces were Caucasian, but not when they were Asian. The preference is unlikely to have arisen because of low-level perceptual features because: (1) no preference was observed for the inverted stimuli, (2) no differences were observed in adult similarity ratings of the upright infant–adult face pairs from the two races, and (3) no differences between the infant and adult faces were observed across races in an image-based analysis of salience. The findings are discussed in terms of the social attributes of faces that are learned from experience and what this implies for developmental accounts of a recognition advantage for adult faces in particular and models of face processing more generally.
Configural frequency analysis and log-linear modeling are presented as person-centered analytic approaches for the analysis of categorical or categorized data in multi-way contingency tables. Person-centered developmental psychology, based on the holistic interactionistic perspective of the Stockholm working group around David Magnusson and Lars Bergman, is briefly revisited. According to person-centered theory, systems or individuals are seen as a whole and as inseparable units; individuals are embedded and strongly interconnected with their context; the individual and the environment influence each other, and the individual is seen as an active agent or producer of his or her own development. Four models of configural frequency analysis are presented: (1) First-order configural frequency analysis, which is basically the analysis of a main effects log-linear model; (2) prediction configural frequency analysis, which defines one or more dependent variables; (3) two-group configural frequency analysis, which proposes that there is no association between discrimination variables and group membership; and (4) functional configural frequency analysis, which allows us to blank out certain outlier cells in order to test for the quasi-independence of the rest of the cross-table. The use of the open source
Emotion regulation is a central feature in human emotional development. However, measures based on children’s observable emotion regulation behaviors are largely absent. An inventory of children’s emotion regulation strategies was developed from current measures and four focus group discussions with experts in child behavior and emotion. From there, a 103-item inventory of observable emotion regulation strategies was developed. Multidimensional scaling was used to elicit and analyze similarity data, generated by participants with lay and expert knowledge in children’s emotion regulation engaging in a series of objective sorting tasks. This created a type of "collective working model" which reflects the internal structure of the item collection. The resulting framework provides a model that overlays current theoretical models, allows these models to be discussed and expanded, and the resultant Children’s Emotion Regulation Inventory (ChERI) carries potential usefulness for research or clinical applications.
It has been pointed out in the literature that misspecification of the level-1 error covariance structure in latent growth modeling (LGM) has detrimental impacts on the inferences about growth parameters. Since correct covariance structure is difficult to specify by theory, the identification needs to rely on a specification search, which, however, is not systematically addressed in the literature. In this study, we first discuss characteristics of various covariance structures and their nested relations, based on which we then propose a systematic approach to facilitate identifying a plausible covariance structure. A test for stationarity of an error process and the sequential chi-square difference test are conducted in the approach. Preliminary simulation results indicate that the approach performs well when sample size is large enough. The approach is illustrated with empirical data. We recommend that the approach be used in LGM empirical studies to improve the quality of the specification of the error covariance structure.
This longitudinal study investigates whether there are particularly salient ages when being overweight is related to problems in interpersonal relationships (i.e., physical, relational, and verbal victimization, lack of friend social support, dating status, and romantic relationship worries). Participants were from a large, six-wave longitudinal study (N = 662, 48% males, M age at T1 = 15.5 years, SD = 1.9 years). We use time-varying effect models to estimate how the associations between weight status and interpersonal problems differ from ages 12 to 28. Gender differences are also investigated. Findings show that youth who are overweight are more likely to experience verbal victimization, feel less supported by their peers, and are less likely to date than youth who are not overweight from mid-adolescence into early young adulthood. Further, females who are overweight are more likely to be physically victimized at ages 15 to 22 than females who are not overweight. The results provide a better understanding of age-related changes in interpersonal problems among youth who are overweight from adolescence into young adulthood.
The transition to adulthood is a critical juncture in the course of psychopathology. This study examined the ways in which earlier capacity to deal with relationship stress during adolescence contributed to an adaptive outcome in emerging adulthood. In a prospective study of 145 individuals, relationship stress, individual coping capacities, and perceived support from fathers, mothers, and peers were analyzed, when the participants were 13 and 17 years old. The effects of these earlier capacities to deal with relationship stress on health outcomes were examined in young adulthood (age 23). Gendered pathways to young adults’ symptomatology emerged. Females experiencing earlier relationship stress, but also support by mothers, fathers, and friends, showed less symptomatology at age 23. In addition, females’ withdrawal coping mediated the impact of stressful encounters on later internalizing symptomatology. In contrast, earlier coping with relationship stress was not found to be predictive for males. Earlier support from parents or friends was associated with later externalizing symptomatology in young men. Reasons for the gender-specific pathways to symptomatology are discussed.
Only a few studies have longitudinally explored to whom emerging adults prefer to turn to seek closeness, comfort, and security (called "attachment preferences"), and previous studies on attachment preferences in emerging adults have focused only on the beginning of romantic relationships but not on the end of relationships. Czech emerging adults (M = 21.47; SD = 1.48) completed the questionnaire of attachment preferences at two time points, Wave 1 (Summer 2013) and Wave 2 (Summer 2014). Latent difference score analyses revealed that emerging adults who were not in a romantic relationship in Wave 1 but started a romantic relationship between the two waves (n = 97) and those who had a romantic partner in both waves (n = 379) were both more likely to increase their attachment preference for the romantic partner and decrease their preference for friends, whereas those who did not start a relationship (n = 185) were not. Emerging adults who were in a romantic relationship in Wave 1 but were not in Wave 2 (n = 69) decreased their preference for the partner and increased their preference for friends. In all the groups, attachment preferences for the mother, for the father, or for the family did not change. Multiple regression analyses further revealed that for those who had a romantic partner in both waves, their length of romantic relationship was associated with changes in attachment preferences for romantic partners and for friends.
As the field of positive youth development (PYD) emerges internationally, models of PYD designed for use in the US must be extended to diverse contexts. For instance, a robust body of evidence supports Lerner and colleagues’ Five Cs Model of PYD in the US, but it remains unclear whether the Five Cs Model can validly capture positive development in other contexts. In this article we examined the Five Cs of PYD using data from 1195 upper secondary school students (ages 16 to 19) in Norway and 839 participants who took part in the 4-H Study of PYD in the United States. Despite some differences, the tests of weak and strong measurement invariance do suggest that the overarching PYD factor as well as a majority of the Cs, retain their qualitative interpretation between the two samples. We next examined correlations between the full battery of PYD items administered to the Norwegian sample and three relevant criterion measures: Anxiety and Depressive symptoms; Life Satisfaction; and Empowerment. The residual Cs tended to correlate positively with indicators of adaptive development and negatively with maladaptive outcomes. The one exception was a positive correlation between Caring and Anxiety and Depressive symptoms. These findings are discussed. Measuring the same constructs in the same way across countries is a prerequisite for studying cultural differences and similarities in development. This study thus represents a step forward in the application of PYD research among diverse youth.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations of children’s emotion knowledge (and its components) and socially appropriate behavior to peer likability in a sample of Italian preschool children at two time-points. At both Time 1 (T1; n = 46 boys, 42 girls) and a year later at Time 2 (T2; n = 26 boys, 22 girls), children’s emotion knowledge (i.e., emotion recognition, situation knowledge) was assessed, teachers evaluated children’s socially appropriate behavior, and peer likability was measured using a sociometric procedure. A two-wave autoregressive cross-lagged model indicated that children’s T1 emotion recognition was associated with higher T2 socially appropriate behavior, and children’s T1 socially appropriate behavior was related to higher T2 peer likability, even after controlling for stability in the constructs. Socially appropriate behavior mediated the relation between preschool children’s emotion recognition and peer likability. No bidirectional associations were found. The results support the notion that teacher training should focus on promoting children’s emotion knowledge to create a classroom atmosphere characterized by positive social behaviors and harmonious peer relationships across the preschool years.
During periods of developmental crisis, individuals experience uncomfortable internal incongruence and are motivated to reduce this through forms of exploration of self, other and world. Based on this, we inferred that being in a crisis would relate positively to curiosity and negatively to a felt sense of authenticity. A quasi-experimental design using self-report data from a nationally representative UK sample (N = 963) of adults in early life (20–39 years), midlife (40–59 years) and later-life (60+) showed a pattern of findings supportive of the hypotheses. Three forms of curiosity (intrapersonal, perceptual and epistemic D-type) were significantly higher, while authenticity was lower, among those currently in crisis that those of the same age group not in crisis. Crisis was also related to curiosity about particular book genres; early adult crisis to self-help and spirituality, midlife to self-help and biography, and later life to food and eating.
Spline growth modelling is a popular tool to model change processes with distinct phases and change points in longitudinal studies. Focusing on linear spline growth models with two phases and a fixed change point (the transition point from one phase to the other), we detail how to find optimal data collection designs that maximize the efficiency of detecting key parameters in the spline models, holding the total number of data points or sample size constant. We identify efficient designs for the cases where (a) the exact location of the change point is known (complete certainty), (b) only the interval that contains the change point is known (partial certainty), and (c) no prior knowledge on the location of the change point is available (zero certainty). We conclude with recommendations for optimal number and allocation of data collection points.
Based on the emotion socialization and bioecological models, the present study examined the contributions of teacher emotion socialization (i.e., teacher reactions to child emotions) on children’s social–emotional behaviors, and the moderating effect of child temperamental surgency on these relations in the preschool context. A total of 337 children and 80 teachers from private and public preschools/childcares participated in the study. To account for the nested nature of our data, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was utilized. The results indicated that several types of teacher reactions to children’s emotions significantly predicted children’s social–emotional behaviors, after adjusting for prior levels of the behaviors. In addition, significant interactions between child surgency and teacher emotion socialization behaviors on children’s social–emotional behaviors were found. These interactions indicated that children with low surgency were more sensitive to teachers’ positive and negative socialization, compared to children with high surgency. Our results highlight the importance of discrete emotion socialization behaviors by teachers to children’s social–emotional development.
A revised form of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory III (SCDI-III) was presented designed for Swedish speaking children aged 2 years 6 months–4 years 0 months with the objective to give a proxy measure of their language competence. The instrument contains a vocabulary checklist with 100 words, mainly predicates, from four areas; Food words, Body words, Mental words and Emotion words. Two sections assess the child’s grammar skills and a final section appraises the child’s metalinguistic awareness. Assessments from 1,134 parents are reported. Scales with adequate psychometric properties were formed for each section. Monthly median values and spread of score distributions are presented for each scale. Girls scored higher than boys on all scales. The revision, sampling procedures, demographic variables and issues of reliability and validity, are discussed. The general structure of the instrument can well be integrated in similar instruments designed for other languages and cultures.
