Children exhibit substantial variation in their early math skills, with pronounced achievement gaps by socioeconomic status (SES) observable even before formal schooling. These SES-related differences in math skills are long-standing and globally observed, prompting investigations into how SES variations in home math environment contribute to early math development. The present study employed a mixed-methods design to examine the relations among SES, key aspects of home math environment, and early math skills in a non-Western context. The sample comprised 122 Chinese parents and their preschool children ( = 5.25 years, 52% female) from diverse SES backgrounds. Quantitative analyses indicated that low-SES parents experienced higher math anxiety (large effect) but also placed greater value on math (small effect). Although the frequency of formal math activities did not differ by SES, high-SES parents engaged more in informal math activities and provided math talk with higher quantity and diversity (small effects). Crucially, the study identified parents' math anxiety and the frequency of informal activities as mediators of SES-related differences in early math skills. Qualitative analyses further revealed that low-SES parents viewed math as essential for future success but defined it more narrowly, focusing mainly on formal practices of concrete skills. The implications for future research and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The current research examined whether telling young children about an adult's emotional reactions to their future honesty or dishonesty influences their cheating. In five preregistered studies, children aged 3-6 years participated in a challenging test, purportedly to assess their knowledge but actually to measure their honesty ( = 480; 240 boys; all middle-class Han Chinese). Telling 5- to 6-year-olds about a familiar adult's negative emotional reactions to their future dishonesty significantly reduced subsequent cheating, regardless of whether the adult was their homeroom teacher or their mother. Telling 3- to 4-year-olds about their mother's positive reactions to honesty or her negative reactions to dishonesty also reduced cheating. Thus, providing information about a familiar adult's emotional reactions can effectively promote honest behavior among young children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study explores the directionality of the associations between silent reading fluency and arithmetic fluency development from Grade 1 through Grade 9 (ages 7 to 16) in a large Finnish sample of 2,518 participants. Participants' silent reading and arithmetic fluency skills were assessed at seven time points across Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model was employed to distinguish between between-person and within-person associations. The model revealed a strong positive correlation between reading and arithmetic fluency at the between-person level, suggesting that individuals proficient in one domain typically excel in the other as well. At the within-person level, significant developmental associations emerged predominantly during the early acquisition phase (Grades 1-3). Between Grades 1 and 2, we identified positive bidirectional effects between reading and arithmetic fluency, indicating that variations in one skill predict variations in the other at a subsequent time point. From Grades 2 to 3, a positive unidirectional path from reading to arithmetic was identified, suggesting that variations in silent reading fluency predict subsequent variations in arithmetic fluency. After Grade 3, no significant cross-lagged paths were identified. These findings highlight the dynamic interplay between reading and arithmetic fluency at different stages of development and that factors influencing time-specific changes in reading and math are more similar during the early phases of schooling and skill development than in later stages. The early bidirectional relationship suggests that fostering reading skills may support arithmetic development and vice versa, particularly in early grades. This suggests that it may be useful to target both domains in the early interventions with children having problems in reading or math to enhance overall academic performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Having a robust understanding of viruses is critical for children to understand the COVID-19 pandemic and the protective measures recommended to promote their safety. However, viral transmission is not part of current educational standards in the United States, so children likely must learn about it through informal means, such as media and conversations with caregivers-contexts that often animate and anthropomorphize viruses. In this registered report, we developed an at-home educational intervention to teach children about viruses by creating a picture storybook about COVID-19. We tested children ages 5-8 on their understanding of viruses before and after reading the book at home with their caregivers. Critically, we manipulated which of three books children received: realistic (that detailed the microscopic processes involved in COVID-19 transmission), anthropomorphic (that depicted all the same information but using anthropomorphic language and images for COVID-19), or control (that only showed the visible aspects of illness). Bayesian analyses revealed that children learned about COVID-19 by reading the picture books with their parents at home and extended this knowledge to other viruses and that learning was substantially higher for those reading the realistic and anthropomorphic books than the control books. We also found that learning did not differ as a function of whether the book used anthropomorphic depictions or not although children reading the anthropomorphic book reported being less afraid of viruses. Altogether, these results demonstrate that carefully constructed picture books can help children learn about complex scientific topics at home. