Children's early skills are strong predictors of later learning outcomes. Research aiming to disentangle the causal effects of early skills from unmeasured, stable characteristics related to learning throughout development demonstrates that unmeasured confounders explain a large portion of the effects of early skills previously identified. To date, such research has been conducted exclusively in high-income Western countries, where education systems are better funded and overall learning outcomes are much higher than in low- and middle-income countries. The present study examined these issues in Ghana, a lower middle-income country in West Africa, using longitudinal data over 6 years ( = 2,012; 49.7% girls). We first used multilevel regression to estimate the associations of preschoolers' social and cognitive skills on their fourth and fifth grade outcomes. Next, we employed the random intercept cross-lagged-panel model to test whether the estimated effects of preschool on later skills are sensitive to a model that attempts to adjust for stable confounding factors during this developmental period. Our findings indicate interindividual stability in math and literacy, as well as codevelopment of math, literacy, and executive function during early and middle childhood. We contribute evidence on children's skill-building dynamics in a global context, with implications for how to optimize intervention programs and policies aiming to support children's academic achievement and learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children are sensitive to other's knowledge and social characteristics when seeking out information, but little is known about how adults' gender and race interact to influence children's beliefs about adults' knowledge. In two studies, 5-8-year-olds ( = 257; 127 girls; 130 boys; 73% White) saw photos of Black and White men and women and rated each adults' science knowledge. In Study 1, children then viewed four adult faces together (one from each gender and race) and chose who knew the most and second-most about the answer to a scientific question. In Study 2, the selection task was modified so that children saw two faces from different categories and chose one, and children were then asked to identify one of four individuals as a scientist. In both studies, children also chose which of four individuals they would want to learn about science from. Children gave similar knowledge ratings to men and women and to Black and White individuals when they rated one adult at a time. However, when children selected the most knowledgeable adult, they showed an ingroup gender-based preference whose strength varied with child age. In both studies, children also showed an ingroup gender-based learning preference, but showed no preferences based on adult race. Children referred to adults' appearance most often when justifying their learning preference and which individual they believed to be a scientist. Together, these findings suggest that, for primarily White American children, a potential adult informant's gender may be more salient than race when evaluating science knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Stressors experienced across multiple domains (e.g., family and peers) may contribute to alcohol use trajectories; however, little is known about the longitudinal links between stressors and alcohol use among Latinx youth. Guided by prior work on stressors and alcohol use, the present study used longitudinal data to examine whether Mexican-origin adolescents' ( = 674; 50% female; 28% Mexico born; 72% U.S. born) experiences of family and peer stressors across early to middle adolescence ( = 10.86, = 0.51) predicted trajectories of alcohol use frequency and binge drinking from middle adolescence to young adulthood (Mage = 23.17, = 0.59). Using two strategies for modeling stressors, we report results that showed more support for stressors across early adolescence as predictors of alcohol use trajectories when stressors were modeled as growth trajectories versus modeled as distal and proximal stressors. Findings underscore the need to consider strategies to attenuate the longitudinal links between stressors and alcohol use among Mexican-origin youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Two studies ( = 1,153) investigated how adolescents reason about whether to report a transgression committed by a close friend versus distant classmate. In Study 1, sixth-ninth graders ( = 12.36 years, = 1.14 years; 55% girls, 44% boys; 2% Asian, 63% Black, 13% Latino, 7% multiracial, 7% White; low-income urban schools) were less willing to report close friends than distant classmates, for both high- and low-severity thefts. In Study 2, seventh-eighth graders ( = 12.87 years, = 0.07 years; 48% girls, 45% boys; 2% Asian, 2% Black, 3% Latino, 85% White, 2% multiracial; 29% free/reduced lunch) said they both and report close others less than distant others, but relationship affected "would" judgments more than "should" ones. In their explanations, participants most often appealed to practical outcomes, morality, and relationship to the transgressor-but frequency of these varied based on relationship to the transgressor and judgment type. These studies provide evidence that relational closeness influences both how adolescents reason about peers' transgressions and what they think is morally right to do-and that their reasoning involves both practical and moral considerations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Researchers argue that theory of mind (ToM) abilities are needed for text (listening or reading) comprehension. Although many studies have supported this claim, findings are mixed and researchers have disagreed