Students perform better in school to the extent they are able to engage fully, cope adaptively, and bounce back from obstacles and setbacks in their academic work. These three processes, which studies suggest are positively inter-connected, may comprise a self-sustaining system that enables motivational resilience. Using self-determination theory to frame hypotheses about such a motivational system, this study examined (1) whether a set of personal factors (self-perceptions of relatedness, competence, and autonomy), interpersonal resources (perceptions of teacher warmth, structure, and autonomy support), and emotional reactivity predicted changes in motivational resilience over the school year; (2) whether motivational resilience in turn predicted improvements in students’ achievement and also fed back to increases in their personal and interpersonal resources; and (3) whether teacher support could shift established motivational patterns. A latent path model depicting these processes showed a good fit with self-report data from 1020 students in Grades 3 through 6 collected in fall and spring of the same school year (including achievement data from a random subset, n = 365). Multiple regressions predicting changes from fall to spring refined the proposed model. Moreover, teacher support was crucial: Students who began the year with at-risk profiles, but also experienced high teacher support, ended the year on par with low-risk students; whereas students who began with resilient profiles but experienced low levels of teacher support ended the year at-risk. Discussion focused on identifying levers for intervention and the essential role teacher support plays in these dynamics.
This study assessed the effects of three intervention programs for Chinese literacy development in kindergartners: the copying (Copy) program; a combined program of copying and Pinyin knowledge (Copy + Pinyin); and a combined program of copying and morphological awareness (Copy + MA). Ninety-seven kindergarteners aged 5–7 years in mainland China (30 in Copy, 32 in Copy + Pinyin, 35 in Copy + MA) participated. Thirty untrained children served as a control group. Children were tested on nonverbal IQ, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, phonological awareness, invented Pinyin spelling, word reading and writing skills in Chinese. After an eight-week intervention period, children in all three intervention groups progressed significantly more than the control group on literacy skills. Furthermore, the combined program of copying and Pinyin knowledge yielded significantly greater improvement in invented Pinyin spelling than the Copy and control groups. Finally, the combined program of copying and morphological awareness yielded greater improvement in word reading and writing, as well as significantly higher orthographic awareness than other groups. These findings suggest the utility of multi-component interventions for early Chinese literacy learning. That the combined program particularly benefited children’s reading and writing skills at the beginning level suggests that both rote practice and analytic strategies should be emphasized in kindergartens and primary schools in order to produce greater improvements in Chinese literacy acquisition.
Object construction involves organizing multiple objects into a unified structure (e.g., stacking blocks into a tower) and may provide infants with unique spatial information. Because object construction entails placing objects in spatial locations relative to one another, infants can acquire information about spatial relations during construction activity. To acquire words representing spatial relations, children must link sensorimotor experience to their language system. It is proposed that the development of construction skills during infancy influences knowledge of words indicating spatial relations at three years. Infants who develop early construction skills are expected to comprehend more words describing spatial relations than infants who develop construction skills later. Infants were tested monthly with seven construction tasks from 10–14 months and were tested at three years for their comprehension of spatial relations words. In addition, both the Preschool Language Scales, 5th edition (PLS-5) (three years) and the Bayley cognitive sub-scale (two years) were assessed to examine whether infants with differing construction skills would perform differently on general language and cognitive abilities in infants, as well as spatial words. "High" constructors understood more spatial relations words than "low" constructors, although there were no differences for general language (PLS-5) or cognitive ability (Bayley cognitive sub-scale). Since infant construction skill did not also relate to general language or cognitive ability, rather only to comprehension of spatial words, object construction activity may uniquely afford opportunities for spatial information, which becomes relevant to the development of spatial words.
We investigated the association between marital quality and child behavior, assessing mother–child relationship quality as a potential mediator. The sample included 78 mothers with two target children (mean ages = 9.82 and 12.05 years, respectively). Mothers reported on their children’s behavior as well as their marital quality, while each child reported on their relationship with their mother. Confirming our hypothesis, marital quality did relate to child behavior. Contrary to our expectations, the mother–child relationship provided negligible mediation of the link, but did provide significant prediction of child behavior in its own right. Importantly, our findings show differential outcomes for children within the same family, supporting a differentiated child-specific outlook. Further evidence that both marital quality and shared, as well as differential, mother–child relationships link with child behavior is provided here. Consequently, interventions with the aim of decreasing children’s behavioral problems and increasing more positive conduct can usefully include a focus on the nature of the parents’ romantic relationship, alongside parenting.
This study investigated whether the amount and timing of group-based childcare between birth and 51 months were predictive of cognitive development at 51 months, taking into account other non-parental childcare, demographic characteristics, cognitive development at 18 months, sensitive parenting and a stimulating home environment. Children’s (N=978) cognitive development was assessed at 51 months with four subscales of the British Ability Scales: two verbal and two non-verbal. Mothers were interviewed and observed at 3, 10, 18, and 36 months and the quality of group care was assessed at 10, 18, and 36 months (N=239) if it was used for ≥12 hours per week. Age of starting in group care and amount were highly associated (r = -.75). Multiple regressions indicated that, controlling for other factors, higher cognitive development and particularly non-verbal ability was associated with more hours per week in group care from 0 to 51 months, or an earlier start, or group care before age 2. Nevertheless, the majority of variance was explained by other predictors: sex (girl), higher cognitive development at 18 months, older mother, first language English, mother of white ethnic background, with more qualifications, higher family social class, more maternal responsivity at 10 months and a more stimulating home learning environment (HLE) at 36 months. Hours per week in relative care or home-based care were not significant predictors of cognitive scores. For the smaller relatively advantaged sample who had group care quality information (N=239), quality was a marginal predictor of better cognitive development but age of starting group care was not. Most variance was explained by 18 month cognitive development, maternal education, and family social class.
The aim of this study is to develop a multidimensional measure for assessing children’s personal agency to handle parental conflict through their coping self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997). Coping self-efficacy beliefs are individuals’ perceived ability to motivate themselves, access cognitive resources, and perform the actions required to take control of stressful situations. This study examines the psychometric properties and validation of the newly created Parental Conflict Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (PCC-SES). The study was based on 663 children, in grades 5 and 7 and their mothers. An exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis through structural equation modeling supported the structure of the PCC-SES. The PCC-SES’s structure was facilitated by three global strategies, namely Proactive Behavior (problem solving and seeking social support), Avoiding Maladaptive Cognitions (avoiding preoccupation, avoiding self-blame and distancing) and Avoiding Maladaptive Behavior (avoiding aggression and avoiding overinvolvement).
Poor sleep is thought to interfere with children’s learning and academic achievement (AA). However, existing research and theory indicate there are factors that may mitigate the academic risk associated with poor sleep. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of children’s effortful control (EC) on the relation between sleep and AA in young children. One hundred and three 4.5- to 7-year-olds (M = 5.98 years, SD = 0.61) wore a wrist-based actigraph for five continuous weekday nights. Teachers and coders reported on children’s EC. EC was also assessed with a computer-based task at school. Additionally, we obtained a standardized measure of children’s AA. There was a positive main effect of sleep efficiency to AA. Several relations between sleep and AA were moderated by EC and examination of the simple slopes indicated that the negative relation between sleep and AA was only significant at low levels of EC.
From birth on, infants show long-term recognition memory for persons. Furthermore, infants from six months onwards are able to store and retrieve demonstrated actions over long-term intervals in deferred imitation tasks. Thus, information about the model demonstrating the object-related actions is stored and recognition memory for the objects as well as memory for the actions is retrieved. To study the development of long-term retention for different memory contents systematically, the present study investigated the recognition of person- and object-related information as well as the retention of actions in two samples of three-year-olds who had participated in a deferred imitation task at either nine or 18 months of age. Results showed that three-year-olds who had participated at nine months of age retained actions in a re-enactment task; however, they neither indicated person- nor object-recognition in a picture-choice task (recognition task). Children who had participated at 18 months of age demonstrated person- and object-recognition but no re-enactment at three years of age. Findings are discussed against the background of memory development from a preverbal to a verbal age and in regard to the characteristics of the recognition vs re-enactment tasks and the stimuli used.
This study examines the effects of peer victimization by verbal, physical, and relational bullying on Korean adolescents’ self-worth, disconnect to peers, school engagement, and academic achievement. A two-year longitudinal survey on 3,266 sixth-graders attending school in Seoul, Korea was used. Multivariate regression results controlling for socio-demographic characteristics as well as initial levels of outcome indicated that youth bullied by their peers experienced greater difficulties than non-bullied peers in terms of self-worth, disconnect to peers, school engagement, and academic achievement. Results revealed that youth experiencing relational bullying suffered from large negative effects on all four adjustment outcomes and that the negative effects of bullying were generally limited to the period of victimization with little evidence for chronicity effects. Limitations as well as policy implications are further discussed.
Previous Experience Sampling Method (ESM) studies demonstrate that adolescents’ daily emotional states are heavily influenced by their immediate social context. However, despite adolescence being a risk period for exposure to daily stressors, research has yet to examine the influence of peers on adolescents’ emotional responses to stressors encountered in their daily life. Adolescents (N = 108) from a low-SES school completed ESM reports of their social context, minor stressors and emotions, 5 times a day for 7 days. Based on previous findings that the peer context is experienced as positive and rewarding, we expected being with peers would be associated with lower post-stress negative emotions and higher happiness, compared to being with family or alone. As expected, being with peers after a stressor was associated with lower sadness, worry and jealousy compared to being alone, and lower sadness compared to being with family. Gender differences emerged for the influence of peers on sadness, worry, jealousy and happiness. These findings highlight the salient influence of peers on adolescents’ emotional reactivity to stressors as they occur in their natural environment. Findings are discussed in reference to peers as important emotion socialization agents during adolescence and in terms of theories of coping and emotion regulation.
This study investigated the psychometrics of a recently developed global rating measure of videotaped parent-infant interaction, the Manchester Assessment of Caregiver–Infant Interaction (MACI), in a normative sample. Inter-rater reliability, stability over time, and convergent and discriminant validity were tested. Six-minute play interactions were blind-rated by trained coders in 147 healthy mother-infant dyads at 3–10 months postpartum using the MACI; 51% were re-assessed 4 or 7 months later. Infant cognitive functioning, language and temperament, parent-reported infant warmth and invasion, parental mood, and the parent’s own recalled experiences of being parented were measured. We report the internal psychometrics of the MACI, evidence of stability as predicted, and inter-rater reliability. MACI caregiver sensitive responsiveness showed convergent validity with parental state of mind (mood at 3–4 months; report of own childhood care and overprotection), while MACI infant affect (but not the caregiver scales) was associated with parent-rated infant warmth. All MACI scales showed discriminant validity with concurrent cognitive and language developmental status, and most temperament dimensions. In conclusion, the MACI demonstrates utility, reliability and preliminary validity data in a normative sample, which complements previous work using the MACI. Follow-up is needed to test predictive validity. The findings inform further improvements to the tool, and may guide those looking for a relatively brief way to examine the global qualities of parent, infant and dyadic interaction.