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We sought to illuminate whether and how pandemic-related experiences shaped the genetic and environmental influences on mothering behavior to better understand the effects of stress on parenting. Participants included 710 mothers of twins ( = 47.00; = 5.59; White: 84.8%, Black: 7%, Hispanic: 1.1%, Asian American and Pacific Islander: 0.8%, Native American: 0.8%, biracial: 0.3%, other: 3%, and not reported: 2.1%) from the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Biometric analyses revealed that as pandemic-related stressors like job loss and illness increased, mother-child conflict became more environmental in origin. By contrast, we found assets (e.g., more quality time with family) served to increase maternal nurturance of both of her children by suppressing the importance of evocative child effects. Our results provide novel information on the ways stressors and assets alter the origins of parenting behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

In an attempt to better characterize the complexity of difficulties observed within developing populations, numerous data-driven techniques have been applied to large mixed data sets. However, many have failed to incorporate the core role of developmental time in these approaches, that is, the typical course of change in behavioral features that occurs over childhood to adolescence. In this study, we utilized manifold projections alongside a gradient-boosting model on data collected from the Millennium Cohort Study to unpack the central role of developmental time in how behavioral difficulties transition between the ages of 5, 11, and 17. Our analysis highlights numerous observations: (a) Girls develop relatively greater internalized behavioral problems during adolescence; (b) in the case of a chaotic home environment, co-occurring internalizing and externalizing difficulties tend to persist during childhood; (c) peer problems were the most likely to persist over the whole 12-year period (especially in the presence of early maternal depression and poor family relationships); and (d) there were two pathways with distinct risk factors leading to antisocial behaviors in adolescence-an early-childhood onset pathway and later adolescent onset pathway. Our findings provide evidence that investigations of child and adolescent difficulties must be open to the possibility of multiple subgroups and variability in trajectory over time. We further highlight the crucial role of family and social support and school experience-related factors in predicting children's outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined children's patterns of sharing behavior with a peer across repeated social interactions. Children aged 9-12 years old ( = 186; = 10.72 years, = 1.09; 108 females; 75.7% White) were matched with a same-age, same-sex, unfamiliar peer, and the dyad completed structured and unstructured tasks during three online sessions across 1 month. At the end of each session, children independently and anonymously participated in a task to assess sharing behavior with their interaction partner. We found evidence for three patterns of sharing behavior across the sessions: fair sharers (45.2%), minimal sharers (44.6%), and increasing sharers (10.2%). We examined how children's own traits and social perceptions of their peer's traits predicted sharing behavior. Children who were rated by their parents as lower in temperamental affiliation and children who perceived their social partner as higher in negative traits were likely to share minimally with their peer across sessions. Further, children who were rated by their parents as higher in temperamental shyness and children who perceived their social partner as higher in shy/nervous traits were likely to increase the number of tickets they shared with their peer across sessions. These findings illustrate that children's sharing behavior with an initially unfamiliar peer is related to their own traits and their perception of the recipient and may change over the course of repeated social interactions. These patterns may be driven by differences in social-affiliative goals based on temperament and unfolding social dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Families with young school-age children experienced unique challenges during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This longitudinal, mixed-methods study explored links between parent-child conversations early in the COVID-19 pandemic and children's later social-emotional adjustment and conceptualizations of the pandemic. In a socioeconomically diverse (36% low-income) sample of 183 families, parents (94% women, 6% men) reported on the content of their conversations about the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020 with their young school-age children (81% White, 8% Hispanic/Latine, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 1% Black, 8% multiracial/other; 46% girls, 54% boys, = 7.15 years). Key themes identified in parent-child conversations included precautionary measures, the seriousness of the pandemic, the possibility of death or hospitalization, and collective safety efforts. Findings revealed that the content of early conversations, as reported by parents, had significant associations with children's externalizing, attentional, and internalizing