Neurobiological Sensitivity to Social Rewards and Punishments Moderates Link Between Peer Norms and Adolescent Risk Taking

Although peer influence is a strong predictor of adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors, not all adolescents are susceptible to their peer group. One hundred and thirty-six adolescents (M_age = 12.79 years) completed an fMRI scan, measures of perceived peer group norms, and engagement in risky behavior. Ventral striatum (VS) sensitivity when anticipating social rewards and avoiding social punishments significantly moderated the association between perceived peer norms and adolescents’ own risk behaviors. Perceptions of more deviant peer norms were associated with increased risky behavior, but only for adolescents with high VS sensitivity; adolescents with low VS sensitivity were resilient to deviant peer norms, showing low risk taking regardless of peer context. Findings provide a novel contribution to the study of peer influence susceptibility.     

Reducing Children's Implicit Racial Bias Through Exposure to Positive Out‐Group Exemplars

Studies with adults suggest that implicit preferences favoring White versus Black individuals can be reduced through exposure to positive Black exemplars. However, it remains unclear whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for these biases to be changed. This study included 369 children and examined whether their implicit racial bias would be reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars. Results showed that children's implicit pro‐White bias was reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars, but only for older children (M_age = ~10 years). Younger children's (M_age = ~7 years) implicit bias was not affected by this intervention. These results suggest developmental differences in the malleability of implicit racial biases and point to possible age differences in intervention effectiveness.     

Relations Among Chronic Peer Group Rejection,Maladaptive Behavioral Dispositions,and Early Adolescents' Peer Perceptions

Adolescents' perceptions of peers' relational characteristics (e.g., support, trustworthiness) were examined for subtypes of youth who evidenced chronic maladaptive behavior, chronic peer group rejection, or combinations of these risk factors. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify subgroups of participants within a normative sample of youth (N = 477; 50% female) for whom data had been gathered from fifth grade (M_age = 10.61) through eighth grade (M_age = 13.93). Results revealed that both enduring individual vulnerability (i.e., chronic withdrawn or chronic aggressive behavioral dispositions) and interpersonal adversity (i.e., chronic peer group rejection) were linked with either differences or changes in adolescents' perceptions of their peers' supportiveness and trustworthiness across the early adolescent age period.     

Immigrant Chinese Mothers’ Socialization of Achievement in Children: A Strategic Adaptation to the Host Society

Academic socialization by low‐income immigrant mothers from Mainland China was investigated in two studies. Immigrant Chinese mothers of first graders (n = 52; M_age = 38.69) in the United States (Study 1) and kindergartners (n = 86; M_age = 36.81) in Hong Kong (Study 2) tell stories that emphasized achieving the best grade through effort more than did African American (n = 39; M_age = 31.44) and native Hong Kong (n = 76; M_age = 36.64) mothers, respectively. The emphasis on achievement was associated with mothers' heightened discussion on discrimination (Study 1) and beliefs that education promotes upward mobility (Study 2), as well as children's expectations that a story protagonist would receive maternal criticism for being nonpersistent in learning (Study 2).     

How age and race affect the frequency,timing, and content of conversations about race with children

Anti-racist efforts require talking with children about race. The present work tested the predictors of U.S. adults' (N = 441; 52% female; 32% BIPOC participants; M_age = 35 years) conversations about race with children across two timepoints in 2019. Approximately 60% of adult participants talked to their children (3–12 years) about race during the preceding week; only 29% talked to other adults about race during the same period. This paper describes the content and predictors of conversations about race, revealing how conversations differ depending on the participant's race, a child's age, and whether the conversation occurs with children or another adult. These data have important implications for theorizing about when, why, and how adults actually talk about race with children and adults.     

Peer Groups as a Context for School Misconduct: The Moderating Role of Group Interactional Style

Peer group interactional style was examined as a moderator of the relation between peer group school misconduct and group members' school misconduct. Participants were 705 students (M_age = 11.59 years, SD = 1.37) in 148 peer groups. Children reported on their school misconduct in fall and spring. In the winter, group members were observed in a limited‐resource task and a group conversation task, and negative and positive group interactional styles were assessed. Multilevel modeling indicated that membership in groups that were higher on school misconduct predicted greater school misconduct only when the groups were high on negative or low on positive interactional style. Results suggest that negative laughter and a coercive interactional style may intensify group effects on children's misconduct.     

Anti-racism activism among Black adolescents and emerging adults: Understanding the roles of racism and anticipatory racism-related stress

This study examines associations between individual racism, anticipatory racism-related stress, and anti-racism activism among Black adolescents (n = 443; M_age = 15.6; 57.4% female) and emerging adults (n = 447; M_age = 23.8; 77.6% female). The authors tested competing hypotheses about associations between individual racism and anti-racism activism on anticipatory racism-related stress. Findings indicated anticipatory racism-related stress may be both a catalyst and consequence of engagement in anti-racism activism for Black adolescents and emerging adults. Results for each age group varied by type of stress (physiological; psychological) and activism (low-risk; high-risk). Supporting youth engagement in anti-racism activism without increasing anticipatory racism-related stress is a key priority for meaningfully advancing scholarship on the development of anti-racism and pursuit of racial justice.     