Internationally, girls outperform boys in overall school performance. The gender gap is particularly large among those in at-risk groups, such as children from families at economic disadvantage. This study modeled the academic trajectories of a low-income sample of boys and girls from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project across the full course of schooling. Results from a multiple-group latent growth curve analysis revealed that children from this low-income sample demonstrated a significant decreasing trajectory of academic performance over time, which intensified after the transition from elementary to secondary schooling. A gender gap in academic performance emerged after the children transitioned to secondary school, with girls outperforming boys. Boys continued to experience greater academic decline than did girls across the secondary school years, and individual and family characteristics assessed in early elementary school predicted these academic trajectories. At school entry, boys showed higher levels of attention problems than did girls, which in turn predicted boys’ poorer school performance. However, boys with stronger reading skills and greater maternal school involvement during the early years of schooling were protected against declining academic performance across the secondary school years. Implications for prevention programs are discussed.
Children’s and adolescents’ narratives of interpersonal experiences can inform our understanding of developmental shifts in the use of personhood concepts. We present results from two studies (ns = 90, 112) with children aged five to 16 years. In the first study, children were asked to describe one positive and another negative experience with a friend, and in the second study, to describe a time when they were a victim and another time when they were a perpetrator of harm. Across both studies, results supported previous findings suggesting that psychological, relational, trait, and identity personhood conceptions become more prominent with age, whereas activity, physical, and material conceptions become less prominent with age. However, our results also revealed that, within the context of real-life experiences, psychological conceptions become evident at earlier ages than suggested by children’s responses to the structured tasks employed in previous research. In addition, we found age-related increases in the simultaneous use of psychological and relational conceptions of persons, especially in narratives of negative experiences. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for social development.
The main goals of the present study were (a) to compare Chinese migrant and nonmigrant adolescents on mean levels of parenting, positive adjustment, and academic functioning, and to assess whether socioeconomic status (SES) accounted for any obtained differences, (b) to examine whether the relations of SES and migrant status to youths’ positive adjustment were mediated by quality of parenting, and (c) to examine relations of parenting to positive adjustment across time. Three months after adolescents (254 boys and 216 girls; 281 migrant and 189 nonmigrant adolescents; M age = 12.95 years, SD = 0.91 at the first wave) entered middle school (T1), and again one (T2) and two years later (T3), adolescents, parents, and/or teachers reported on parenting, and adolescents’ positive psychological adjustment and school-related social competence, and adolescents’ academic records were obtained from schools. Migrant parents were lower than nonmigrant parents on education and positive parenting (T1, T2, and T3). Migrant adolescents were lower than nonmigrant adolescents on self-reported self-esteem and life satisfaction, academic achievement (T1, T2, and T3) and teacher-reported school-related social competence (T3); they did not differ on most variables when parents’ education was controlled. When taking into account the stability of parenting and adjustment (and including T1 SES and migrant status as predictors of T2 variables), positive parenting predicted school-related social competence and academic achievement across time.
Lying is an interpersonal exercise that requires the intentional creation of a false belief in another’s mind. As such, children’s development of lie-telling is related to their increasing understanding of others and may reflect the acquisition of basic social skills. Although certain types of lies may support social relationships, other types of lies are considered antisocial in nature. The goal of this study was to compare several possible correlates, such as cognitive ability and children’s behavior patterns, that may be associated with children’s (N = 133) use of lies in socially acceptable versus socially unacceptable ways. Children engaged in two lie-telling paradigms: one to measure socially accepted (polite) lies and one to measure socially unaccepted (instrumental) lies. Results indicate that instrumental liars were young with low theory of mind (ToM) scores and had high social skills. Polite liars were the oldest, had high ToM, and had similar levels of social skills as instrumental liars. Truth-tellers and dual liars had lower social skills and moderate ToM in comparison to the instrumental and polite liars. These findings suggest that children use lies selectively to achieve their social goals, and also suggest that children’s lying behavior may change from being self-motivated to being other-motivated as they age, which may reflect socialization toward socially accepted behavior.
The family environment shapes children’s social information processing and emotion regulation. Yet, the long-term effects of early family systems have rarely been studied. This study investigated how family system types predict children’s attentional biases toward facial expressions at the age of 10 years. The participants were 79 children from Cohesive, Disengaged, Enmeshed, and Authoritarian family types based on marital and parental relationship trajectories from pregnancy to the age of 12 months. A dot-probe task was used to assess children’s emotional attention biases toward threatening (angry) and affiliative (happy) faces at the early (500 ms) and late (1250 ms) stages of processing. Situational priming was applied to activate children’s sense of danger or safety. Results showed that children from Cohesive families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, whereas children from Enmeshed families had a late-stage bias toward threat. Children from Disengaged families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, but showed in addition a late-stage bias away from emotional faces (i.e., both angry and happy). Children from Authoritarian families, in turn, showed a late-stage attentional bias toward emotional faces. Situational priming did not moderate the effects of family system types on children’s attentional biases. The findings confirm the influence of early family systems on the attentional biases, suggesting differences in the emotion regulation strategies children have developed to adapt to their family environments.
Inherent in applied developmental sciences is the threat to validity and generalizability due to missing data as a result of participant drop-out. The current paper provides an overview of how attrition should be reported, which tests can examine the potential of bias due to attrition (e.g., t-tests, logistic regression, Little's MCAR test, sensitivity analysis), and how it is best corrected through modern missing data analyses. To amend this discussion of best practices in managing and reporting attrition, an assessment of how developmental sciences currently handle attrition was conducted. Longitudinal studies (n = 541) published from 2009–2012 in major developmental journals were reviewed for attrition reporting practices and how authors handled missing data based on recommendations in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010). Results suggest attrition reporting is not following APA recommendations, quality of reporting did not improve since the APA publication, and a low proportion of authors provided sufficient information to convey that data properly met the MAR assumption. An example based on simulated data demonstrates bias that may result from various missing data mechanisms in longitudinal data, the utility of auxiliary variables for the MAR assumption, and the need for viewing missingness along a continuum from MAR to MNAR.
Attachment theory and previous research on emotion regulation (ER) suggest that ER will be associated with adult attachment orientation, with the expectation of different associations of attachment avoidance, anxiety, and security with specific ER patterns. In addition, research has shown that the emotion under consideration and the context may matter to patterns of ER and associations between attachment and ER. In the present study, we examined associations between attachment representations, and emotion specific (sadness, worry, and anger) ER among late adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 23 years (M = 19.6, SD = 1.58). In addition, to consider context, participants were randomly assigned to report ER following insecurity priming or no priming. Participants were 383 (181 male, 202 female) students who completed a self-report questionnaire. As expected, multivariate regression results examining all attachment orientations simultaneously showed that attachment anxiety was associated with greater dysregulation (sadness, worry, and anger), but also more anger suppression. In contrast, attachment avoidance was associated with greater suppression (sadness and worry), but also more anger dysregulation. Attachment security was associated with less dysregulation (sadness, worry, and anger), and less sadness and worry suppression. Finally, sadness and anger dysregulation were higher when reported after insecurity priming compared to the standard no prime condition, but few associations between attachment orientations and ER were moderated by condition. The results suggest that individuals’ attachment representations are associated with ER, with security a benefit to adaptive ER, and anxiety and avoidance playing different roles in maladaptive ER for different emotions.
Children younger than three years old are able to detect hidden rules in numerical sequences, and this ability matches that of adults by age seven. However, the developmental trajectory of this ability during the ages of four to six remains unknown. The present study adopted a modified Brixton task to address this issue. In this task, children were presented with sequences of moving circles and were asked to predict which circle would next turn blue based on hidden rules that were either simple (e.g. + 2) or complex (e.g. + 2 – 1). Results suggested that (a) four-year-olds were only able to detect comparably few simple rules, whereas children older than 4.5 years were able to successfully detect most of the simple rules hidden in number sequences; (b) although all children performed significantly poorer when attempting to identify complex rules as compared with simple rules, rule detection (RD) ability improved rapidly with age, and children older than five were able to identify most complex rules. These findings extended previous work on rule learning by revealing the developmental trajectory of RD among preschoolers.
The paper reports on a study which tested whether infants high in negative affectivity are differentially susceptible to observed coparenting behavior in relation to their subsequent social–emotional development. Data came from a longitudinal study of 182 US dual-earner, primiparous couples and their infant children. At nine-months postpartum, child negative affectivity was reported by mothers and fathers and supportive and undermining coparenting behavior were assessed from mother-father-infant observations. At 27-months mothers reported on toddlers’ externalizing behavior and dysregulation using a clinical assessment tool designed to identify competencies and areas of concern in toddlers’ social–emotional development. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed partial support for the differential susceptibility hypothesis. Specifically, infants high in negative affectivity had lower levels of dysregulation when embedded in a more supportive coparenting context, and higher levels of dysregulation when embedded in a less supportive coparenting context. In contrast, supportive coparenting behavior was not relevant for the dysregulation of infants initially low in negative affectivity.
Attachment theorists have described the parent–child attachment relationship as a foundation for the emergence and development of children’s capacity for emotion regulation and coping with stress. The purpose of this review was to summarize the existing research addressing this issue. We identified 23 studies that employed validated assessments of attachment, which were not based on self-report questionnaires, and separated the summary into findings for toddlers/preschool, children, and adolescents. Although most associations were weak and only a minority of the multiple possible associations tested was supported in each study, all studies (but one) reported at least one significant association between attachment and emotion regulation or coping. The evidence pointed to the regulatory and coping problems of toddlers showing signs of ambivalent attachment or the benefits of secure (relative to insecure) attachment for toddlers, children, and adolescents. Toddlers who showed signs of avoidant attachment relied more on self-related regulation (or less social-oriented regulation and coping), but it was not clear whether these responses were maladaptive. There was little information available regarding associations of ambivalent attachment with school-age children’s or adolescents’ emotion regulation. There were also few studies that assessed disorganized attachment.