on how fundamental this relation is-for example, whether ToM and text comprehension are related merely because of shared variance with verbal and executive function skills. To address these issues more definitively, we conducted a meta-analysis examining ToM and text comprehension, which included 47 independent samples with 5,123 participants ranging in age from 3 to 70 years of age ( = 10.53 years). We found a statistically significant association ( = .33) between ToM and text comprehension across 157 effect sizes. This relation did not differ based on whether data were cross-sectional or longitudinal, the age of participants, or most characteristics of the ToM or comprehension tasks (e.g., the degree to which they were narrative or inferential). However, the effect size was stronger in some languages and for listening comprehension rather than reading comprehension tasks. In longitudinal designs, the effect size did not differ depending on whether ToM was assessed before text comprehension or the reverse. Finally, we conducted meta-analyses controlling for verbal and/or executive function abilities and found that the relation between ToM and text comprehension was significant when controlling for each as well as both abilities ( = .22-.32). The current findings provide the strongest evidence to date that there is a fundamental relation between ToM and text comprehension. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Prosocial behavior during adolescence has been associated with better physical health, including slower epigenetic aging. However, little is known about the specific role of empathy in epigenetic aging and the mechanisms explaining this relationship. One such mechanism may be substance use, which is predicted by low empathy and contributes to accelerated epigenetic aging. Thus, the present study examined whether empathy during early adolescence predicts epigenetic aging in young adulthood and whether substance use in late adolescence and young adulthood mediates this effect. Participants included 343 individuals (58% female, 81% Black, 19% White) who were interviewed at mean ages of 13, 17, and 27 years. Participants self-reported their empathy at Time 1 and their alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use at Times 2 and 3. At Time 3, epigenetic aging was assessed from salivary DNA using the GrimAge, DunedinPACE, and PhenoAge clocks. A regression analysis demonstrated that higher empathy in early adolescence uniquely predicted lower epigenetic aging on the GrimAge clock in young adulthood even after adjusting for environmental and sociodemographic risk factors. Mediation models revealed that the link between empathy and lower epigenetic aging on all three clocks was mediated by lower tobacco use. These results suggest that higher empathy during early adolescence may contribute to better health throughout the lifespan due to lower tobacco use and slower epigenetic aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Mother-infant interactive processes, including matching social behaviors and repairing interactive ruptures, are proposed to foster infant stress functioning. However, little is known about the extent to which the concurrent relations between these dyadic processes and infant behavioral and vagal stress recovery change over the first year of life. In this study, 116 mother-infant dyads (55 girls) from a midwestern city in the United States completed the still-face paradigm at 3, 6, and 9 months. Using microcoding of infant and maternal behaviors (i.e., facial expressions, vocalizations, and gaze directions), we defined two dyadic states (positive match and mismatch) and measured dyadic matching as a composite of (a) the proportion of positive match and (b) latency to interactive repair (i.e., the average duration of mismatches), for the play and reunion episode, separately, at each time point. Infant behavioral and vagal stress recovery were assessed as the proportion of social engagement during the reunion episode and increases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia from the still-face to reunion episodes, respectively. At 6 and 9 months, higher levels of dyadic matching during the play episode were related to better infant behavioral and vagal stress recovery, controlling for matching during the reunion episode. At 3 months, the relation only emerged for infant behavioral stress recovery. These findings suggest that the dynamics of mother-infant interaction may play a key role in infant stress recovery, particularly during the second half of the first year when infants become more actively engaged in social interactions and their vagal systems become more mature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigated a developmental cascade between prosocial and linguistic abilities in a large sample ( = 11,051) from the general youth population in the United Kingdom (50% female, 46% living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, 13% non-White). Cross-lagged panel models showed that verbal ability at age 3 predicted prosociality at age 7, which in turn predicted verbal ability at age 11. Latent growth models also showed that gains in prosociality between 3 and 5 years were associated with increased verbal ability between 5 and 11 years and vice versa. Theory of mind and social competence at age 5 mediated the association between early childhood prosociality and late childhood verbal ability. These results remained robust even after controlling for socioeconomic factors, maternal mental health, parenting microclimate in the home environment, and individual characteristics (sex, ethnicity, and special educational needs). The findings suggest that language skills could be boosted through mentalizing activities and prosocial behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