behavior problems 6-18 months later (Fall 2020 to Spring 2022; = 8.01 years). Children were interviewed about their understandings of the pandemic, and their explanations echoed themes raised earlier in parent-child conversations, with added emphasis on children's emotional experiences and disruptions to their daily routines. The results highlight the evolving nature of parents' and children's understandings as the pandemic progressed, as well as the developmental and contextual influences on children's conceptualizations of the pandemic and the content of parent-reported parent-child conversations. This study underscores the importance of parental communication for children's responses to global crises, highlighting how informed and supportive dialogues may support children's well-being during challenging times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Students often receive encouragement but do not always find it motivating. Whose encouragement motivates students and what cognitive mechanisms underlie this process? We propose that students' responses to positive feedback (e.g., encouragement) hinge on mental state representations, specifically what the speaker knows. Across three studies, we find that U.S. adolescents ( = 581-759 11- to 19-year-olds per study, preregistered; > 80% racial/ethnic minorities; > 36% low income) report being more motivated by, more confident in, and more likely to seek out encouragement from hypothetical and real-world speakers (e.g., parents, teachers, peers) who are knowledgeable about both their abilities (e.g., students' math skills) and the task at hand (e.g., math). To make feedback most effective, our findings suggest that students should seek and receive encouragement from those who know them and their activities well. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined the effects of training involving spatial versus nonspatial representations of numerical magnitude for promoting arithmetic fluency. The key goal was to advance theoretical understanding of the relation between spatial and math learning, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the development of future educational interventions. Toward this goal, the study tested the hypothesis that the use of spatial representations during training facilitates arithmetic fluency via improvements in numerical magnitude knowledge. Participants (first graders from low-income racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds, = 205) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: spatial-continuous, spatial-discrete, nonspatial-verbal cues, and nonspatial-no verbal cues. All conditions involved eight 30-min training sessions, in which children received instruction on addition/subtraction problems with totals within 10. The key difference between conditions was the type of materials utilized during training-specifically, the type of magnitude cues they contained. The results showed that children's arithmetic skills increased from pre- to posttest in all conditions and that the increase was significantly larger in the spatial, compared to nonspatial, conditions. However, there was no effect of condition on numerical magnitude knowledge, which leaves open the question about the underlying mechanism. The findings demonstrating a causal relation between spatial and mathematical domains have both theoretical significance and practical implications for the choice of instructional materials. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Real-time affective dynamics surrounding everyday conflicts are central to the quality of relationships between mothers and their socioemotionally maturing adolescents. In this longitudinal study, we examined whether dyadic affective flexibility in early adolescence predicted trajectories of mother-adolescent relationship closeness and conflicts over time. We focused on flexibility not only in dyads' emotional fluctuations conflict interactions (i.e., flexibility) but also in the repair of their affective patterns conflict interactions (i.e., flexibility). At Wave 1, 201 adolescents (11-12 years old, 46.3% girls) and mothers (87.5% Caucasian) completed two consecutive discussions about everyday conflicts and happy memories, respectively. Dynamic flexibility was derived from second-by-second affect coding via state space grids, and reactive flexibility was assessed as the latent change in dynamic flexibility across discussions. Annually for 5 years, including periods during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., Waves 3-5), mothers reported feelings of closeness with the adolescents, and both dyad members identified and rated the intensity of conflicts with each other. Results revealed that greater dynamic and reactive flexibility predicted greater and increasing closeness particularly from early to mid-adolescence. Greater dynamic and reactive flexibility were also associated with less intense and less diverse conflicts overall but not developmental changes in conflicts. These findings have implications beyond the immediate dyadic interactions around conflicts, suggesting that real-time flexibility within the mother-adolescent emotional system may serve as a resilience factor that buffers against the strains of relationship adjustment during adolescence at a longer timescale. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Based on a representative sample of 196 Chinese children (101 girls; ages 5-9) and their parents, this study examined the longitudinal relations of early home numeracy activities, measured in preschool in 2015, with children's math skills in third grade in 2019. The results showed that the frequency of number book activities predicted children's third-grade nonsymbolic math skills and that the frequency of number application activities was predictive of third-grade symbolic math skills. More importantly, these relations persisted even after controlling for preschool number skills, the other types of numeracy activities, parenting styles, and demographic variables. The findings highlight the potential role of enhancing early number book and application activities at home in engendering long-lasting effects on children's math development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Innovation in children is typically studied by examining their capacity to independently create tools to solve problems. However, it has been argued that innovating requires more than creative problem-solving; it is essential that the future utility of a solution is recognized. Here, we examined children's capacity to recognize and construct a tool for future uses. Experiment 1 presented fifty-five 3- to 5-year-olds (28 girls) with a future-directed variation of a task in which children had to make a hook to solve a problem. When given a tool construction opportunity in anticipation of returning to the task, only 5-year-olds chose to make a hook-shaped tool more often than expected by chance. Experiment 2a assessed ninety-two 3- to 7-year-olds' (48 girls) capacity to construct a tool with both present and future utility in mind. Specifically, they needed to make a tool long enough to not only poke a ball from a short tube in the present but also poke a ball from a longer tube in the future. Older children tended to construct longer tools and were more likely to do so in this situation than in a follow-up control study (2b, = 89, 41 girls) where the future- and present-task tubes were identical. This pattern suggests that older children had the future task in mind when making their tools. Children's propensity to construct longer tools in Experiment 2a was associated with their capacity to prepare for two alternative possibilities on a secondary task, suggesting performance reflects emerging future-oriented cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined an understudied aspect of children's pedagogical cognition and investigated whether children selectively transmit objective information. In three experiments ( = 168), 5- and 6-year-olds were asked to distinguish between objective and subjective statements (Experiment 1) and to choose objective or subjective information to pass on to others (Experiments 2 and 3). Children of both ages distinguished between the two types of statements, = 19.1, and preferentially transmitted more objective than subjective information when asked to teach, = 5.06. A control condition, in which participants were asked to share information with a peer, found that 5- and 6-year-olds also favored sharing objective information in a nonpedagogical context, = 1.96. Critically, children taught more objective information when placed in a pedagogical stance compared to a conversational context, = 2.31. These findings contribute to the growing body of work suggesting that children recognize teaching as a unique communicative mechanism, one that calls for the propagation of objective information, not subjective opinion. Our study furthers the understanding of how young children's pedagogical knowledge and competence develop. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined children's emotion situation knowledge and social problem-solving abilities as mediators in the prospective link between constructive interparental conflict (IPC) and children's psychological adjustment in a sample of 238 preschool children ( = 4.38 years; 52% female children; 28% Black; 14% multiracial or other race; 16% Latinx) and their mothers. The methodological approach consisted of multiple methods and informants in a longitudinal design with three annual measurement occasions (i.e., preschool, kindergarten, first grade). Results of the path analysis indicated that Wave 1 constructive IPC predicted residualized increases in children's emotion situation knowledge and social problem solving at Wave 2 with the inclusion of hostile IPC, demographic factors, and prior child characteristics (i.e., child age, race, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, social competence) as simultaneous predictors. In turn, children's emotion situation knowledge at Wave 2 predicted residualized decreases in their internalizing and externalizing symptoms at Wave 3. Wave 2 social problem solving also predicted residualized increases in their social competence at Wave 3. Results are discussed in the context of how they advance developmental models of constructive family conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

As part of the developmental stage of emerging adulthood, youth may cultivate critical consciousness (CC) to transform oppressive systems. CC development may be influenced by discriminatory experiences and may affect well-being. To better understand longitudinal CC development and its relationship to discrimination and well-being (i.e., perceived stress, anxiety, hopefulness), we studied a U.S. national longitudinal cohort of emerging adult college students between the ages of 18 and 22 at baseline ( = 20.0, = 1.3) who completed four surveys between April 2020 and July 2021 ( = 684). The analytic sample was 63% women and 37% men (gender-diverse participants were removed due to small sample size) and 26% lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer/questioning, and other minoritized sexual identities. Self-identified race/ethnicity backgrounds were 54% white, 20% Asian/Pacific Islander, 9% Latinx, 5% Black, and 10% multiple races/ethnicities and/or as Middle Eastern/North African. We conducted latent profile transition analysis and identified five patterns of CC development, with a minority of participants in two "growth" transition patterns wherein they increased their CC over time. Maintaining higher levels of CC, and especially developing CC, was associated with more prior experiences with discrimination and with concurrent and subsequent higher levels of perceived stress and anxiety. We recommend institutions of higher education and college-based organizations to build well-being practices and structures into CC-raising spaces to support empowering CC development amid ongoing sociopolitical turmoil. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Although there is a theoretical and empirical basis for age-related changes in adolescents' empathy and prosocial behaviors, as well as in bidirectional relationships, research examining their codevelopment is lacking. Specifically, research on the extent to which an adolescent's mean-level growth in empathy is related to parallel mean-level growth in his or her prosocial behavior is needed. This 3-year longitudinal multicohort study of adolescents ( = 1,045, 52.0% girls; = 14.67 years) conducted in France investigated the codevelopmental associations between adolescents' empathy mean-level growth and prosocial behaviors mean-level growth via parallel latent growth curve modeling. The parallel latent growth curve model indicated general mean-level increases in empathy and prosocial behaviors over time. The findings support the codevelopment of empathy and prosocial behaviors, with mean-level growth in empathy related to parallel mean-level growth of prosocial behaviors in early and middle adolescence. Importantly, both trajectories exhibited significant interindividual variability. Additionally, the initial levels of empathy were positively related to the initial levels of prosocial behaviors and vice versa. Interestingly, our results suggest that higher baseline levels of empathy are related to steeper decreases in the slope of prosocial behaviors over time and that higher baseline levels of prosocial behaviors are related to steeper decreases in the slope of empathy over time. Age- and gender-related findings were also observed. We discuss the codevelopment and developmental relationships between empathy and prosocial behaviors, the differences across age groups, and their practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This research examined 3- to 6-year-old's prosocial responses to an unfamiliar experimenter demonstrating diverse needs (instrumental, material, and emotional) in structured tasks across two distinct cultural contexts (urban Canada/Canadian vs. rural Mexico/Tzotzil Maya). Two hundred eighty participants were recruited from preschools in Zinacantán, Mexico (100% Tzotzil Maya), and Montréal, Canada (70% European descent). We compared responses to instrumental, material, and emotional needs across experimental (need present) and control (need absent) conditions. In both cultural contexts, prosociality was responsive to need. However, Canadian children were more likely to respond prosocially than the Tzotzil Maya children across all three needs. In addition, consistent with past research, we found that prosocial responses increased with age. Across the two cultural contexts, we observed both similarities (e.g., the relative frequency of responding to the various needs) and differences (e.g., the effect of task on prosocial responding to instrumental and emotional needs). Taken together, these results highlight the importance of considering the nuanced role of culture in the development of diverse prosocial behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Black and Latine parents play a crucial role in shaping adolescents' math and science motivation and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) course taking. However, providing extensive support across various behaviors may not always be feasible nor optimal. Analyzing data from 4,230 Black and Latine families (47% Latine, 46% Black; 50% girls; 70% noncollege educated parents), we identified six distinct parent support profiles using the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 data set. Four patterns showed higher engagement (), and two exhibited slightly less support ( and ). Generally, consistent findings emerged for both Black and Latine families concerning the profiles and their relations with adolescents' math and science beliefs in 11th grade and STEM coursework. The and profiles correlated with the most positive STEM motivational beliefs and course taking, whereas the profile was associated with the lowest motivation and course taking. This suggests that STEM encouragement from parents, combined with other supportive behaviors, may be particularly crucial for Black and Latine adolescents, and high support across all indicators may not be the optimal approach, especially for high-achieving students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This article describes the adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) for South Africa's 11 official spoken languages. The CDI is a parent-report tool that measures early language development from 8 to 30 months. We developed cross-linguistically comparable CDIs, representing two distinct language families, West Germanic and southern Bantu, using a common protocol. We describe our approach to item construction and harmonization across languages and to obtaining sociodemographic information in different cultural settings. Issues such as language contact and variation, sampling, data collection, and quality