The Role of Mothers' Child-Based Worth in Their Affective Responses to Children's Performance

This research examined whether American and Chinese mothers' tendencies to base their worth on children's performance contributes to their affective responses to children's performance. Study 1 used daily interviews to assess mothers' warmth (vs. hostility) and children's school performance (N = 197; M_age = 12.81 years). In Study 2, such affect was observed in the laboratory following children's manipulated performance on cognitive problems (N = 128; M_age = 10.21 years). The more mothers based their worth on children's performance, the more their warmth (vs. hostility) decreased when children failed in Study 1. This pattern was evident only among Chinese mothers in Study 2. In both studies, child-based worth did not contribute to mothers' affective responses to children's success.     

Family Context,Mexican‐Origin Adolescent Mothers' Parenting Knowledge,and Children's Subsequent Developmental Outcomes

This study examined parenting knowledge among Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers (N = 191; M_age = 16.26 years), family contextual factors associated with adolescents' parenting knowledge, and toddlers' (M_age = 2.01 years) subsequent developmental outcomes. Data came from home interviews and direct child assessments. Adolescents both underestimated and overestimated children's developmental timing, and showed differences in their knowledge of specific developmental domains. Instrumental support from mother figures was positively linked to adolescents' knowledge accuracy, whereas emotional support was negatively related to adolescents' knowledge confidence. Furthermore, whereas mother figures' autonomy granting was positively linked to knowledge confidence, psychological control was associated with less accurate adolescent parenting knowledge. Toddlers of adolescents with more accurate knowledge showed positive developmental functioning. Intervention implications are discussed.     

Children's Naive Theories of Intelligence Influence Their Metacognitive Judgments

Recent studies have shown that the metacognitive judgments adults infer from their experiences of encoding effort vary in accordance with their naive theories of intelligence. To determine whether this finding extends to elementary schoolchildren, a study was conducted in which 27 third graders (M_age = 8.27) and 24 fifth graders (M_age = 10.39) read texts presented in easy‐ or difficult‐to‐encode fonts. The more children in both grades viewed intelligence as fixed, the less likely they were to interpret effortful or difficult encoding as a sign of increasing mastery and the more likely they were to report lower levels of comprehension as their perceived effort increased. This suggests that children may use naive theories of intelligence to make motivationally relevant inferences earlier than previously thought.     

The Nature and Consequences of Essentialist Beliefs About Race in Early Childhood

It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, M_age = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.     

What do I want to feel? Emotion goals in childhood,adolescence, and adulthood

Beliefs about emotion utility can influence context-sensitive emotion goals (i.e., desired emotional responses). Although key for emotion regulation, emotion goals have been overlooked in children and adolescents. In 2018–2019 results of Studies 1 and 2 showed that children (N = 192, M_age = 8.65, 47% girls, 96% White) were less motivated by and found anger less useful in confrontation than adolescents (N = 192, M_age = 12.96, 50% girls, 93% White) and adults (N = 195, M_age = 29.82, 51% women, 96% White). The link between emotion goals and beliefs about emotion utility was weaker in children. In 2021, Study 3 (N = 60, 8-year-olds, 47% girls, 90% White) ruled out expectations as a possible explanation for the previous findings. Context-sensitive utility of emotions may be acquired during development.     

Links between repeating and growing pattern knowledge and math outcomes in children and adults

This study examined repeating and growing pattern knowledge and their associations with procedural and conceptual arithmetic knowledge in a sample of U.S. children (N = 185; M_age = 79.5 months; 55% female; 88% White) and adults (N = 93; M_age = 19.5 years; 62% female; 66% White) from 2019 to 2020. Three key findings emerged: (1) repeating pattern tasks were easier than growing pattern tasks, (2) repeating pattern knowledge robustly predicted procedural calculation skills over and above growing pattern knowledge and covariates, and (3) growing pattern knowledge modestly predicted procedural and conceptual math outcomes over and above repeating pattern knowledge and covariates. We expand existing theoretical models to incorporate these specific links and discuss implications for supporting math knowledge.     

Discrimination and Ethnic-Racial Socialization Among Youth Adopted From South Korea Into White American Families

The current study examined how discrimination relates to adjustment outcomes in a sample of internationally, transracially adopted Korean Americans from the Minnesota Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (N = 456 adoptees; M_age at T1 = 14.9, M_age at T2 = 18.3, M_age at T3 = 22.3). The moderating roles of ethnic socialization and preparation for bias by parents (i.e., ethnic-racial socialization) were also examined. Results indicated that discrimination predicted higher levels of depressive and externalizing symptoms in youth who reported less preparation for bias. In those experiencing more preparation for bias, associations were not significantly different from zero. Ethnic socialization did not moderate these associations. Such findings provide important information for adoptive parents regarding how to prepare their children to cope with discrimination.     