As interest in early morality has grown, researchers have increasingly focused on young children's moral self, but recent studies have targeted mostly its structure and associations with behavior rather than its developmental origins. Addressing this gap, we followed children, mothers, and fathers in U.S. Midwest from late infancy (16 months old, = 194, 93 girls, 101 boys), to toddlerhood (3 years old, = 175, 86 girls, 89 boys), to preschool age (4.5 years old, = 177, 86 girls, 91 boys). We proposed that moral self at preschool age originates in the second and third years, when the onset of parental control engenders in the child both receptive and adversarial stance toward the parent. In infancy and in toddlerhood, we collected behavioral indications of both stances-positive affect and responsiveness (in toddlerhood, also positive representation of the parent); and defiance and violations of parental prohibition. At preschool age, we measured child moral self in a puppet interview (Kochanska, 2002). For both mother-child and father-child relationships, structural equation modeling supported direct paths from receptive and adversarial stance at age 3 years to higher and lower moral self, respectively, and the expected indirect effects of the child's receptive stance in infancy on moral self, mediated by the receptive or adversarial stance in toddlerhood. The path from toddler-age adversarial stance to lower moral self was present only in father-son relationships. This study highlights the long-term pivotal significance of the child's early stance toward the parent for the formation of moral self. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Patterns of change in self-regulation from the ages of 2.5 to 12 years were modeled using repeated measures of self-regulation for a sample of 399 African American ( = 180, 45%) and Latinx ( = 219, 55%) children from families experiencing low income. Measures included both direct assessment and parent report. Results confirmed four components of self-regulation: working memory, inhibitory control, complex response inhibition, and set shifting. Furthermore, these components of self-regulation were more differentiated at younger ages but grew increasingly integrated as children developed. During early childhood, Latinx children displayed greater levels of working memory and higher levels of inhibitory control, and African American children displayed greater complex response inhibition and set shifting, but these ethnic differences reversed by early elementary school. By late middle childhood, ethnic differences in self-regulation had virtually disappeared altogether. Few differences by child gender or family poverty status were identified. Recommendations are provided to facilitate the modeling of self-regulation over extended periods of development including (a) utilizing measures that overlap time points, (b) standardizing the measurement scales, and (c) utilizing a flexible latent variable model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The current article describes the Remote Infant Studies of Early Learning, a battery intended to provide robust looking time measures of cognitive development that can be administered remotely to inform our understanding of individual developmental trajectories in typical and atypical populations, particularly infant siblings of autistic children. This battery was developed to inform our understanding of early cognitive and language development in infants who will later receive a diagnosis of autism. Using tasks that have been successfully implemented in lab-based paradigms, we included assessments of attention, memory, prediction, word recognition, numeracy, multimodal processing, and social evaluation. This study reports results on the feasibility and validity of administration of this task battery in 55 infants who were recruited from the general population at age 6 months ( = 29; 14 female, 15 male) or 12 months ( = 26; 14 female, 12 male; 62% White, 13% Asian, 1% Black, 1% Pacific Islander, 22% more than one race; 6% Hispanic). Infant looking behavior was recorded during at-home administration of the battery on the family's home computer and automatically coded for attention to stimuli using iCatcher+, an open-access software that assesses infant gaze direction. Results indicate that while some tasks replicated lab-based findings (attention, memory, prediction, and numeracy), others did not (word recognition, multimodal processing, and social evaluation). These findings will inform efforts to refine the battery as we continue to develop a robust set of tasks to improve the understanding of early cognitive development at the individual level in general and clinical populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescents experience significant growth in social cognition, including perspective taking and identity formation. Due to the salience of race and ethnicity in the United States, adolescents' ethnic-racial identity (ERI) may have important implications for their sociocognitive development. The present study tested the association between ERI in early adolescence and subsequent longitudinal growth in perspective taking. Participants included 560 adolescents assessed annually over 4 years, beginning in sixth and seventh grade. Adolescents were from a small, rural community in the southeast United States and were from diverse ethnic-racial backgrounds (primarily Latine, Black/African American, and multiracial). Using linear growth curve modeling, we examined whether initial ERI predicted intercepts and slopes of longitudinal growth