Adolescents’ negative social expectations of their peers were examined as long-term predictors of problematic self-reported social functioning. Early adolescent negative expectations were hypothesized to predict risk-averse functioning in late adolescence that would ultimately contribute to confirmation of those expectations. Utilizing observational data and friend- and self-reports from a community sample of 184 adolescents followed from ages 13 to 25, adolescents with more negative expectations were found to have become increasingly submissive with friends over time and were rated as less romantically appealing by late adolescence (after controlling for baseline levels of these variables, baseline friend-rated social competence and self-reported depressive symptoms). In turn, submissiveness and romantic appeal predicted problematic self-reported social functioning well into adulthood and mediated the relationship between adolescent negative expectations and problematic self-reported adult social functioning. These findings support the possibility of a self-fulfilling social process unfolding from early adolescence to adulthood.
Pregnant and parenting adolescents are at significant risk for educational underachievement. Educational expectations play a critical role for understanding subsequent educational attainment; yet, limited empirical attention has been given to changes in educational expectations across the transition to parenthood among adolescent mothers. This longitudinal study explored stability and change in educational expectations across the transition to parenthood among 191 first-time pregnant Mexican-origin adolescents (M age = 16.76, SD = .98). The current study also examined how several contextually relevant risk and protective factors were associated with differential patterns of educational trajectories across this transition and subsequent educational attainment. Latent class growth analyses revealed three educational expectation trajectories: low and stable (< high-school degree), moderate and increasing ( associate degree), and high and increasing ( bachelor’s degree). Adolescent mothers in the low and stable group encountered several educational risk factors that partially explained their probability of membership in this trajectory and subsequent lower attainment. Conversely, probability of membership in the high and increasing expectations class was partially explained by adolescents’ on-track school status at the time of pregnancy and their mother figures’ educational expectations for their pregnant daughters. These findings have implications for understanding the malleable factors that help to explain why some adolescent mothers describe consistently high educational expectations and subsequent higher attainment, while others do not.
The precise nature of the relation between adult mentalizing abilities and parental representations of the child as a mental agent (mind-mindedness) is under current debate. While some authors state that it is the same competence expressed in different contexts, others assert that they are different constructs. This study examined the relation between mentalizing and mind-mindedness, in mothers and fathers, while investigating their potential links to socio-demographic, parental, and child variables. Participants were 74 families comprising of mother, father, and their preschool-aged child. Controlling for educational level, psychopathological symptoms, and children’s reported temperament, the relation between mentalizing and mind-mindedness was non-significant. Moreover, mentalizing and mind-mindedness were shown to have distinct correlates, supporting the proposal that they are two distinct constructs.
Previous studies have found evidence for gender and racial/ethnic differences in depressive symptoms in adolescence; however, the mechanisms driving this relationship are poorly understood. The goal of this study was to examine the role of individual differences in dispositional coping in the relationships between gender and depressive symptomatology, and race/ethnicity and depressive symptomatology. Surveys were administered to 905 15- and 17-year-old adolescents (mean age 16.10, SD = .67; 54% girls, n = 485) in the spring of 2007, 2008, and 2009. Girls reported more depressive symptomatology than boys and endorsed a greater disposition for the following coping strategies in comparison to boys: emotional social support, instrumental social support, and venting emotions. When race/ethnicity was examined, African-American adolescents reported a greater tendency toward using religious coping than Caucasian and Hispanic adolescents. Dispositional coping preferences also were found to mediate the relationships between gender and depressive symptomatology. These findings indicated that a preference for venting emotions may be particularly problematic when endorsed by girls, whereas instrumental social support may be particularly helpful for girls.
The majority of episodic memory (EM) tests are far removed from what we experience in daily life and from the definition of this type of memory. This study examines the developmental trajectory of the main aspects of episodic memory—what, where, and when—and of feature binding in a naturalistic virtual environment. A population of 125 participants aged from 6 to 24 years was asked to navigate, by using a joystick, in a virtual urban environment composed of specific areas, and to memorize as many elements as possible (e.g., scenes, details, spatial and temporal contexts). The ability to recall factual content associated to details or spatiotemporal context increased steadily from the age of 8 to young adulthood. These results indicate main developmental differences in feature binding abilities in naturalistic events which are very sensitive to age in comparison with a standard EM assessment. Virtual reality therefore appears to be an appropriate technique to assess crucial aspects of EM development in children and adolescents and it should provide helpful tools for the detection of subtle memory deficits.
The purpose of the study was to evaluate bidirectional associations between peer acceptance and both emotion and effortful control during kindergarten (N = 301). In both the fall and spring semesters, we obtained peer nominations of acceptance, measures of positive and negative emotion based on naturalistic observations in school (i.e., classroom, lunch/recess), and observers’ reports of effortful control (i.e., inhibitory control, attention focusing) and emotions (i.e., positive, negative). In structural equation panel models, peer acceptance in fall predicted higher effortful control in spring. Effortful control in fall did not predict peer acceptance in spring. Negative emotion predicted lower peer acceptance across time for girls but not for boys. Peer acceptance did not predict negative or positive emotion over time. In addition, we tested interactions between positive or negative emotion and effortful control predicting peer acceptance. Positive emotion predicted higher peer acceptance for children low in effortful control.
There is growing interest in understanding how beliefs about emotion regulation are related to individual emotional experiences. Extant studies have mainly focused on explicit beliefs about emotion regulation among individuals in Western societies. The current study examined implicit emotion regulation and explored their contributions to emotional outcomes in 147 Chinese adolescents. Participants were tested on their implicit beliefs about emotion regulation and their negative emotion experiences. Results showed that the down-regulation was implicitly evaluated as more positive than up-regulation. Moreover, positive implicit beliefs about down-regulation increased with age. Among younger adolescents, those who evaluated down-regulation more positively had less negative emotional experiences. These results suggest that down-regulation may have important implications in Chinese culture.
Current treatments for disorders of emotion, such as pathological anxiety, are often less effective in older adults than in younger adults and have poorly understood mechanisms, pointing to the need for psychopathology models that better account for age-related changes in normative emotional functioning and the expression of disordered emotion. This article describes ways in which the healthy aging and emotion literature can enhance understanding and treatment of symptoms of anxiety and depression in later life. We offer recommendations on how to integrate the theories and findings of healthy aging literature with psychopathology research and clinical practice and highlight opportunities for future research.
Romantic relationship quality in adolescence and early adulthood has often been linked to earlier parent–child relationship quality but it is possible that these links are nonlinear. Moreover, the role of social skills as mediator of associations between parent–child and romantic relations has been discussed but not rigorously tested. Using data from 2,230 participants of the longitudinal TRAILS (TRacking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey) sample, this study examined whether parent–child positivity assessed at age 11 predicted romantic involvement, commitment and satisfaction in emerging adulthood. Moreover, indirect effects via cooperation, assertion and self-control were tested. Parent–child positivity did not predict romantic involvement as such. However, in those who were romantically involved, linear and, by trend, nonlinear associations between parent–child positivity and commitment were found, suggesting higher levels of commitment in those who had reported positive parent–child relationships but also in individuals with particularly low levels of parent–child positivity. Satisfaction was linearly linked to parent–child positivity. Little support was found for the assumption that the association between parent–child positivity and romantic relationship quality in emerging adulthood are partly explained by social skills. These results show that neither congruence nor compensation alone are sufficient to explain the associations between parent–child and romantic relationship quality.
This study examined young children’s deception in a conflict situation. A puppet show was prepared involving a protagonist who went into hiding, an enemy who wanted to catch the protagonist, and a friend who was looking for the protagonist. In the no-conflict condition, the enemy asked the children about the location of the protagonist. In the conflict condition, the friend asked the children; however, the enemy was nearby and could eavesdrop. Thus, there was a conflict between deceiving the enemy and telling the truth to the friend. In Experiment 1, the enemy hid behind a tree and was not visible to the friend; 80 children aged 4, 5, and 6 years old participated. In Experiment 2, the enemy was visible to the friend but was disguised; 24 children aged 5 and 6 years old participated. Most 5- and 6-year-olds did not give accurate information to the enemy in the no-conflict condition. However, in the conflict condition, most of the children did not control their behavior and immediately gave accurate information to the friend although the enemy was nearby. Young children from the age of 5 years were able to deceive in the no-conflict situation, but it was difficult for them to deceive in the conflict situation.
This 25-year longitudinal study of a sample of Canadian high school seniors (N = 373) examined pathways from work values at age 18 to mid-life (age 43) career satisfaction and life satisfaction through several possible mediators: age 25 and 32 work values, months of postsecondary education (PSE) by age 25, and age 43 work rewards. Gender and parents’ PSE were also examined as influences on pathways to mid-life satisfaction. Structural equation modeling found support for one pathway beginning with intrinsic work values in high school (age 18 intrinsic work values->age 25 intrinsic work values->age 32 intrinsic work values->age 43 intrinsic work rewards->age 43 career and life satisfaction). Another pathway began with parents’ PSE (parents’ PSE->participants’ age 25 PSE->age 43 intrinsic work rewards->age 43 career and life satisfaction). Extrinsic work values from age 18 to 32 were not related to age 43 work rewards or career and life satisfaction. These findings indicate that adolescent work values matter for important mid-life outcomes, intrinsic work values are stronger predictors of adaptive outcomes than are extrinsic work values, and PSE plays a vital cross-generational role in shaping mid-life satisfaction.
In this longitudinal study, we examined the relationship between the trajectory of generative concern measured at ages 23, 26 and 32 and environmental narrative identity at age 32. Canadian participants completed a questionnaire on generative concern at ages 23, 26 and 32 and were then interviewed about their personal experiences with the environment at age 32 (N = 112). Narratives were coded by independent raters for meaning, vividness and impact, with higher levels indicating a more salient environmental narrative identity. Latent growth models revealed significant individual variability in the trajectories of generative concern from ages 23 to 32. This variability was associated with the salience of environmental narrative identity at age 32 through two different developmental processes: (1) having a higher level of generative concern at age 23 predicted a more salient environmental narrative identity at age 32; and (2) those who developed higher levels of generative concern during the course of emerging adulthood (from ages 23 to 32) also appeared to display a more salient environmental narrative identity at age 32. Implications of these findings are also discussed.