control are discussed as well as item selection and instrument reliability and validity. This study highlights key issues for CDI adaptations and other instrument development in understudied contexts and discusses the theoretical implications of adding this diverse set of cross-linguistically comparable languages for early child language research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Parents bring their preparenthood experiences into their family relationships, which may have a persistent impact on family dynamics. One such significant experience is infertility, often shared by both partners but differentially experienced by women and men. Using a prospective longitudinal study of adoptive parents with a history of infertility challenges who later adopted a child ( = 461, 91% White), we aimed to (a) examine the impact of preparenthood infertility distress on heterosexual couples' perceived marital instability trajectories in the 11 years of parenthood and (b) test whether social support from their partner and other sources would moderate the impact of infertility distress. Results revealed cubic curves of marital instability for mothers and fathers during parenthood, where marital instability increased from the child age of 9 months to 4-5 years, then decreased till 8-9 years, followed by another increase to 11 years. Mothers' preparenthood infertility distress predicted higher marital instability after child age of 4.5 years, and their satisfaction with partner support mitigated this association. No such effect was identified for fathers. Overall, results indicated that mothers' infertility distress experienced before becoming a parent of their adopted child serves as a risk factor for marital instability in the long term. Moreover, partner support is an important buffer against this risk. This study underscores the importance of considering parents' preparenthood personal history in later family functioning. Discussion elaborates on the differing results for women and men and the implications for future research and intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Research demonstrating the mnemonic benefits of maternal elaboration on episodic memory development has given limited attention to conversational and developmental factors that may moderate this association, especially in relation to the accuracy of children's recall of unshared events. The present study examined associations between maternal elaboration and the accuracy of children's collaborative recall with their mothers and independent recall with an unfamiliar adult for an unshared event. We examined whether these associations depended on maternal autonomy support, mothers' accurate versus inaccurate preconceptions about the unshared event, and children's age. Participants were 141 children (4- to 7-year-olds; 52% female) and their mothers (71% White, 60% completed a bachelor's degree). Children individually participated in an unshared event and discussed the event with their mothers prior to a neutral interview with an unfamiliar adult. We experimentally manipulated whether mothers were exposed to accurate (i.e., knowledgeable) versus inaccurate (i.e., misled) details prior to collaborative recall. Maternal elaboration increased accurate collaborative recall among children with knowledgeable mothers and among older children with misled mothers but only when misled mothers were autonomy supportive. Younger children with misled mothers reported more accurate collaborative details as maternal autonomy support increased. Representing a double-edged sword, maternal elaboration increased inaccurate collaborative recall among younger children and decreased accurate independent recall in both maternal bias conditions. The present findings underscore the importance of considering conversational (i.e., maternal bias and autonomy support) and developmental contexts (i.e., child age) in elucidating the manner in which maternal elaboration relates to the accuracy of children's recall. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Responding to others' emotions entails the coordination of multiple behaviors. Yet, research on such responding typically analyses each behavior separately. We investigated the heterogeneity of 16-, 19-, and 24-month-old infants' ( = 296, 51.4% girls; 3.1% African American, 10.1% Asian, 12.9% Hispanic, 44.7% White, 29.2% other racial/ethnic groups) behavioral response patterns to five discrete emotions (joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust) during a naturalistic interaction. Various infant behaviors (social avoidance, security seeking, stimulus exploration, prosocial responding, information seeking, relaxed play) in response to the emotional context were coded. A latent-class analysis revealed four distinct classes of behaviors: prosocial exploring, active information seeking, cautious information seeking, and relaxed playing. Finally, a generalized linear mixed-effect model examined the differences in class prevalence across discrete emotions, across age groups, and between age groups within emotions. The analysis revealed several interesting differences in the frequency of each class across emotions and ages. This is the first study to utilize an infant-centered analysis to identify patterns of goal-directed behaviors in response to discrete emotions. Our findings suggest that infants are able to coordinate a variety of goal-directed behaviors to respond to emotional contexts. Furthermore, the utilization of each pattern of behaviors might be driven by the valence of the context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Expressions of hurt feelings are assumed to serve