in perspective taking across adolescence. Results showed that the development of perspective taking differed based on initial ERI. Perspective taking increased significantly for youth with low and average levels of ERI but remained high and stable for youth at high levels of ERI. This study offers important evidence that Latine, Black, and multiracial youth who explore and find more clarity in their sense of ERI earlier in adolescence also show higher initial levels of perspective taking, which remains high across adolescence. Over time, most youth grow in perspective taking and eventually reach similar levels, but youth high in ERI reach these higher levels earlier than their peers, who had less sense of clarity about their ERI early in adolescence. This is one of the first known studies to directly test the association between ERI and perspective taking, utilizing a diverse, longitudinal sample of adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study explores the experiences of Israeli children ( = 50) aged 3-6 years from middle to high socioeconomic status on the COVID-19 pandemic from their own perspectives. Following a qualitative-phenomenological paradigm and utilizing a semistructured interview format designed to involve children through a card game, this research seeks to unearth the nuanced dynamics of parent-child communication against the backdrop of Israel's distinctive sociopolitical context, characterized by "deep securitization" and some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions enforced globally. Based on the interviews conducted with children, four main themes emerged: (1) how children were exposed to information; (2) types of information children were exposed to; (3) active mediation versus restrictive mediation; and (4) militant discourse and desire to fight. Incorporating multisystem theory (Masten & Narayan, 2012) to explore the interplay of risk and protective factors, the study situates these within Israel's unique sociopolitical context which engendered expressions of resilience and agency among young children. By highlighting the interrelationships between national security measures and family life, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex factors that affected young children's experiences during the pandemic, highlighting the workings of the transformation of adversity into resilience within contextually specific settings during times of crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Most research on parenting and child development has been based on studies conducted in the minority world. Although there have been efforts to diversify samples and methods, a more inclusive knowledge base is needed to understand parenting from a cultural perspective. Yet, studying parenting in majority world countries presents several methodological challenges. In this article, we aim to contribute to the discussion on diversity in human development by reflecting on our experience conducting parenting research in Latin America, particularly in Chile. First, we examine the mainstream conceptualization of "Latinos" that informs parenting research. Next, we describe the context in which parenting occurs and is studied in Chile. We then highlight methodological challenges of conducting research in this context. Finally, we propose strategies to address diversity as a crucial component of human development. Our discussion seeks to enhance the understanding of parenting research in the majority world from a cultural lens and promote collaborative research in parenting and child development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This longitudinal study explored the reciprocal relations between students' domain-specific knowledge (science and mathematics) and reading proficiency from kindergarten to Grade 5. We compared these relational trajectories across both domains in the overall sample and examined the domain specificity of these relations within a multilingual subsample with varying language instruction backgrounds. Using latent curve modeling with structured residuals on a nationally representative data set, we identified two key patterns. In the overall sample, higher reading proficiency at kindergarten was associated with greater growth in science and mathematics knowledge, with a particularly pronounced effect in science. The predictive power of science knowledge on reading proficiency strengthened significantly from Grades 2 to 5, while reciprocal relations in mathematics intensified over time. For multilingual students, outcomes varied by the language of instruction. Those receiving English-only instruction showed early correlations between science and mathematics knowledge and reading proficiency; however, initial science and mathematics knowledge did not predict long-term growth in reading proficiency. Conversely, multilingual students who received instruction in their native language showed no immediate correlations at kindergarten. Nonetheless, their early science and mathematics knowledge significantly predicted later growth in reading proficiency. The findings underscore the critical role of native-language instruction in providing an accessible, vital cognitive and linguistic foundation that supports deeper domain knowledge building, highlighting the enduring benefits of native-language scaffolding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children in the United States have an early-emerging understanding that resources should be divided fairly among agents, yet their behavior does not begin to reflect this understanding until later in development. Why does this gap between knowledge and behavior exist, and how can we close it? Here, we tested the role of explicit