The present study examined whether bullying, defending, and outsider behaviors in preschool children were associated with two conscience aspects (empathic concern and internalization of rules) and with emotion understanding. We also investigated whether emotion understanding moderated the relationship between these dimensions and bullying roles. Participants were 105 children (51 males), aged 36 to 76 months. Bullying roles were assessed through peer nominations. Internalization of rules and empathic concern were observed in classroom and their scores derived from selected Q-Sort items. Emotion understanding was evaluated with the Puppet Interview administered to children. Results showed that empathic concern and internalization of rules were negatively associated with bullying and outsider behaviors, whereas emotion understanding correlated with defending behavior. The interaction between emotion understanding and internalization of rules was also significant: Low scores on rule-compatible conduct were associated with bullying or outsider behavior, in particular for those children with poor emotion understanding.
We examined profiles of sibling relationship qualities in 246 Mexican-origin families living in the United States using latent profile analyses. Three profiles were identified: Positive, Negative, and Affect-Intense. Links between profiles and youths’ familism values and adjustment were assessed using longitudinal data. Siblings in the Positive profile reported the highest familism values, followed by siblings in the Affect-Intense profile and, finally, siblings in the Negative profile. Older siblings in the Positive and Affect-Intense profiles reported fewer depressive symptoms than siblings in the Negative profile. Further, in the Positive and Negative profiles, older siblings reported less involvement in risky behaviors than younger siblings. In the Negative profile, younger siblings reported greater sexual risk behaviors in late adolescence than older siblings; siblings in opposite-sex dyads, as compared to same-sex dyads, engaged in riskier sexual behaviors. Our findings highlight sibling relationship quality as promotive and risky, depending on sibling characteristics and adjustment outcomes.
Extant literature suggests that oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors in childhood and adolescence are associated with distinct patterns of psychophysiological functioning, and that individual differences in these patterns have implications for developmental pathways to disorder. Very little is known about the associations between psychophysiological functioning in infancy and later ODD and CU behaviors. This study examined associations between basal autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning in infancy and ODD and CU behaviors in later childhood. Using longitudinal heart period (HP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) data from the Durham Child Health and Development Study (N = 206), the current study tested associations within a structural equation modeling framework, between continuous measures of HP and RSA across the first 2 years of life, and later ODD and CU behaviors at first grade. Results indicate that ODD and CU behaviors in childhood are associated with lower baseline RSA, but not HP, across infancy. The implications of these findings for developmental models of ODD and CU behaviors are discussed.
Bullying in ethnically diverse schools varies as a function of the ethnic composition and degree of diversity in schools. Although Canada is highly multicultural, few researchers have focused on the role of context on ethnic majority and minority youths’ bullying involvement. In the present study, 11,649 European-Canadian/ethnic majority (77%) and non-European Canadian/ethnic minority (23%) students in Grade 4 to Grade 12 completed an online Safe Schools Survey on general, physical, verbal, social, and cyber bullying. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses indicated significant interactions between the proportion of non-European Canadian children in a school (Level 2) and individual ethnicity (Level 1) across most types of bullying victimization. Non-European Canadian students experienced less peer victimization in schools with higher proportions of non-European Canadian students, but ethnic composition was not related to European Canadian students’ peer victimization. No differences in bullying perpetration were found as a function of school ethnic composition across groups. Our findings suggest that ethnic composition in Canadian schools may not be strongly associated with bullying perpetration and that a higher representation of other ethnic minority peers may act as a buffer against peer victimization.
The concept of bidirectionality represents a process of mutual influence between parent and child, whereby each influences the other as well as the dyadic relationship. Despite the widespread acceptance of bidirectional models of influence, there is still a lack of integration of such models in current research designs. Research on bidirectionality could be strengthened through the adoption of advanced methodologies, including behavioral-genetic research designs and advanced structural equation modeling. The aim of this empirical review is to further advance the study of bidirectionality by evaluating the evidence from 25 years of bidirectionality research in infancy and early childhood. The review indicates significant advancements in the use of methods that address the ecological validity of bidirectional effects, as well as areas that continue to rely on correlational designs to detect bidirectional effects. We describe analytic approaches that may improve the specificity of bidirectionality evidence and highlight gene–environment interaction designs as a promising area for future bidirectionality research.
School engagement involves cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that overlap conceptually. This conceptual ambiguity has led to measures that have either consisted of one general factor or separate correlated factors. However, neither approach can sufficiently account for both the uniqueness and the overlap of the subcomponents. The bifactor model has been recommended to determine the degree to which a measure is unidimensional versus multidimensional. In this study, we examined the validity of a multidimensional measure of school engagement in adolescence, the Behavioral-Emotional-Cognitive School Engagement Scale (BEC-SES;
Aggression among youth is a public health problem that is often studied in the context of how youth interpret social information. Social cognitive factors, especially hostile attribution biases, have been identified as risk factors for the development of youth aggression, particularly across the transition to middle school. Parental behaviors, including parental aggression to children in the form of corporal punishment and other aggressive behavior, have also been linked to aggressive behavior in children at these ages. Despite the important role played by these two risk factors, the connection between the two has not been fully studied in the literature. This study examined the link between parental aggression and children’s hostile attributions longitudinally among a diverse sample of 123 boys as they entered middle school. Results support acceptance of a model in which parental aggression to children prior to entering middle school predicted children’s hostile attributions after the transition to middle school above and beyond that which was predicted by previous levels of hostile attributions. As expected, hostile attributions also predicted change in parent- and teacher-rated child aggression. These findings provide important evidence of the role that parental behavior plays in youth social cognition at this critical age, which has implications for understanding the development of aggressive behavior.
In the current study, associations between individual and friends’ direct and indirect aggression and depressive problems were examined. It was expected that social status would moderate these associations such that low-status preadolescents would be more similar to their unilateral friends with regard to indirect, but not direct, aggression. Furthermore, it was expected that preadolescents’ depressive problems were positively associated to reciprocal friends’ depressive problems, in particular in low-status preadolescents. The hypotheses were tested by studying unilateral and reciprocal friendships in 204 children (Mage=10.90; SD=0.78; 44.1% girls). Direct and indirect aggression and depressive problems were assessed via both self- and peer-reports. Social status was assessed via peer-reported rejection (i.e., dislike) and popularity (i.e., who do others want to be associated with). Analyses showed partial support for the hypotheses, showing that individual and unilateral friends’ self-reported indirect and direct aggression were positively associated in preadolescents who were lower on popularity. Moreover, in preadolescents who were more rejected by peers, depressive problems were positively associated to reciprocal friends’ depressive problems. The current study highlights the importance of including social status and distinguishing between unilateral and reciprocal friendships when examining associations between individual and friends’ behavior.
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES), as measured by parental education and family income, is highly predictive of academic achievement, but little is known about how specific cognitive systems shape SES disparities in achievement outcomes. This study investigated the extent to which executive function (EF) mediated associations between parental education and family income and changes in reading and math achievement in a sample of 336 children between the ages of 6 and 15 years from the NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development. Verbal memory was simultaneously modeled as a comparison candidate mediator. SES predicted significant changes in reading and math achievement over a two-year time period. Furthermore, executive function, but not verbal memory, was found to partially mediate the relationship between SES variables and change in math achievement. Collectively, these results suggest that executive function may be an important link between childhood SES and academic achievement
Lifespan research has long been interested in how contexts shape individual development. Using the separation and later reunification of Germany as a kind of natural experiment we examine whether and how living and dying in the former East or West German context has differentially shaped late-life development of well-being. We apply multi-level growth models to annual reports of life satisfaction collected over 20+ years since German reunification from 4,159 deceased participants in the Socio-Economic Panel (N West= 3,079, M age at death = 73.90, 47% women; N East= 1,080, M age at death = 72.23, 48% women). We examine differences between East and West Germany in levels, rates of change, and onset of terminal decline in well-being and the role of age at death, gender, education, disability and time spent in reunification. Analyses revealed that West Germans reported higher life satisfaction than East Germans, and that these differences get smaller both with passing time since reunification and in late life. The gap between East and West Germany diminishes over the last 10 years of life by more than 25%. Taking into account key individual characteristics only slightly attenuated this pattern, with education and age at death moderating late-life well-being level and decline in East Germany. Our results are consistent with long-standing notions that contextual factors shape individual development and illustrate the plasticity of human development. After having experienced disadvantages in life circumstances for up to 40 years through living in East Germany, effects of this natural experiment diminish considerably with passing time since reunification.
Although research suggests an interplay between identity development and self-esteem, most studies focused on the role of identity commitment and measured only level of self-esteem. This study examined longitudinal associations between Berzonsky’s (2011) styles of identity exploration and two distinct features of self-esteem: level of self-esteem and contingent self-esteem. Participants were 167 college students (mean age = 19 years; 66% female) who completed questionnaires tapping into identity styles and features of self-esteem at two measurement waves separated by a 4-month interval. Both information-oriented and normative styles were found to be predicted by contingent self-esteem. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that the content of contingent self-esteem predicting both identity styles was different. A diffuse-avoidant identity style was predicted mainly by low levels of self-esteem. Although we also observed some effects of identity styles on the self-esteem variables, the self-esteem variables had overall a more consistent influence on the identity styles than the other way around.
Relations between children’s (n = 213) mother-reported effortful control components (attention focusing, attention shifting, inhibitory control at 42 months; activational control at 72 months) and mother-reported shyness trajectories across 42, 54, 72, and 84 months of age were examined. In growth models, shyness decreased. Inhibitory control and attention shifting predicted higher levels and lower levels of shyness at 42 months (the intercept), respectively. Inhibitory control negatively, and attention shifting positively, predicted the shyness slope. Children with higher inhibitory control had relatively more rapid decreases in shyness. Children with higher attention shifting had relatively slower decreases in shyness. Activational control was negatively correlated with the shyness intercept. Effortful control components should be examined separately, rather than in combination, in relation to shyness in the future. If results are replicated, it may suggest that fostering attention shifting and activational control development helps prevent, or maintain low levels of, shyness during childhood.
With the dramatic recent changes in Chinese society, Chinese college students’ average levels of loneliness and social support might also have changed across their birth cohorts. The present cross-temporal meta-analysis of 56 studies (N = 21,541) found that Chinese college students’ scores on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) increased gradually from 2002 to 2011. The increasing trend in loneliness occurred among both men and women. Another similar meta-analysis of 110 studies (N = 57,420) showed that Chinese college students’ scores on the Social Support Rating Scale decreased from 1999 to 2011, with a slightly larger shift occurring among college men. The increase in loneliness across birth cohorts among Chinese college students was associated with the decline of their perceived social support levels (especially objective social support).
