Journal of Research on Adolescence最新文献

For Black adolescent girls, hair is a significant aspect of gender and ethnic identity, influencing both intrapersonal reflections and interpersonal interactions. Gendered racism and Eurocentric beauty standards marginalize Black girls and their hair, causing them to experience high rates of hair-related harassment and discrimination. These experiences negatively affect the self-esteem of Black girls, which has critical implications for various health behaviors. The purpose of this article is to describe the development of a culturally relevant digital toolkit aimed at promoting hair esteem and self-esteem. The development of the toolkit for Black girls was grounded in a youth participatory research approach and co-created with Black adolescent girls who were part of an existing youth advisory board (YAB). Existing literature and YAB discussions were used to create the “Hair-Esteem Toolkit for Black Girls.” The toolkit includes hair empowerment strategies alongside activities and resources designed to enhance self-esteem among Black girls. This study emphasizes the development of the toolkit and the importance of centering Black girls in intervention development. The resulting toolkit marks a potential first step toward addressing hair discrimination and empowering Black girls.

Popularity is increasingly salient and impactful in adolescence, and unpopular youth are at significantly greater risk of experiencing depressive symptoms. However, adolescents can vary in their neural sensitivity to social stimuli, such that some adolescents may be more impacted by social status than others. We examined whether adolescents' neural sensitivity to popular and unpopular peers moderates the extent that their own social status is related to trajectories of depressive symptoms across 5 years (6th–10th grades). During an fMRI scan, adolescents from the southeastern United States (n = 116, 61 female, 29% White Non-Hispanic, 36% Hispanic, 22% Black/African American, 11% multiracial, 2% other; M_age = 13.59, SD = 0.59) viewed pictures of their popular and unpopular classmates based on sociometric nominations from their social networks. Results indicated that heightened amygdala sensitivity to unpopular peers moderated the relations between participants' own popularity and their depressive symptoms, leading to increased depressive symptoms for unpopular youth. These findings suggest that individual differences in sensitivity to peer hierarchies impact the degree to which adolescents are negatively impacted by their own level of popularity.

Experience sampling method (ESM) research, relying on real-time data collection via mobile devices, provides unique insights into adolescents' daily lives. However, concerns about digital distraction and overstimulation have led to shifting societal norms and consequently, increased restrictions on smartphone use—both institutionally (e.g., school bans) and informally (e.g., parental rules, self-regulation). These constraints raise questions about the feasibility and ecological validity of using ESM in adolescent samples. In this study, 195 adolescents (M_age = 16.12) participated in a 17-day ESM protocol, completing six prompts daily. Most adolescents reported facing school-based (88%) and parental (56%) smartphone restrictions. Despite these constraints, compliance was moderate to high (M = 78%), and analyses of nonresponse patterns revealed when and why prompts were most likely to be missed. Early morning prompts were often missed due to sleep, late morning prompts due to school, and evening prompts due to work—highlighting the importance of context-sensitive sampling strategies. Moreover, data quality was high: careless responding was rare, and participants reported high levels of integrity and motivation. Most participants evaluated the study as positive, with financial incentives, scientific contribution, and social connection as key motivators. These findings underscore that adolescent ESM studies remain feasible and ecologically valid when protocols are flexibly aligned with real-world constraints. Given that societal norms on digital well-being are in flux and smartphone restrictions intensify, aligning ESM design with adolescents' everyday realities becomes increasingly essential to preserve both feasibility and ecological validity in research on adolescence.

Adolescence is a pivotal developmental stage characterized by heightened vulnerability to stress and rapid fluctuations in emotional well-being. Using a 30-day daily diary design on 107 adolescents (11–18 years old; M_age = 14.75, SD_age = 1.59; 38.3% female, 58.9% male), this study examined both same-day and lagged-day associations between daily stress and adolescent emotional well-being (positive and negative affect) and explored the moderating roles of sport experience and sleep quality in buffering the aversive effects of stress. Results revealed both same-day and lagged-day effects of daily stress on adolescent emotional well-being. In addition, sport experience moderated the same-day stress-affect associations, supporting the same-day buffering hypothesis; it also moderated the associations between stress and lagged-day affect, supporting the recovery hypothesis. Similarly, sleep quality the night before stress exposure moderated the same-day stress-affect associations, supporting the preparation hypothesis; sleep quality the night after stress exposure moderated the associations between stress and lagged-day affect, supporting the reset hypothesis. Findings underscore the importance of disentangling dynamics in daily stress-affect associations, and demonstrate the effectiveness of promoting positive sport experience and sleep quality to enhance adolescent emotional well-being. Implications for interventions and future research directions are also discussed.

Examining the impact of basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS) and parent–adolescent coliving time on the longitudinal link between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent depression, this study integrated the ecological systems theory of human development with self-determination theory. A total of 563 Chinese middle and high school students (M_age = 13.70 ± 1.54 years; 47.8% boys) completed three-wave questionnaire over an 18-month period. The results revealed two pathways through which perceived parental knowledge reduced depression: (M1) perceived parental knowledge → autonomy satisfaction → competence satisfaction → lower depression, and (M2) perceived parental knowledge → relatedness satisfaction → competence satisfaction → lower depression. The results showed that BPNS explains the link between perceived parental knowledge and depression, underscoring the importance of competence. Moreover, the strength of perceived parental knowledge effects varied across contexts and developmental stages, being stronger among adolescents who reported longer parent–adolescent time and among seventh graders (compared with 10th graders). Notably, in low parent–adolescent time and older adolescent groups, perceived parental knowledge showed a positive direct association with depression, suggesting that when parental involvement is limited or developmentally incongruent, perceived parental knowledge may be perceived as intrusive rather than supportive. These findings deepen our understanding of the impact of perceived parental knowledge on adolescent psychological needs and depression.