prompts in closing the gap, asking whether prompting 4- to 9-year-olds to make fair decisions would promote the costly rejection of unfairness in the Inequity Game. Children were presented with either advantageous (more for actor, less for recipient) or disadvantageous (less for actor, more for recipient) allocations and assigned to one of three experimental conditions: Fairness Prompt, Autonomous Prompt, or Baseline. Prompt condition had a strong effect on advantageous but not disadvantageous inequity aversion. Indeed, a simple fairness prompt was enough to reveal advantageous inequity aversion at 5 years of age, roughly 2 years before it was seen in children in the Autonomous Prompt or Baseline conditions. This study points to the promise of simple prompts as a powerful means of encouraging costly fair behavior in childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study addressed four research questions: (1) Does teaching using syllables or using phonemes lead to better progress in beginning reading and spelling? (2) Does the effectiveness of syllabic or phonemic instruction depend on children's preferences for these units as predicted by Ziegler and Goswami's (2005) "availability" hypothesis? (3) Do children taught via syllabic consonant-vowel (CV) units spontaneously develop insight into the phonemic basis of an alphabetic writing system, and (4) Do individual differences in reading and spelling gains in phoneme-based instruction depend more on working memory, short-term memory, and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) owing to the greater number of units that must be rapidly retrieved and processed? To test these hypotheses, 104 preliterate preschool children were taught to read and spell using an unfamiliar script. Across 14 training sessions, children were taught using either whole CV units, phoneme units, or demiphoneme units. Retention and generalization were evaluated during training and 1 week later. Our results showed that CV-based teaching was found to be significantly and substantially more effective in terms of reading accuracy and speed than teaching via phonemes or demiphonemes. Ziegler and Goswami's (2005) availability hypothesis was not supported: All groups learned more easily with CV-based instruction regardless of their preferred phonological unit. In addition, some children taught solely via whole-syllable units showed evidence of spontaneously induced insight into the phonemic basis of alphabetic writing. Finally, working-memory, short-term memory, and Rapid Automatized Naming predicted learning via phonemes but not via CV units. We discuss the implications for beginning reading instruction in different languages and writing systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study's aims were to identify distinct classes of youth exhibiting differing joint trajectories of anxious solitude (AS) and peer adversities from early childhood to adolescence and to examine relations between trajectory classes and the development of internalizing problems. A sample of 383 children (193 girls) was followed from kindergarten ( = 5.56 years) through Grade 12 ( = 17.89). Measures of AS, peer group rejection and victimization, loneliness, self-esteem, and depression were repeatedly administered across this epoch. Results revealed multiple joint-trajectory classes characterized by varying combinations of AS and peer adversity, and children in these classes differed in the development of internalizing problems over time. Consistent with diathesis-stress hypotheses, two types of peer adversities (stressors), peer group rejection and peer victimization, moderated the relations between children's propensity to engage in AS (diathesis) and the development of specific internalizing problems, including loneliness, depression, and low self-esteem. These findings suggest that socially vulnerable children (i.e., those high in AS) are particularly prone to developing internalizing problems in the face of peer adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The aim of this exploratory study was to identify developmental patterns of adolescent concurrent alcohol, cannabis, and other illicit drug use and their preadolescent individual, familial, and social risk factors in a population-representative cohort from the province of Quebec, Canada ( = 1,593; 48.4% male). Age 12-17 years self-reports of alcohol, cannabis, and other illicit drug use were collected. Latent growth modeling was used to analyze developmental patterns of single- or polysubstance use (SU/PSU), and multinomial regression examined their association with risk factors assessed at age 10-12 years. Five developmental patterns were revealed, including nonusers (12.8% sample) and four classes reflecting different levels of SU/PSU (5.8%-37.5%), varying in severity based on onset, frequency, and type of substances used. Boys and girls were similarly represented throughout SU/PSU patterns. In comparisons with nonusers, several preadolescent risk factors were associated with increasing severity of SU/PSU. Possibly indexing fearlessness/disinhibition, low internalizing symptoms were common to all adolescent users. An earlier onset of substance use and increasing use of substances throughout adolescence were linked with having deviant peers for all user classes but later-onset users. Preadolescents manifesting externalizing problems and exposed to family adversity in addition to the above risk factors showed the earliest onset and most frequent adolescent SU/PSU, especially those also exposed to less appropriate parenting. Consistent with the developmental model of substance use, the nature, number, and severity of preadolescent risk factors distinguished