Classroom Popularity Hierarchy Predicts Prosocial and Aggressive Popularity Norms Across the School Year

This study examined the coevolution of prosocial and aggressive popularity norms with popularity hierarchy (asymmetries in students’ popularity). Cross-lagged-panel analyses were conducted on 2,843 secondary school students (N_classrooms = 120; M_age = 13.18; 51.3% girls). Popularity hierarchy predicted relative change in popularity norms over time, but not vice versa. Specifically, classrooms with few highly popular and many unpopular students increased in aggressive popularity norms at the beginning of the school year and decreased in prosocial popularity norms at the end of the year. Also, strong within-classroom asymmetries in popularity predicted relatively higher aggressive popularity norms. These findings may indicate that hierarchical contexts elicit competition for popularity, with high aggression and low prosocial behavior being seen as valuable tools to achieve popularity.     

Does defending victimized peers put youth at risk of being victimized?

Defending peers who have been bullied is often thought to put defenders at risk of becoming victimized themselves. The study investigated the concurrent and prospective associations between defending and (peer- and self-reported) victimization, and examined popularity and classroom norms as potential moderators. Participants included 4085 Finnish youth (43.9% boys; M_age = 14.56, SD = .75; 97% born in Finland). Concurrently, defending was positively associated with self-reported victimization in classrooms with high bullying-popularity norms (b = .28, SE = .16). Defending was negatively associated with peer-reported victimization in classrooms with high defending-popularity norms (b = −.07, SE = .03). Defending was not significantly associated with future victimization, suggesting that it is generally not a risk factor for victimization.     

Does Parental Mind‐Mindedness Account for Cross‐Cultural Differences in Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind?

This study of 241 parent–child dyads from the United Kingdom (N = 120, M_age = 3.92, SD = 0.53) and Hong Kong (N = 121, M_age = 3.99, SD = 0.50) breaks new ground by adopting a cross‐cultural approach to investigate children's theory of mind and parental mind‐mindedness. Relative to the Hong Kong sample, U.K. children showed superior theory‐of‐mind performance and U.K. parents showed greater levels of mind‐mindedness. Within both cultures parental mind‐mindedness was correlated with theory of mind. Mind‐mindedness also accounted for cultural differences in preschoolers’ theory of mind. We argue that children's family environments might shed light on how culture shapes children's theory of mind.     

Language,ambiguity, and executive functions in adolescents' theory of mind

Executive functions' (EF) role in adolescents' advanced theory of mind (aToM) was examined. In Study 1, adolescents (N = 189 in 2017, M_age = 13.1 years, 55.6% female from racially/ethnically diverse schools) completed the Flexibility and Automaticity of Social Cognition task (FASC), and shifting and inhibition measures. Study 2 (N = 289 in 2018 and 2019, M_age = 15.7 years, 59.9% female, 56.4% Hispanic/Latino) replicated Study 1 in older adolescents using automated scoring of FASC flexibility. Flexibility of social cognition varied based on ambiguity and language use; automaticity of social cognition varied by ambiguity. The role of EF was less conclusive; shifting and inhibition predicted some flexibility and automaticity measures. Ambiguity, language, and EF, particularly shifting, influence aToM into adolescence.     

A cultural lens on Yucatec Maya families’ COVID-19 experiences

Health guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic led families around the world to spend more time isolated together, disrupting leisure activities, schooling, social interactions, and family work (UNICEF, 2021). Using the lens of Yucatec Maya families’ cultural values and practices, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 Yucatec Maya rural women in Mexico (M_age = 32; and for comparison, 13 middle-class European-American women (M_age = 41)), with children 6–7 years old, to analyze families’ experiences during the pandemic. Faced with the same isolation as in the United States, our exploratory analysis revealed Maya families experienced external stresses but at the same time were generally comfortable with their children's everyday activities and their social-emotional well-being, illuminating consequences of the communities’ cultural theories about development.     

Gender Discrimination,Perceived School Unfairness,Depressive Symptoms,and Sleep Duration Among Middle School Girls

The current study examines how gender discrimination by adults in school is linked with depressive symptoms and sleep duration over time in middle school. The main goal is to test one psychological mechanism that can account for such associations: perceived school unfairness. Relying on a racially-ethnically diverse sample of girls (N = 2,718, M_age = 13.01, SD_age = 0.39) from 26 middle schools, multilevel mediation analyses revealed that girls who experienced school-based gender discrimination by an adult in seventh grade reported higher levels of perceived school unfairness in eighth grade. Moreover, perceived unfairness, in turn, was associated with more depressive symptoms and shorter sleep durations by eighth grade. Implications of changes in adolescent girls’ sleep and mood related to their experiences of gender discrimination are discussed.