The present study examined Japanese children’s and adults’ awareness of the effects of psychological taste experiences on biological processes such as growth and illness. Studies 1 and 2 showed the following: (1) preschoolers tended to assume that good-tasting experiences would make one grow taller and gain more weight, while adults seldom accepted such ideas. Concerning illness, participants in all age groups were reluctant to accept the effects of taste experiences. (2) Process-dependent awareness (i.e., effects of psychological factors were assumed to depend on biological processes) was observed not only among young children, but also in older children and adults. Compared with younger children, adults’ responses were more process sensitive. (3) When adults explained why they assumed that different taste experiences would lead to different bodily states, they often relied on vitalistic causality. The use of vitalistic concepts was uncommon among children. Finally, (4) Japanese participants seem to be more likely than Americans to assume that bad-tasting experiences would make them non-resistant to a cold.
In this article, we test the hypothesis that beliefs about the ideal mother are convergent across cultures and that these beliefs overlap considerably with attachment theory’s notion of the sensitive mother. In a sample including 26 cultural groups from 15 countries around the globe, 751 mothers sorted the Maternal Behavior Q-Set to reflect their ideas about the ideal mother. The results show strong convergence between maternal beliefs about the ideal mother and attachment theory’s description of the sensitive mother across groups. Cultural group membership significantly predicted variations in maternal sensitivity belief scores, but this effect was substantially accounted for by group variations in socio-demographic factors. Mothers living in rural versus urban areas, with a low family income, and with more children, were less likely to describe the ideal mother as highly sensitive. Cultural group membership did remain a significant predictor of variations in maternal sensitivity belief scores above and beyond socio-demographic predictors. The findings are discussed in terms of the universal and culture-specific aspects of the sensitivity construct.
In the present study, we explored the factor structure as well as validity and reliability of the Spanish version of the Child Adjustment and Parent Efficacy Scale (CAPES) suitable for assessing child behavioural and emotional difficulties (Intensity Scale) and parental self-efficacy (Self-Efficacy Scale) among Spanish-speaking parents from the US, Latin America and Spain. This instrument was designed to be brief and easy to read in order to reach parents with low-literacy levels and from under-resourced backgrounds. Psychometrics for the English version of the CAPES indicates good internal consistency, as well as satisfactory construct and predictive validity of the measure (Morawska et al., 2014). A sample of 174 parents of children (91 boys and 78 girls) from Panama participated in this study. They completed the instrument alongside the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for measuring child psychological problems and the Parenting Task Checklist (PTC) for measuring parental self-efficacy. In addition, a group of 49 parents completed the CAPES at time 1 (T1) and 2 weeks after (T2). Psychometric evaluation of the Spanish version of the CAPES revealed that it has adequate internal consistency and test–retest reliability, as well as satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. In conclusion, this instrument shows promise as a brief outcome measure to be used in clinical settings and to assess the effects of parenting interventions among Spanish-speaking parents. More research into psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CAPES is needed, before it can be widely applied in practice.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a powerful and flexible analytic tool to model latent constructs and their relations with observed variables and other constructs. SEM applications offer advantages over classical models in dealing with statistical assumptions and in adjusting for measurement error. So far, however, SEM has not been fully used to develop norms of assessments in educational or psychological fields. In this article, we highlighted the norming process of the Supports Intensity Scale – Children’s Version (SIS-C) within the SEM framework, using a recently developed method of identification (i.e., effects-coding method) that estimates latent means and variances in the metric of the observed indicators. The SIS-C norming process involved (a) creating parcels, (b) estimating latent means and standard deviations, (c) computing T scores using obtained latent means and standard deviations, and (d) reporting percentile ranks.
Efforts to identify biological correlates of internalizing symptoms in childhood have involved examinations of HPA-axis functioning, namely Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). However, research has not assessed the relationship between CAR and internalizing problems among children younger than 8 years. Findings with older samples have been somewhat equivocal, perhaps due to high rates of co-occurring externalizing symptoms during childhood and/or due to age-related differences. This cross-sectional study examined CAR in an at-risk sample of children aged 22 months to 8 years at various levels of risk for internalizing symptoms. Internalizing symptoms were associated with blunted CAR, but only after controlling for externalizing problems. The relationship between CAR and internalizing symptoms disappeared with age. Results demonstrate that a negative association between CAR and internalizing exists during early childhood and illustrate the importance of accounting for comorbid externalizing disorders and developmental stage when assessing the HPA-internalizing link.
The main purpose of the study was to examine the moderating role of the insecure mother–child attachment in the relations between social withdraw and peer difficulties. Participants were 487 urban children (247 boys, 240 girls) in elementary schools in Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China. Data on attachment-relevant coping styles in insecure relationships with mother were collected from children’s self-reports. Information concerning social withdrawal (i.e., shyness and unsociability) and peer difficulties (i.e., peer victimization and rejection) was obtained from peer nomination. Among the results, both shyness and unsociability were positively related to peer victimization and rejection. However, several interaction effects were also observed. Both avoidant and ambivalent attachment served an exacerbating role for peer difficulties for shy and unsociable children, with these patterns differing by gender. Implications for the contributions of attachment to socially withdrawn children’s peer adjustment are discussed.
Many late adolescents who transition to the college environment perceive changes in psychosocial stress. One such stressor, loneliness, has been associated with numerous health problems among adolescents and adults. The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is one mechanism through which loneliness may affect health. Guided by a risk and resilience framework, the present study investigated the association between longitudinal changes in loneliness from high school to college and diurnal cortisol activity (waking levels, cortisol awakening response, diurnal slope) by sampling saliva intensively 5 times a day for 3 weekdays in a US sample of late adolescents in their first semester of college (N = 70; M age = 18.49, SD = 0.38). The present study also explored how the link between loneliness and cortisol might depend on coping efficacy—one’s belief in successfully coping with future stressors or novel situations. Results from hierarchical linear growth curve models demonstrated that an increase in loneliness across this contextual transition was associated with steeper cortisol slopes in college. Coping efficacy at baseline (in high school) significantly moderated the relation between changes in loneliness and diurnal slopes, such that late adolescents with low levels of coping efficacy who reported increased loneliness across the transition exhibited significantly flatter diurnal slopes in college. Higher levels of coping efficacy at baseline also significantly predicted lower waking cortisol levels during the first semester of college. These results suggest that coping efficacy may serve as a protective factor by contributing to regulation of daily physiological stress activity for late adolescents as they struggle with loneliness across the transition to college.
The Convoy Model suggests that at different stages of the lifespan the makeup of the social support network varies in step with developmental and contextual needs. Cultural norms may shape the makeup of social convoys as well as denote socio-demographic differences in social support. This study examines the social convoys of adults in Mexico. Specifically, it examines whether social network structure varies by age, gender, and education level, thus addressing the paucity of research on interpersonal relations in Mexico. A sample of 1,202 adults (18–99 years of age) was drawn from the Study of Social Relations and Well-being in Mexico. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated older adults had larger, more geographically proximate networks with a greater proportion of kin but less frequent contact. Women had larger, less geographically proximate networks with less frequent contact. Less educated individuals had smaller, more geographically proximate networks with more frequent contact and a greater proportion of kin. Age moderated gender and education effects indicated that younger women have more diverse networks and less educated older adults have weaker social ties. This study highlights socio-demographic variation in social convoys within the Mexican context, and suggests implications for fostering intergenerational relationships, policy, and interventions. Future research on Mexican convoys should further explore sources of support, and specifically address implications for well-being.
According to Blatt (2004; Blatt & Luyten, 2009) and others (e.g., Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983), establishing positive self-definition and mature relatedness to others represent core lifespan developmental tasks. In a sample of emerging adults, this study examined the effects of the quality of one close friendship and changes in romantic relationship status on the development of maladaptive personality traits from each domain (self-criticism and neediness and connectedness), and the effects of changes in these personality factors on the development of depressive symptoms. Participants consisted of 82 (13 male) emerging adults (Mage = 19.00, SD = 0.75) and a single corresponding close friend. At baseline, participants and their friends completed measures of the quality of their relationship (i.e., acceptance and autonomy support). At baseline and again 12 months later, participants completed measures of self-criticism, neediness, connectedness, depressive symptoms, and current romantic relationship status. Adjusting for gender and baseline age, structural equation models showed that better friendship quality predicted decreases in self-criticism, which in turn predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms. Entering into a romantic relationship predicted increases in connectedness. Connectedness was unrelated to depression, although increases in neediness over time predicted increases in depressive symptoms. Results highlight the role of one close friend and changes in romantic relationship status in the development of self-definition and relatedness during emerging adulthood, and the role of those personality factors in the development of depression.
Art is a unique feature of human experience. It involves the complex interplay among stimuli, persons and contexts. Little is known of how the various features deemed important in art appreciation depend on development, thus are already present at a young age. Similarly to our previous approach with adults of differing levels of expertise, the present study uses structural equation modeling to explore this complex interplay by analyzing differences in the appreciation of classical, abstract and modern artworks by children of two age groups. We measured evaluations of perceived beauty, elicited emotions, arousal and understanding. Structural equation solutions for children not only revealed significant effects of emotion in all conditions, but also confirmed that the dependencies between emotion and liking were consistently higher for younger children, while the interactions of arousal and liking, as well as understanding, were higher for older children. These results are in accordance with a transition from an affective towards an increasingly cognitive knowledge based sense of aesthetics, but underline the importance of emotional processing as fundamental.
Parental anxiety and depression are associated with antisocial behaviour of children. Several mechanisms may mediate this association. The aim of this study was to test whether parenting is a mediator of the association of parental anxiety and depression with the antisocial social behaviour of preschool children. The analysis was based on cross-sectional data and 106 German families of children with elevated externalizing behaviour problems were considered. Mothers and fathers were analysed separately. Depression and anxiety in parents were both associated with children’s antisocial behaviour and this association was mediated by parenting. Further, our results indicated that the association between maternal depression and child behaviour is maintained after controlling for maternal anxiety, and that parenting of mothers is more strongly associated with child behaviour than parenting of fathers.
Infants’ preference for faces was investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 75 children, aged 3 to 11 months, and 23 adults. A visual preference paradigm was used where pairs of faces and toys were presented side-by-side while eye gaze was recorded. In addition, motor activity was assessed via parent report and the relation between motor activity and face preference was examined. Face preference scores followed an inverted U-shaped developmental trajectory with no face preference in 3-month-olds, a strong face preference in 5- and 9-month-olds, and a weaker face preference in 11-month-olds. Adults showed no reliable face preference. Motor activity was a significant predictor of face preference in 3-month-old infants, supporting the presence of motor-social connections in early infancy.