between the type and severity of SU/PSU patterns in adolescence and call for a consistent strategy of universal, selective, and indicated preventive interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This article focuses on a widely used method in developmental and education research in majority world countries: large-scale impact evaluations and randomized controlled trials. We build on our experience implementing such programs in majority world countries, primarily in West Africa, and reflect on our experiences to propose a set of best practices in maintaining equity and justice in collaborations between majority and minority world countries. These include prioritizing research-policy-community partnerships, promoting complementary research approaches, considering measurement timescales, and capacity exchange approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's emotion knowledge encompasses abilities to recognize and label emotions in the service of positive adaptation. Drawing on a sociodemographically diverse sample of 250 children (50% female sex assigned at birth; = 49.02 months, = 2.99) and their maternal caregivers (55.6% Latina; 37.6% poverty), this study evaluated a multiple mediation model to integrate heretofore distinct bodies of research examining (a) parenting effects on the development of emotion knowledge and (b) emotion knowledge effects on socioemotional adaptation. Observations of maternal supportive presence at age 4 predicted increases in children's emotion recognition and labeling from ages 4 to 8. However, only emotion labeling skills explained children's behavioral adjustment outcomes with a significant pathway from supportive parenting at age 4 to fewer externalizing and internalizing behavior problems at age 10 via improved emotion labeling skills. These findings suggest that emotion knowledge, particularly labeling skills, partially explains the protective impact of supportive parenting on behavioral adaptation across childhood. Prevention and intervention efforts should target both supportive parenting practices and emotion knowledge skill development to support children's socioemotional functioning and reduce behavior problems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) inertia is the temporary dependency of RSA levels between consecutive epochs, which captures the epoch-to-epoch stickiness of RSA reactivity. Previous studies examining the developmental function of between-task RSA reactivity have yielded mixed findings and have often overlooked RSA reactivity within the task. The present study examined whether RSA inertia during a stress task was associated with subsequent changes in child psychopathology symptoms. To have a comprehensive understanding of the function of RSA reactivity, we tested whether RSA inertia interacted with between-task RSA reactivity to jointly predict changes in child psychopathology symptoms. Eighty-nine middle-to-high income Chinese parent-child dyads were recruited. Children ( = 8.77 years, = 1.80 years, 41 girls) participated in a 2-min and then a 4-min (a public speaking task), during which RSA was continuously recorded in the lab. Parents ( = 39.27 years, = 3.53 years, 67 mothers) reported on children's psychopathology symptoms in the lab and again 9 months later. Children with heightened RSA inertia tended to exhibit increased externalizing symptoms 9 months later. Moreover, RSA inertia interacted with between-task RSA reactivity to predict subsequent changes in externalizing symptoms. Children with the combination of lower RSA inertia and larger between-task RSA decreases had the lowest externalizing symptoms, suggesting an adaptive RSA reactivity pattern. Heightened within-task RSA inertia as well as reduced between-task RSA reactivity may help to identify children at risk for subsequent psychopathology symptoms, aiding in early intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parent-child coregulation, the active dyadic adaptation of biological states, behaviors, and emotions, is an important developmental process. Especially in challenging situations, children need coregulatory support from their parents, which supports the formation of their self-regulation skills. While research has established that coregulation occurs in various contexts across the developmental period, less is known about what constitutes coregulation in terms of child adjustment and the contextual factors that affect coregulation. This systematic review examined what constitutes parent-child coregulation in response to an experimentally induced challenge and in association with child socioemotional outcomes. Systematic searches were conducted in Web of Science, APA PsycInfo, and PubMed, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Fourteen full-text, peer-reviewed, empirical journal articles that were available in English were included. Children were between the ages of 3 and 12 ( = 5.37 years, 44%-100% male, 6.3%-90% White). Findings indicate that behavioral and emotional coregulation in response to challenge is positively associated with better child self-regulation. Coregulation associated with positive child outcomes seems to be characterized by high flexibility and dyadic synchrony in mutually responsive and engaged states. Findings regarding physiological coregulation suggest that high levels of physiological synchrony can be maladaptive for child outcomes in the presence of risk (e.g., poverty, maltreatment). In addition, this review highlighted the current ambiguity surrounding the diverse terminologies and concepts used to measure coregulation. The findings of this review reveal a significant link between parent-child coregulation and child socioemotional