Journal of Youth and Adolescence最新文献

Accurate parental praise and criticism congruent with child performance-often ignored-might have lasting impacts on child development. This study explored whether the levels of the accuracy (from deflated to accurate to inflated) of parental praise and criticism perceived by children linked to a risk for their maladjustment (i.e., showing negative affect, failure-is-debilitating mindset, and academic self-handicapping) in a nonlinear way and perfectionism acted as a mediator. Data were collected on 1230 early adolescents (44.9% girls; M_age = 11.0 years, SD = 1.6) who resided in Chinese county towns with their parents. Applying polynomial regression and response surface analysis (RSA), the results showed that (a) Chinese children perceived parents' tendency to slightly overpraise and overcriticize them; (b) perceptions of inflated and deflated parental praise and criticism were associated with higher levels of maladjustment outcomes; and (c) perfectionism played a mediating role in some cases. This study reveals the nonlinear and combined effects of the accuracy of parental praise and criticism and emphasizes the benefits of parental feedback commensurate with children's actual performance.

Relationships with adults in organized activities play a crucial role in the positive outcomes associated with these experiences, yet little is known about how these relationships evolve throughout adolescence or how they are differentially associated with mental health. Important distinctions could also be made regarding activity types. The sample consisted of 292 participants (58% female; M age = 12.5; SD = 0.48), primarily White, middle-class, French-Canadian adolescents. Participants reported annually on their relationships with adults from ages 14 to 17. They also provided information on their levels of depressive symptoms and self-esteem at ages 13, 17, and 18. Results showed that parental involvement and support from the activity leader significantly decreased over time during adolescence. Additionally, parental involvement appears to be higher over time in team sports than in non-sport activities, but no differences were found regarding support from the activity leader. Finally, parental involvement and leader support were both linked to lower depressive symptoms and higher self-esteem. These findings highlight the critical yet diminishing role of adults in organized activities as adolescents age, underscoring the need for sustained adult engagement to promote positive mental health outcomes in this developmental period.

Developmental research has mostly focused on negative body image, somewhat neglecting the role positive body image plays in adolescent development. To fill this gap, the present longitudinal study investigated the directionality of effects among positive body image, identity, and eating disorder symptoms across one year. Two waves of data were collected from a sample of 915 high school students in Flanders (T1: 60% female; M_age = 16.17; SD = 1.28; range 14–19). First, a novel, four-factor scale of adolescent positive body image was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Second, cross-lagged models revealed body self-appreciation to be a crucial factor of positive body image, which positively predicted identity synthesis and negatively predicted identity confusion and eating disorder symptoms over time. Contrary to expectations, resilience against media body ideals was predicted by maladaptive identity dimensions. The study highlights the importance of positive body image, advancing knowledge about its associations with developmental challenges of identity formation and with eating disorder symptoms faced by adolescents.

Psychological need crafting denotes individuals’ pro-active attempts to fulfill their psychological need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Although previous research has shown that need crafting contributes to adolescents’ mental health, little is known about the factors involved in adolescents’ daily efforts to engage in need crafting. This study considers psychological energy as both an important prerequisite for need crafting and as an outcome of daily need crafting. The sample consisted of 168 adolescents, aged 16–18 years (M_age = 16.63; 76.1% female). Morning and evening measurements were completed for 7 consecutive days. Adolescents’ need crafting intentions in the morning were associated positively with vitality at the end of the day, an effect occurring through satisfaction of the basic psychological needs. Further, better sleep and subsequent morning vitality predicted more need crafting intentions in the morning. The findings indicate that both a psychological pathway (i.e., need crafting) and physical pathway (i.e., sleep) are critical to preserve adolescents’ daily vitality.

Anxiety symptoms is prevalent among college students and is associated with a range of detrimental consequences. Self-compassion and emotion regulation difficulties are important factors affecting anxiety symptoms, but their functional mechanism and longitudinal correlation are still unclear. This three-year longitudinal study (baseline: n = 5785, 48.2% of female, M_age = 18.63 years, SD = 0.88; T₁ to T₅: n = range from 4312 to 5497) aimed to validate the emotion regulation model of self-compassion by examining the associations between self-compassion, emotion regulation difficulties, and anxiety symptoms. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) was used to distinguish within-person variations overtime from stable between-person differences. The results obtained from the RI-CLPMs indicated that there is a bidirectional effect between self-compassion and anxiety symptoms at the within-person level. Emotional regulation difficulties played a longitudinal mediating role in the prediction from self-compassion to anxiety symptoms at the within-person level, validating the emotion regulation model of self-compassion. The current study indicates that cultivating self-compassion in college students is crucial as it can improve their emotion regulation skills and alleviate anxiety symptoms.

Autonomy-supportive parenting benefits adolescents' psychosocial adjustment, but daily fluctuations in adolescent difficulties and parenting stress can reduce autonomy support and lead to more controlling practices. However, currently it is not yet well understood why some parents seem better able to deal with the daily upheavals characteristic of adolescence, while other parents may resort to controlling practices. To address this gap, the present studies examined the moderating role of parental reflective functioning (i.e., parents' capacity to understand their adolescent's behavior in terms of mental states) in the daily relationships between adolescent difficulties, parental stress, and autonomy-supportive or controlling parenting. Two 7-day diary studies were conducted, of which Study 1 involved 220 parents of early adolescents (M_age = 13.05 years, SD = 0.87, range 10-15, 66% female) and Study 2 involved 161 parents of middle adolescents (M_age = 15.56 years, SD = 1.14, range = 13-18, 61.5% female). Multilevel analyses indicated that daily perceived externalizing difficulties and parental stress were associated with less autonomy-supportive and more controlling parenting. Furthermore, prementalizing (i.e., attributing malevolent intentions to adolescents) predicted less autonomy support and more controlling parenting. Greater interest and curiosity about adolescents' mental states buffered the associations between middle adolescents' (internalizing and externalizing) difficulties and parent-reported controlling parenting. These findings highlight the role of both parent and adolescent characteristics in day-to-day parenting fluctuations and underscore the importance of parental reflective functioning in understanding variations in autonomy-supportive and controlling practices.