We provide evidence for multidirectionality, variability, and plasticity in the nature and direction of change in physical health, cognitive functioning, and well-being during the middle years of the life course. The picture of well-being in midlife based on longitudinal data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study is a more positive one than portrayed in previous cross-sectional studies. We present middle age as a pivotal period in the life course in terms of balancing growth and decline, linking earlier and later periods of life, and bridging younger and older generations. We highlight the role of protective factors and multisystem resilience in mitigating declines. Those in middle age play a central role in the lives of those who are younger and older at home, in the workplace, and in society at large. Thus, a focus on promoting health and well-being in middle age can have a far-reaching impact.
The ability to infer the emotional states of others is central to our everyday interactions. These inferences can be drawn from several different sources of information occurring simultaneously in the communication situation. Based on previous studies revealing that children pay more heed to situational context than to emotional prosody when inferring the emotional states of others, we decided to focus on this issue, broadening the investigation to find out whether the natural combination of emotional prosody and faces (that is, paralinguistic cues) can overcome the dominance of situational context (that is, extralinguistic cues), and if so, at what age? In Experiment 1, children aged 3–9 years played a computer game in which they had to judge the emotional state of a character, based on two sources of information (that is, extralinguistic and paralinguistic) that were either congruent or conflicting. In Condition 1, situational context was compared with emotional prosody; in Condition 2, situational context was compared with emotional prosody combined with emotional faces. In a complementary study (Experiment 2) the same 3-year-olds performed recognition tasks with the three cues presented in isolation. Results highlighted the fundamental role of both cues, as a) situational context dominated prosody in all age groups, but b) the combination of emotional facial expression and prosody overcame this dominance, especially among the youngest and oldest children. We discuss our findings in the light of previous research and theories of both language and emotional development.
Whereas US-based data have contributed to our understanding of family composition changes over the last decades, data on Canadian families are limited, and previous studies have stressed the need for in depth, longitudinal investigations. This article begins to fill this gap in the literature by providing a current and detailed portrait of family composition changes from 1996 to 2008 (Study 1). Additionally, we performed an analysis of the role of specific child, parent and family characteristics, in interaction with family composition and family transition, in predicting pre-school children’s behavioral outcomes (Study 2). Using nationally-representative Canadian data collected from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), we focus our inquiry on a mean sample for 0–5-year-olds of 2,866 children at cycle 8 (2008). Results show increases in non-traditional family households over time, as well as significant relationships between child characteristics, household characteristics, and family processes in predicting three behavioral outcomes: emotional problems, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and physical aggression.
Parenting research is frequently conducted without a thorough examination of socio-economic characteristics. In this study, longitudinal observations of positive parenting were conducted across six time points. Participants were 219 mothers of children with and without developmental delays. Mothers’ positive parenting increased during early and middle childhood in children with and without developmental delays. Mothers who reported more education had significantly higher levels of positive parenting when their children were 3 years old. Mothers who reported more family income grew at a significantly faster rate in positive parenting. There was preliminary support that mothers with more income were more likely to be members of a class that started off and remained at a higher level of positive parenting over time. Implications are discussed.
We examined behavioral school engagement trajectories of immigrant and non-immigrant early adolescents in relation to their academic achievement. Data were based on teacher judgments and school records. Students from immigrant families living in Greece and their non-immigrant classmates (N = 1057) were assessed over the three years of middle school (ages 13 to 15). Academic achievement influenced later school engagement more strongly than vice versa for both immigrant and non-immigrant students. Low achievement, being an immigrant student and social adversity were found to be risk factors for the initial level of behavioral engagement. An overall increase in students’ absenteeism over the course of the study was stronger for immigrant students. The immigrant status effect was due to immigrant students’ lower achievement. The results suggest that immigrant youth may disengage from school to protect themselves from academic failure. This would also be a plausible explanation for earlier findings that immigrant and non-immigrant students do not differ in psychological well-being, even though immigrant students have significantly lower academic achievement. Implications for interventions to promote academic achievement and to prevent disengagement in immigrant students are discussed.
The present study examined career pursuit pathways in 100 Israeli emerging adults (54 men) who were followed from age 22 to 29. Employing a semi-structured interview at the age of 29, participants were asked about current work and educational status, work and educational goals and status changes in recent years, and to reflect on the meaning of the processes they followed. Analyses of interviews yielded four distinctive career pursuit pathways that were associated with different levels of concurrent well-being: Consistent Pursuit, Adapted Pursuit, Survivors, and Confused/Vague. Self-criticism, efficacy, and level of motivation measured seven years earlier predicted pathway affiliation at 29. In addition, paternal support was found to serve as a protective factor associated with adaptive career pursuit. Gender differences were found, with women more likely to be affiliated with the less adapted pathways. In addition, paternal and maternal support were differently associated with career pathways. By employing this mixed-method approach, the findings demonstrate the diversity, and gender-related nature, of career pursuit and development pathways during emerging adulthood, and indicate the importance of personality and both paternal and maternal support in the process of career development.
Utilizing planned missing data (PMD) designs (ex. 3-form surveys) enables researchers to ask participants fewer questions during the data collection process. An important question, however, is just how few participants are needed to effectively employ planned missing data designs in research studies. This article explores this question by using simulated three-form planned missing data to assess analytic model convergence, parameter estimate bias, standard error bias, mean squared error (MSE), and relative efficiency (RE).Three models were examined: a one-time-point, cross-sectional model with 3 constructs; a two-time-point model with 3 constructs at each time point; and a three-time-point, mediation model with 3 constructs over three time points. Both full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) and multiple imputation (MI) were used to handle the missing data. Models were found to meet convergence rate and acceptable bias criteria with FIML at smaller sample sizes than with MI.
This study examined the social functioning of bistrategic youths (i.e., those who employ both aggressive and prosocial behavior) in order to further understand their social competence in peer social networks. Within our sample of 318 fifth-grade participants recruited from an urban school district in the northeastern US, bistrategic preadolescents were identified, along with aggressives, prosocials, typicals, and noncontrollers. Bistrategic youths were found to hold the highest individual status and group status among all five subtypes within the network. Bistrategic youths and other active controller youths (i.e., prosocials and aggressives) were more likely to associate with peers of the same subtype in social groups. In addition, bistrategics who associated with same subtype (i.e., homogenous) peers held elevated group status, whereas bistrategics who associated with non-homogenous peers held heightened individual status. Further, results illustrate how bistrategics selectively target highly popular peers as victims of social aggression. Findings extend previous research by demonstrating the social success of bistrategic youths based on their high individual and group status, and by illuminating their strategic employment of different forms of aggression towards peers of different popularity status.
Planned missing designs are becoming increasingly popular, but because there is no consensus on how to implement them in longitudinal research, we simulated longitudinal data to distinguish between strategies of assigning items to forms and of assigning forms to participants across measurement occasions. Using relative efficiency as the criterion, results indicate that balanced item assignment coupled with assigning different forms over time most often yields the optimal assignment method, but only if variables are reliable. We also address how practice effects can bias latent means. A second simulation demonstrates that (a) assigning different forms over time diminishes practice effects and (b) using planned-missing-data patterns as predictors of practice can remove bias altogether.
Chinese children (N = 185, aged 3–7 years) were assessed on their abilities to freely label facial expressions and emotional situations. Results indicated that the overall accuracy of free-labeling facial expressions increased relatively quickly in children aged 3–5 years, but slowed down in children aged 5–7 years. In contrast, the overall accuracy of free-labeling emotional situations increased continuously in children aged 3–7 years. In the free-labeling facial expression tasks, children produced labels for happiness, anger, and sadness more easily than fear, surprise, and disgust; in the free-labeling of emotional situation tasks, children produced labels for happiness and sadness more easily than fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. Children performed better on free-labeling emotional situations than on free-labeling facial expressions, especially for happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust, which confirmed the Face Inferiority Effect. Moreover, the Face Inferiority Effect could be obviously observed in children aged 4 years and became more pronounced with age. Additionally, Bullock & Russell’s model was partly supported in the present study.
Passenger collaboration offers a potential compensatory strategy to assist older drivers who have difficulty driving in unfamiliar areas (wayfinding). This article describes a survey of 194 healthy, community-dwelling older drivers and their regular passengers to investigate how passengers assist drivers, and to identify the characteristics of drivers and passengers who regularly collaborate to assist with wayfinding. Three aspects of passenger assistance were investigated: Pre-trip planning, directional guidance and searching for visual cues. Results revealed a high incidence of collaboration amongst drivers and passengers who regularly drive together. Collaboration was dependent on the perceived wayfinding abilities of the driver by both passenger and driver, suggesting that passengers are more likely to help if they think they will be of assistance. This information provides baseline information on which future research can examine the safety benefits of passenger assistance in wayfinding.
This study examines community service effects on adolescents’ prosocial behaviors as mediated through experiences made during service. Based on theoretical assumptions by Youniss and Yates, we suggest that personal agency experiences and being confronted with situations that can challenge the own world views (ideology experiences) serve as mediators. The data were collected in a two-wave longitudinal study surveying 2,408 German adolescents aged between 14 and 15 years. Based on true intraindividual change models, the results support the expected mediation of service effects on prosocial behaviors through agency, but not ideology experiences. The findings suggest that community service affects prosocial behaviors through a behavioral pathway.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pilot school-based intervention called CEPIDEA, designed to promote prosocial behavior in early adolescence. The study took place in a middle school located in a small city near Rome. The intervention group included 151 students (52.3% males; Mage = 12.4), and the control group 173 students (50.3% females; Mage = 13.0). Both groups were assessed at three time points, each 6 months apart. A Latent Growth Curve analysis revealed that the intervention group, compared to the control group, showed an increase of helping behavior along with a decrease of physical and verbal aggression across time. Current results also showed that the increase of helping behavior mediated the decline of verbal aggression in adolescents who had attended the intervention. Participants of CEPIDEA also attained higher grades than the control group at the end of middle school. Overall, findings suggest that promoting prosocial behavior may serve to counteract aggressive conduct and enhance academic achievement during adolescence.
Planned missing data designs allow researchers to increase the amount and quality of data collected in a single study. Unfortunately, the effect of planned missing data designs on power is not straightforward. Under certain conditions using a planned missing design will increase power, whereas in other situations using a planned missing design will decrease power. Thus, when designing a study utilizing planned missing data researchers need to perform a power analysis. In this article, we describe methods for power analysis and sample size determination for planned missing data designs using Monte Carlo simulations. We also describe a new, more efficient method of Monte Carlo power analysis, software that can be used in these approaches, and several examples of popular planned missing data designs.