outcomes, while supporting the idea that contextual factors need to be considered to understand its significance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Temperament is a key factor in early development and predicts several key developmental outcomes. The ability to capture temperament in a variety of settings and ages is thus increasingly useful. Recent work has demonstrated the utility, reliability, and validity of thin-slice assessments in which brief snapshots of children's behavior are used to make inferences about general traits (Tackett et al., 2016). Thin-slice has been effective for assessing personality in older children (over 7-years; Tackett et al., 2016, 2017) and preschoolers 3-6 years old (Whalen et al., 2021) when engaging in lab tasks or clinical assessments. However, no work has examined the use of thin-slice for temperament in younger, typically developing infants/toddlers during lab-based tasks. The present study aims to test a downward extension of a modified thin-slice approach to assess temperament using archived videos of 516 infants/toddlers ( = 255; = 27.51 months, Range = 17-47 months). Children were originally recruited from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds across the central United States and completed a short play session, which incorporated standard language and cognition tasks that were not designed to elicit temperament; caregivers also reported their children's temperament using the Early Child Behavior Questionnaire (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Naive raters scored the videos using a modification of the thin-slice approach. We find evidence of good reliability and validity for temperament scores using this approach suggesting thin-slice assessments are another method for measuring temperament in infants and toddlers. Moreover, thin-slice allows for post assessment of temperament even when it had not been formally assessed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior research documents that adults in Western cultures perceive others as more susceptible to social influence than themselves (Pronin et al., 2007). Study 1 ( = 318) investigated the cultural generalizability of this asymmetric perception effect by examining young adults in South Korea, where conformity is relatively valued, and a comparison sample of young adults in the United States. The results documented that, counter to theoretical accounts emphasizing the centrality of motivated reasoning, the self-other distinction was just as strong in South Korea as it was in the United States. Study 2 ( = 102) examined the development of this tendency among 6- to 12-year-old South Korean children and showed that this asymmetry is first present at around age 9. These findings suggest that asymmetric perceptions of conformity are robust and emerge over the course of development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

For three decades, researchers have assessed children's genetic essentialism through an "Adoption Task," probing their beliefs about whether adopted babies grow up to resemble their birthparents or adoptive parents. The present study investigates these beliefs among children who were themselves adopted or donor-conceived (i.e., who share genetic material with neither or one parent, respectively; "ADC"), comparing them with children who were traditionally-conceived (i.e., who share genetic material with two parents; "TC"). Children ( = 95, 4-8 years old, 30ADC/65TC, 34M/59F/2NB, 55 White / 35 of color / five did not report) completed five trials of an Adoption Task concerning five personal characteristics (hair color, spoken language, personality, interests, and intelligence). Across trials, ADC children made fewer essentialist judgments than TC children (η² = .07); the odds of an essentialist response were threefold greater among TC than ADC participants. Exploratory analyses revealed that with age, children's essentialist judgments became increasingly differentiated across different characteristics (e.g., increasingly divergent views of the genetic basis of hair color vs. spoken language), and that this differentiation was more pronounced in the ADC than the TC sample. No differences were observed in the genetic-essentialist views of ADC and TC children's parents, suggesting that the mechanism underlying effects was children's own sense-making capacities. Whereas nature and nurture are confounded for TC children, these factors are decoupled for ADC children, supporting them in building their causal theories. Cognitive, developmental, and social implications are discussed, along with translational implications for ADC children and their families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescence is a period of rapid social changes that may have important implications for the ways adolescents think, feel, and behave in their close relationships. According to family systems theory, adolescents' attachment-related changes have the potential to spread throughout their family system, leading to coordinated changes in parents' and adolescents' attachment styles over time. The present study analyzed data from 205 adolescents ( = 14.0, = 0.9; 44% female, 56% male; 51% White, 33% African American, 3% Hispanic/Latino, 1% Asian American, 12% another race/ethnicity) and their parents (196 mothers, 105 fathers; median household income = $100,000) who completed self-report measures of their general attachment styles annually for 5 years. Using a latent growth curve framework, we examined the extent of coordination among adolescents' and parents' long-term trajectories and shorter term fluctuations in attachment security. The results revealed a dynamic between mothers' and