Despite extensive research on the impact of individual and environmental factors on negative risk-taking behaviors, the understanding of these factors' influence on positive risk-taking, and how it compares to negative risk taking, remains limited. This research employed machine-learning techniques to identify shared and unique predictors across individual, family, and peer domains. Participants (N = 1012; 44% girls; Mage = 14.60 years, SD = 1.16 years) were drawn from three public middle schools in a large city in southern China (with 49.2% in grade 7 and 50.8% in grade 11). The findings indicate that positive risk-taking is significantly associated with general risk propensity, self-control, and negative parenting by father, while negative risk-taking is correlated with self-control, deviant peer affiliations, and peer victimization. Paternal negative parenting triggered positive risk-taking in boys, whereas self-control had a greater impact on girls. For negative risk-taking, boys were more affected by peer victimization, while girls were more influenced by deviant peer affiliations. This study further demonstrates that as progress from junior to senior high school, peer influence grows more significant in predicting positive risk taking; deviant peer affiliations exert a persistent pivotal influence, future positive time perspective replaces life satisfaction, and paternal negative parenting becomes increasingly impactful in predicting negative risk taking.

Family functioning is used to evaluate the functioning of a family system, which exerts a huge influence on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, little is known about how family functioning relates to NSSI among adolescents, and existing research mainly depends on cross-sectional design, which cannot capture dynamic changes between variables. Additionally, NSSI urge has been established as a robust predictor of NSSI engagement and is clinically important. Guided by the integrated model of NSSI, the current study investigated two potential mediators (emotion regulation and self-esteem) of the relations between family functioning and NSSI urges to address these gaps. Participants were 1298 Chinese adolescents (50.5% male; Mage at Wave 2 = 15.08 years) from a three-wave longitudinal study with data spanning ten months. The results supported the chain multiple mediation model. Specifically, valid family functioning prevented NSSI urges through three indirect paths: (a) higher level of self-esteem; (b) more cognitive reappraisal to higher self-esteem; (c) less expressive suppression to higher self-esteem. The prediction of family functioning on cognitive reappraisal was weaker among girls, while the prediction of self-esteem on NSSI urges was stronger. These findings indicate that high family functioning is a powerful protective factor of NSSI urges, and NSSI interventions should aim to improve adolescents' family functioning, with attention to reinforcing emotion regulation and self-esteem, especially for girls.

Childhood emotional maltreatment is a crucial risk factor for gratitude in adolescents. However, previous research has not investigated the effects of two types of emotional maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse and emotional neglect) on gratitude, and explored the underlying mechanisms. To address existing research gaps, this study investigated how childhood emotional maltreatment affected adolescent gratitude, as well as the potential role of parent-child attachment in the Chinese context. A total of 491 Chinese adolescents from a public high school (M_age = 16.19 years, SD = 0.50; 60.5% female) participated in this 10-month, three-wave longitudinal study. The path analysis revealed that cumulative childhood emotional maltreatment and childhood emotional neglect at T1 predicted lower levels of gratitude at T3, while childhood emotional abuse did not. Additionally, parent-child attachment at T2 mediated the relationship between cumulative childhood emotional maltreatment at T1 and gratitude at T3. These findings underscore the enduring negative impact of childhood emotional maltreatment on adolescent gratitude and highlight the crucial role of parent-child attachment in this relationship.

Previous research has shown that parental psychological aggression may change with children's age, and individual differences existed in the developmental trajectories of parental psychological aggression within different families. However, most studies on the heterogeneous psychological aggression trajectories have focused solely on mothers or combined mothers' and fathers' data, with few studies separately exploring the unique trajectories of fathers and mothers and their predictors and outcomes within Chinese societies. Therefore, this study investigated the heterogeneous trajectories of paternal and maternal psychological aggression from middle childhood to early adolescence and their associations with child- and family-level predictors and outcomes in China. A total of 1137 Chinese families with children in grades 1-3 (M_age = 7.17; SD_age = 0.95 at Time 1; 52.35% boys, 47.65% girls) participated in assessments at five time points, using 1-year internals in between. Latent class growth models were used to estimate the heterogeneous trajectories of paternal and maternal psychological aggression from ages 7 to 11 years. Logistic regression analyses were used to understand the child- and family-level predictors of these trajectories, and analysis of covariance was used to examine the outcomes of these trajectories. The findings revealed that three trajectories of paternal psychological aggression were identified: low-persistent (88.95%), high-decreasing (7.93%), and high-increasing-decreasing (3.12%) trajectories. Four trajectories of maternal psychological aggression were identified: low-persistent (86.17%), high-decreasing (5.94%), high-increasing-decreasing (4.08%), and low-increasing (3.81%) trajectories. Lower marital satisfaction, more psychological aggression experiences during childhood, and being a parent of a boy were risk factors for both paternal and maternal trajectories, while higher negative affectivity in children was a risk factor of maternal but not paternal trajectories. In addition, the high-increasing-decreasing trajectory for both fathers and mothers as well as the low-increasing trajectory for mothers predicted children's more internalizing and externalizing problems. These findings highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity in understanding the developmental patterns of parental psychological aggression, their predictors, and cumulative effects on child development.