We examine the performance of planned missing (PM) designs for correlated latent growth curve models. Using simulated data from a model where latent growth curves are fitted to two constructs over five time points, we apply three kinds of planned missingness. The first is item-level planned missingness using a three-form design at each wave such that 25% of data are missing. The second is wave-level planned missingness such that each participant is missing up to two waves of data. The third combines both forms of missingness. We find that three-form missingness results in high convergence rates, little parameter estimate or standard error bias, and high efficiency relative to the complete data design for almost all parameter types. In contrast, wave missingness and the combined design result in dramatically lowered efficiency for parameters measuring individual variability in rates of change (e.g., latent slope variances and covariances), and bias in both estimates and standard errors for these same parameters. We conclude that wave missingness should not be used except with large effect sizes and very large samples.
Subjective health is known to predict later outcomes, including survival. However, less is known about subjective health changes across adulthood, how personality moderates those changes, and whether such associations differ with age. We applied growth models to 10 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA, N = 7,172; median ages 20–93) to examine age-related differences in trajectories of subjective physical and mental health. On average, perceptions of physical health declined with increasing steepness in old age, whereas self-rated mental health remained relatively stable across all ages. Higher neuroticism and lower extraversion and conscientiousness were each related to less successful aging. The health implications of personality did not differ by age for physical health, but were weaker for mental health in old age. We discuss implications of our results for accelerated longitudinal designs and consider avenues for future more mechanism-oriented research.
Two hundred and twenty two children (104 females), 1–8 years of age and young adults, were tested for up to 25 days on five versions of a non-verbal, non-navigational landmark task that had previously been used for monkeys. In monkeys, performance on this task is severely impaired following damage to the parietal cortex. For the basic task, the positive of two identical stimuli concealed a food reward and was designated by spatial proximity of a salient landmark. None of the 1- and 2-year-old children learned the task, i.e., they failed to consistently reach for and displace the positive stimulus in 25 test days. Of the 3-, 4-, and 5- year-old groups, 56%, 70%, and 77% of the children, respectively, mastered the task within 25 days. Children older than 5 and adults rapidly mastered the task. In Experiment #2, all subjects, 1–6 years of age, rapidly mastered a non-relational task when the choice stimulus was attached to the landmark, but the youngest children failed to transfer performance when the landmark was subsequently detached. Children under the age of 5 did not tolerate relational ambiguity as well as adults did. Replications of the first two experiments produced virtually identical results and indicated that the tests have a high degree of reliability. In Experiment #5, there were two distinct proximal landmarks, one of which always designated the positive stimulus. This manipulation did not improve performance of younger children. As compared to results from navigational landmark tasks, results obtained in the Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus (WGTA) indicate a very narrow focus of attention on the response site. Thus, small separations between discriminative cue and response site significantly affect performance, especially in younger children. By comparing the present results with those from monkeys, we speculate that components of the parietal pathways involved with attention and reaching mature between 1 and 5 years of age in children.
A head-mounted camera was used to measure head direction. The camera was mounted to the forehead of 20 6- and 20 12-month-old infants while they watched an object held at 11 horizontal (–80° to + 80°) and 9 vertical (–48° to + 50°) positions. The results showed that the head always moved less than required to be on target. Below 30° in the horizontal dimension, the head undershoot of object direction was less than 5°. At 80°, however, the undershoot was substantial or between 10° and 15°. In the vertical dimension, the undershoot was larger than in the horizontal dimension. At 30°, the undershoot was around 25% in the downward direction and around 40% in the upward direction. The size of the undershoot was quite consistent between conditions. It was concluded that the head-mounted camera is a useful indicator of horizontal looking direction in a free looking situation where the head is only turned moderately from a straight ahead position.
The present study examined patterns of romantic involvement in 100 Israeli emerging adults (54 males) who were followed from age 22 to 29 years. Analyses of interviews at age 29 yielded four distinctive relational patterns that are associated with different levels of concurrent wellbeing: Intimately committed, Intimate, Non- intimately committed, and Non-stable. Low efficacy, immature dependency and low parental support, measured 7 years earlier, predicted less optimal romantic relational patterns—non-stable or non-intimately committed. Continued pursuit of studies predicted a delay in entering a committed relationship, despite the capability for such a relationship. Findings of the study suggest that personality and family attributes explain the type and quality of relationships in which young people will be involved, while contextual factors only explain postponement of commitment.
Children adopted from institutions at older ages are at increased risk of persistent attention problems, lower cognition, and academic difficulties. This study examined cognitive and behavior problems as mediators of the association between early psychosocial deprivation and academic functioning. Participants were 8–17-year-old children adopted from psychosocially-depriving Russian institutions after 14 months of age (n = 34) and before 9 months of age (n = 39). Children completed a cognitive assessment, while their parents completed questionnaires on child behavior problems and use of learning support services in school. Children adopted after 14 months were found to have significantly lower vocabulary, higher levels of attention problems, and higher rates of using learning support services relative to children adopted before 9 months after controlling for age at assessment. The two groups did not differ significantly in nonverbal reasoning, anxiety, or oppositional behavior. Attention and vocabulary significantly mediated the association of early psychosocial deprivation with the use of learning support services. These findings suggest that interventions targeting attention regulatory and language skills may be beneficial in terms of improving school performance in this population.
The Adoption Curiosity Pathway (ACP) model was used to test the potential mediating effect of curiosity on adoption information-seeking in a sample of 143 emerging adult adoptees (mean age = 25.0 years) who were adopted as infants within the United States by parents of the same race. Adoptees were interviewed about their intentions and actions taken to gather new information about their birth mothers and fathers. As expected, level of curiosity was positively associated with information-seeking behavior. Moreover, level of curiosity was influenced by adoptees’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators toward information-seeking. In fact, curiosity partially mediated the impact of internal and external barriers on information-seeking about birth mothers. Curiosity fully mediated the impact of external barriers and partially mediated external facilitators on birth father information-seeking. This study provides important support for the ACP, which describes context, motivation, and behavior relating to seeking new adoption-related information.
The increasingly prolonged transition to adulthood has raised concerns about the nature and timing of growth in the attainment of important psychosocial competencies in young people. Changes over time in self-reported competencies (work orientation, identity, intimacy) were examined in 198 Canadians, who were followed for the first 4 years of university. Work orientation and intimacy positively contributed to later levels of identity, and identity reciprocally contributed to later levels of work orientation. Work orientation decreased and intimacy increased in the first 2 years of university but work orientation rose and intimacy declined in the next 2 years. Identity grew across time but this trend disappeared when covariates were included. Academic performance and dating were covariates of change in competencies. Mechanisms for the observed patterns and their implications are discussed.
The current study examined the direction of the association between children’s attachment security and empathic responding. At 42 and 48 months of age, 69 children’s empathic concern was observed, and mothers reported the children’s attachment. Results indicated that attachment at 42 months predicted empathic concern at 48 months even after controlling for the influence of previous empathic concern. Similar analyses to predict attachment at 48 months from previous empathic concern were not significant, implying that a secure attachment predicted empathic concern and not the reverse. The findings suggest that a secure attachment relationship might be one context in which children learn to respond empathically to others.
Drawing on data from a three-wave longitudinal study, the present research examined predictors of young adults’ intentions to participate in politics and their actual political activities while referring to the broader assumptions of the theory of planned behavior. The analyses were based on a sample of university students from the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. The results showed that attitudes toward political behaviors and internal political efficacy beliefs explained changes in students’ intentions to participate in politics. However, the perceived meaning that political participation has for important others had no additional effect. Furthermore, students’ intentions to participate in politics and their internal political efficacy beliefs predicted changes in their actual behaviors. Together, the findings supported the theory of planned behaviors as a useful framework helping to predict young adults’ intentions and actual involvement in political activities.
The quality of functional autobiographical memories was examined in young, middle-aged, and older adult Trinidadians (N = 245). Participants wrote about an event that served a self, social, and directive function, and reported on the memory’s quality (e.g., significance, vividness, valence, etc.). Across age groups, directive memories were the most negative, and social function memories were the most positive. Social function memories were also talked about most. Compared to younger adults, older adults’ functional memories, regardless of the type of function, were positive and talked about often, and middle-aged adults’ memories were significant and vivid. The discussion encourages researchers to continue to simultaneously consider both why humans remember so much of their life, and what they remember when doing so.
The objective of the study was to gain data on the prevalence, types and perceived outcomes of crisis episodes in three age decades of adult life: 20–29, 30–39 and 40–49. A further aim was to explore the relationship between crisis occurrence and empathy. A retrospective-autobiographical survey instrument and an empathy questionnaire were administered to 1023 UK-based adults. Prevalence data showed that crisis in the 20–29 decade was reported by 39% of men and 49% of women, while in the 30–39 decade 47% of men and 51% of women reported a crisis, and 46% of men and 59% of women reported a crisis occurring in the 40–49 decade. When prevalence rates were compared by participants’ current age, a recency effect in crisis reporting was apparent. Work-related crises were more common in men, while relationship and family were more common in female crisis. The most common crisis contents across decades and genders were divorce/relationship break-up and debt/financial difficulties. Post-crisis growth was significantly lower in the 40–44 age range in men than in other age ranges for both genders. There was a positive relationship between self-report empathy and number of crisis episodes experienced.
This study investigated perceptions of love across the lifespan using Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, which distinguishes between passion, intimacy, and commitment. The study aimed to (a) investigate the psychometric properties of the short Triangular Love Scale (TLS-short) in adolescents and adults (see Appendix), and (b) track age and gender differences in the three love components of the TLS-short in a sample of 12- to 88-year-olds (N = 2791). The three-factor structure of the TLS-short was confirmed in both the adolescent and adult sample. Adolescents (12–17 years) reported lower levels of all love components compared to young adults (18–30 years). Late adults (50+) reported lower levels of passion and intimacy, but similar levels of commitment compared to young (18–30 years) and middle adults (30–50 years). Gender differences in the perceptions of all three love components were present but less sizeable than suggested in popular accounts and earlier academic research.
Chinese and American mothers’ beliefs about children’s learning and parents’ role in it were examined using notions salient in Chinese culture. Mothers from Hong Kong (n = 66) and the United States (n = 69) indicated their endorsement of the ideas that children’s learning reflects children’s morality, and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects parents’ love and duty. Mothers also reported on the extent to which their worth is based on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed more that children’s learning reflects morality and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects love; these differences accounted for their feelings of worth being more dependent on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed less that parents’ support is a duty.