Greater mindfulness is thought to give rise to more positive psychological health through more adaptive emotion regulation. While there is extensive evidence linking higher average mindfulness to lower average emotion regulation difficulties, less is known about the momentary-level patterns that occur within individuals. Additionally, it is unclear if the relationship between mindfulness and emotion regulation changes as a function of adolescents' mental health status. This study sought to fill these gaps by investigating the between- and within-person concurrent (same moment) and prospective (next moment) effects of mindfulness on emotion regulation among adolescents exposed to chronic stressors. This study also explored the moderating effects of mental health symptoms. Seventy-nine participants who were 10–18 years old (M = 13.81; SD = 2.16; 56% male; 62% non-Hispanic White) completed ecological momentary assessments (EMA) three times a day for 7 days. Dynamic structural equation modeling revealed that between- and within-person mindfulness was inversely associated with concurrent, but not prospective, emotion regulation difficulties. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and internalizing symptoms also moderated concurrent and prospective within-person associations. Individuals with higher PTSD and internalizing symptoms experienced lower emotion regulation difficulties during moments of greater-than-average mindfulness. Adolescents with higher PTSD symptoms also experienced fewer difficulties regulating their emotions in moments that followed greater mindful nonjudgment. These results highlight that greater momentary mindfulness may be beneficial for emotion regulation within the same moment and across the day for adolescents with mental health difficulties which has meaningful implications for just-in-time interventions. Future research may benefit from incorporating additional EMA measurements to explore the finer grained, short-term dynamics between mindfulness and emotion regulation.

Peer defending is widely promoted as a strategy to reduce bullying, but few studies have investigated whether having more defenders decreases victimization over time from the victim's perspective. This social network study examined the longitudinal association between nominating more defenders and subsequent victimization among (early) adolescents and tested whether this relation is moderated by the popularity status of the defender and the victim. The sample included 1450 participants from 93 secondary school classes (grades 4–9) in Finland (52.51% female; M_age = 12.38 years, SD_age = 1.56). Results from longitudinal social network analyses showed that contrary to expectations, having more defenders did not reduce victimization over time. Moreover, the popularity of the defender or the victim did not moderate this effect. Results did not differ by grade. These findings suggest that defending alone may not protect students from ongoing victimization and highlight the need for broader, multi-level intervention strategies.

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the linear and nonlinear associations between affinity for solitude and social, school, and psychological adjustment in adolescents. Participants included 2675 eighth-grade students (1341 boys; M_age = 14.3 years) in China. Affinity for solitude was assessed through self-reports, and adjustment data were collected from multiple sources. Results showed that affinity for solitude was positively associated with later prosociality. Moreover, affinity for solitude at low to moderate levels, but not at moderate to high levels, positively predicted leadership. Affinity for solitude at low to moderate levels was negatively associated with later aggression, behavioral problems, and learning problems, but the associations were nonsignificant at moderate levels and positive at higher levels. In addition, affinity for solitude at higher levels, but not at low to moderate levels, negatively predicted school attitudes. The results suggest that the moderate level of affinity for solitude is most beneficial for adolescents' adjustment.

Atypical lying (i.e., dishonesty that is excessive, impulsive, for fun, or lacks clear motive) may signal broader developmental risks. This study examined whether baseline levels and changes in parenting, peer, and individual factors were associated with trajectories of atypical lying from ages 14 to 26. Data from 1354 participants (86.41% male; baseline M_age = 16.04; 41.5% Black, 33.5% Hispanic, 20.2% White, 4.8% Other) in the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed. Results indicate that higher risk (parental hostility, antisocial peer influence, and perceived thrill of crime) and lower protective factors (parental warmth, resistance to peer influence, and psychosocial maturity) were associated with more persistently atypical lying scores. Notably, we highlight which factors are most strongly related to the growth of atypical lying and ways to target them through programs aimed to promote honesty. Overall, our findings underscore the role of early contexts and developmental synchrony in atypical lying.

Although numerous studies have examined the association between parental autonomy support and adolescent internalizing problems, their within-person bidirectional dynamics and the underlying mediating mechanisms remain largely underexplored among Chinese early adolescents. The present study investigates the reciprocal relations between parental autonomy support and adolescents' internalizing problems, as well as the mediating role of self-compassion, using a four-wave longitudinal design and random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM). The sample comprised 4731 early adolescents from China (44.9% girls; M_age = 10.91, SD = 0.72), with data collected at 6-month intervals over an 18-month period. Results from the RI-CLPM revealed a bidirectional association between parental autonomy support and adolescents' internalizing problems, with self-compassion serving as a significant mediator in both directions. Specifically, higher levels of autonomy-supportive parenting predicted lower internalizing problems both directly and indirectly through increased self-compassion. Conversely, elevated internalizing symptoms predicted decreases in parental autonomy support, with self-compassion acting as a mediating pathway. These findings highlight a dynamic interplay between parenting and adolescent internalizing problems, emphasizing the dual role of family support and self-related emotional capacities in shaping psychological adjustment. Interventions aimed at enhancing autonomy-supportive parenting and strengthening adolescents' self-compassion may be particularly effective in mitigating internalizing difficulties during early adolescence.