an important social function: communicating that a transgression needs to be repaired. This message is accompanied by a threat to withdraw affection which may motivate the transgressing individual to repair-by increasing interpersonal distance and eliciting feelings of guilt. We investigated the development of this social function of hurt feelings expressed as sulking behavior in direct contrast to related yet distinct emotional expressions (i.e., anger and disappointment). Four- to 5-year-old (Study 1, = 108, 54 female) and 6-year-old urban German children (Study 2, = 72, 36 female) participated in a mock video call in which we assessed their responses to a peer's sulking behavior as opposed to angry and disappointed behavior. We used a forced-choice puppet interview, measuring fear, sympathy, and guilt reactions. In an additional distancing task, we assessed whether children would distance themselves from their peer depending on their emotional expressions. In both age groups, we found that sulking behavior led to medium distancing, while angry behavior led to high and disappointed behavior to low distancing. Disappointed behavior elicited empathic reactions, and angry behavior led to fear. Sulking behavior actuated guilt among 6-year-olds, but not younger children. These results suggest that the preschool years are a critical period for understanding how children's hurt feelings distinctively structure social interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite evidence that parental communication about COVID-19 can have short-term benefits such as adolescents' increased health behaviors, less is known about the potential long-term associations between such communication and adolescent adjustment, as well as the family characteristics that facilitate such communication. Moreover, it is important to examine such processes beyond Western societies and broaden the understanding of parental communication in non-Western societies. To fill these gaps in the literature, a two-wave longitudinal study on Chinese families spanning 1 year during the pandemic (July 2020-July 2021) was conducted. Analyses revealed that the relation between parent-adolescent closeness and parental communication about COVID-19 was moderated by parental burnout. Higher parent-adolescent closeness was linked with more communication about COVID-19 only when parents experienced low, but not high, parental burnout. Moreover, the longitudinal associations between parental communication about COVID-19 and adolescent adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and resilience) 1 year later were also moderated by parental burnout. More parental communication about COVID-19 was associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and higher levels of resilience 1 year later only when parents experienced low, but not high, parental burnout. Findings suggest future interventions to target family communication to promote adolescent well-being during challenging times, especially for families who experience higher levels of parental burnout. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Structural inequalities refer to systems that have historically privileged (and continue to privilege) some groups over others. We explored children's propensity to amend structural inequalities in a resource reallocation task in the context of preexisting inequalities. In a preregistered experiment, U.S. children ( = 120; 60 girls, 60 boys; 59% White, 12% Asian, 5% Black, 4% Latine/Hispanic, 19% mixed race, and 1% identified as other) learned about two novel groups: one historically advantaged and the other historically disadvantaged. Children sequentially saw eight resources spanning four categories-: food and homes; : schools and hospitals; : fancy clothes and expensive cars; and : best jobs and money to start a business. On each trial, children saw an unequal allocation of resources (e.g., homes) in an 8:2 ratio favoring the advantaged group. Children had free rein in redistributing resources. Children generally amended the structural inequality, with older children adopting an equal distribution and younger children moving an average of one item from the advantaged to disadvantaged group. Importantly, children's resource redistributions were selective: Reallocations of Luxury Goods were more likely to continue to favor the advantaged group, while children preferred equality in their reallocations of Basic Goods. For Public Goods and Opportunity Goods, children were as likely to favor the advantaged group as they were to favor equality. Finally, parents' political beliefs predicted younger (but not older) children's reallocation strategies. These findings highlight an emerging capacity to reason about and selectively amend structural inequalities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined family factors (i.e., parenting style and relationship quality) at the beginning of the pandemic that predicted profiles of family communication about COVID-19 6 months later, as well as communication profile differences in child well-being. Parents ( = 1,025, 66% female, 33.8% male, 0.1% nonbinary) of children aged 5-17 years ( = 11.03, = 3.38; 53.4% male children; 76.5% non-Hispanic White, 5.6% Black, 2.8% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.9% Native American/Indigenous, 10.4% Hispanic/Latine, 2.1% another race or ethnicity; approximately half in households with income below $75,000/year) completed surveys during the initial COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 (Time 1) and approximately 6 months later (Time 2) about their parenting styles, family relationship quality, family communication about the