adolescents' long-term trajectories of attachment security. Mothers who reported higher initial levels of attachment anxiety tended to have adolescent children who reported higher initial levels of avoidance. Additionally, adolescents who increased in attachment avoidance over time tended to have mothers who increased in attachment anxiety. Mothers and fathers mirrored each other's patterns of attachment security as their children navigated their teenage years, reporting similar initial levels of attachment avoidance and synchronized shorter term fluctuations in attachment anxiety and avoidance across time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parent-child conversations may minimize the impact of stressful situations on children's well-being. Parents were encouraged to talk with their children about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, yet research suggests that parent stress in response to the pandemic was associated with disruptions in parenting and increased child emotional distress. In the present study, 205 parents of children aged 3-6 years (50.7% girls, 56.6% White) reported on conversations about the pandemic and responded to measures of parent stress and child emotional distress in the fall of 2020. Qualitative analysis revealed that talk about mitigation strategies was frequent; most parents offered an explanation for pandemic changes, whereas fewer parents reported communicating support. Guided by the family stress model, we then examined whether different conversation types moderated the association between parent stress and child emotional distress. Only talk about pandemic changes and explanations that COVID-19 was dangerous acted as moderators, suggesting that these conversation types strengthened the association between parent stress and child emotional distress. A main effect of self-protective explanations being associated with lower child emotional distress was also found. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on parent-child conversations about stressful situations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's tendency to prefer rich to poor people and to view wealthy individuals more positively has been well-documented, but little is known about (a) the mechanisms underlying this "pro-wealth" bias and (b) the extent to which it holds across various social domains (e.g., friendships vs. school project partners). Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined the development of status-based social preferences in a socioeconomically diverse sample of children from Chinese American immigrant families ( = 169; 7-11 years; = 9.16 years, ± 1.05; 87 male, 82 female). We examined the development of these preferences in middle childhood, a period during which aspects of group membership and social stratification are salient, particularly for children of immigrants. Children exhibited preferences for a high-status child over a low-status child across three social domains (friendship, playdate, and school project). Children's open-ended responses explaining their preferences most commonly referenced status-based stereotypes (e.g., "He's more educated, he might know more about the topic") and personal loss or gain (e.g., "I'll get to play with his stuff"). Children higher in parent-rated effortful control exhibited fewer status-based preferences and were less likely to reference status-based stereotypes and personal loss or gain in their explanations. Together, these findings shed light on the complexity and nuance of children's pro-wealth bias, as well as the underlying forces that drive these social preferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Major amendments in neonatal care have been introduced in recent decades. It is important to understand whether these amendments improved the cognitive sequelae of preterm children. Through a large-scale meta-analysis, we explored the association between prematurity-related complications, neonatal care quality, and cognitive development from birth until 7 years. MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, and EBSCO were searched. Peer-reviewed studies published between 1970 and 2022 using standardized tests were included. We evaluated differences between preterm and full-term children in focal developmental domains using random-effects meta-analyses. We analyzed data from 161 studies involving 39,799 children. Preterm birth was associated with inferior outcomes in global cognitive development (standardized mean difference = -0.57, 95% CI [-0.63, -0.52]), as well as in language/communication, visuospatial, and motor performance, reflecting mean decreases of approximately 7.3 to 9.3 developmental/intelligence quotients. Extreme prematurity, neonatal pulmonary morbidities, and older assessment age in very-to-extreme preterm cohorts were associated with worse outcomes. Contemporary neonatal medical and developmental care were associated with transient improvements in global cognitive development, evident until 2 to 3 years of age but not after. Blinding of examiners to participants' gestational background was associated with poorer outcomes in preterm cohorts, suggesting the possibility of a "compassion bias." The results suggest that preterm birth remains associated with poorer cognitive development in early childhood, especially following pulmonary diseases and very-to-extreme preterm delivery. Importantly, deficits become more pervasive with age, but only after births before 32 gestational weeks and not in moderate-to-late preterm cohorts. Care advancements show promising signs of promoting resiliency in the early years but need further refinements throughout childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).