pandemic, and their child's mental health. Latent profile analysis revealed a five-profile solution of family communication profiles for children (5-11 years; = 533) and a three-profile solution for adolescents (12-17 years; = 492). Both parental reports of family relationship quality and parenting styles (Time 1) predicted communication profiles (Time 2), such that better relationship quality and higher authoritative parenting at the start of the pandemic predicted communication profiles characterized by lower avoidant communication and higher active communication about COVID-19. Conversely, lower relationship quality and higher authoritative parenting were predictive of subsequent membership in profiles that were high in both avoidant and active communication. Importantly, across both age groups, parents who reported being higher in both avoidant and active communication about COVID-19 reported higher child mental health problems, whereas parents reporting communication profiles characterized by low avoidance and high active communication reported better child mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Parents and adolescents often hold concordant and discordant views on parenting behaviors. Scant research has explored short-term within-family dynamics of parent-adolescent congruency and discrepancy on parental positive reinforcement on a micro timescale. Adopting a month-long daily diary design, we examined the convergence and divergence among 86 dyads of adolescents ( = 14.5 years, 55% female, 45% non-White) and one of their parents ( = 43.7 years, 72% female, 38% non-White) on their perceived daily parental positive reinforcement behaviors and the links to adolescents' daily emotional, hyperactivity, and conduct problems. Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling revealed both convergence and divergence at the within-family level. At the between-family level, however, there was minimal evidence for parent-adolescent convergence. Within-families, parent divergence was positively and reciprocally linked with adolescent emotional problems prospectively. Parent divergence was also associated with fewer adolescent hyperactivity problems the next day. More adolescent hyperactivity problems were negatively linked to parent-adolescent convergence the next day. The findings unveiled distinct structure of, and associations with parent-adolescent convergence and divergence on parental positive reinforcement behaviors, which highlights the importance of disentangling short-term within-family fluctuations from stable between-family differences at different levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This preregistered longitudinal study examined the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal in early adolescence. It followed and compared two cohorts over 4 years: one prepandemic (11-14 years, 2016-2019) and one during the pandemic (2019-2022). The study analyzed annual well-being surveys merged with school enrolment data from South Australian public schools ( = 28,307, 49% female). Employing latent growth modeling and a novel cohort comparison design, the study addressed a major limitation in pandemic studies: It separated pandemic effects from normative developmental changes. Results indicate that the pandemic cohort largely followed typical, yet declining, developmental trajectories, showing resilience at a population level. Unexpectedly, the examination of multiple covariates (i.e., gender, socioeconomic status, non-English background, anxiety, peer belonging, teacher support) showed that preexisting vulnerabilities did not predict adverse pandemic effects. This research underscores the value of longitudinal data infrastructures and the importance of understanding normative youth development and resilience research in discerning the effects of pandemics or other widespread crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescence is a period in which peer problems and emotional symptoms markedly increase in prevalence. However, the causal mechanisms regarding how peer problems cause emotional symptoms at a behavioral level and vice versa remain unknown. To address this gap, the present study investigated the longitudinal network of peer problems and emotional symptoms among Australian adolescents aged 12-14 years. Data were from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The complete case samples included adolescents who participated in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children B ( = 2,694) or K ( = 3,144) Cohorts at two study follow-ups (ages 12 and 14). Peer problems and emotional symptoms were measured with the self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The analytical steps were (a) in Study 1, a causal discovery algorithm, Bayesian structure learning of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), was used to identify the longitudinal network in the K Cohort; (b) the DAG discovered was evaluated with Bayesian structural equation modeling in an independent sample (the B Cohort) and compared against a DAG established through expert knowledge; and (c) in Study 2, the longitudinal network was again evaluated but considered contemporaneous effects. The empirically discovered DAG provided a better explanation of independent data than the expert DAG. Based on the discovered DAG, several plausible causal effects were identified such as that being bullied at age 12 negatively affected popularity at age 14. This study provides new insights into potential causal effects established between peer problems and emotional symptoms among Australian adolescents aged 12-14 years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).