Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology最新文献

Academic dishonesty is a pervasive issue that impacts educational outcomes and character development. Despite its significance, our understanding of cheating behaviors among elementary school students remains very limited. Addressing this gap, this study examined the role of moral judgments of cheating and persistence in academic cheating among elementary school students from Grades 2, 4, and 6. We found that approximately 25% of elementary school students reported having cheated academically, regardless of grade and gender. Importantly, students' moral judgments and persistence were significantly and uniquely associated with academic cheating. Students who viewed cheating as more morally wrong and demonstrated higher persistence were less likely to cheat. These two factors help explain the relationships between students' beliefs about the acceptability of cheating, the commonality of peer cheating, the severity of the consequences of cheating, and self-reported cheating behavior. These findings confirm the early emergence of academic cheating and highlight the pivotal roles of moral judgment and persistence. They underscore the importance of educational practices from the elementary school years that challenge cheating-normalizing attitudes, emphasize the consequences of dishonesty, and foster moral understanding and persistence, thereby promoting academic integrity.

Adolescents' willingness to share information with their parents about their life is related to their positive adjustment. As such, it is important to identify factors that lead adolescents to share this knowledge with parents. This study takes a step in this direction by examining the role of parental apologies following parental offenses, in relation to adolescents' usage of three main information management strategies: disclosure, lying, and secrecy. Using a sample of 288 mid-to-late adolescents, we assessed parental apologies and adolescents' information management strategies at three levels (global, situational, and hypothetical), using multiple methods (correlational and experimental). Overall, results suggest that parental apologies characterized by more need-supportive elements tend to be positively associated with adolescents' disclosure, whereas those characterized by more need-thwarting elements tend to be positively associated with adolescents' lying and, to some extent, secrecy.

School-based intervention programs are important for children from low- and middle-income countries where prior research suggests they are at greater risk for poor social-emotional functioning (SEF). The present study examined the effectiveness of an Urdu (Pakistani language) version of the Fun FRIENDS program in enhancing the SEF of school children from Islamabad, Pakistan. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 426 children (4 to 8 years) from public schools. The findings of the study demonstrated a significant positive effect of the intervention on child-reported social-emotional development. Whereas emotional knowledge and recognition and teacher-reported externalizing problems were not significant. These results provide preliminary evidence that Fun FRIENDS may be effective in promoting one aspect of the SEF of school children in Pakistan. However, larger-scale studies with public and private school student populations are necessary to understand better these largely null results and how to best optimize school-based programs within Pakistani culture.

This study tested the transactional associations of maternal parenting stress and child externalizing behaviors in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage. We employed a multiple group random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to analyze four waves of data from 4065 families from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (at age 3, 5, 9, and 15; 51.96% boys; 48.78% Black, 30.33% White). Results revealed within-family associations between maternal parenting stress and child externalizing behaviors. These results were driven by families with income-to-needs ratios lower than two (mean cross-lagged standardized effects across time; child-driven = 0.15 and parent-driven = 0.12). Moreover, the child-driven effects from child externalizing behaviors to maternal parenting stress became larger as children aged. The findings contributed to the understanding of the associations between child externalizing behaviors and parenting stress in the context of financial hardship and highlighted the significance of support to families with scarce economic resources.

The study used the Ecological Systems Theory as a framework to test the short-term longitudinal association between cumulative ecological risk and smartphone addiction, and the Ecological Risk/Protective Theory as a framework to test gratitude as a protective factor, and impulsivity as a risk factor, in this association. We used a two-wave longitudinal design with an interval of six months. Participants were 452 adolescents (46.7% girls, aged 12–16 years) from two middle schools in Changsha, China who completed questionnaires in their classrooms at both time points. The results of regression-based analyses indicated that cumulative ecological risk positively predicted later smartphone addiction, and this longitudinal relationship was stronger among adolescents with high gratitude and high impulsivity. The results provide a theoretical and empirical basis for the development of prevention strategies and intervention policies to reduce the likelihood of smartphone addiction in adolescents.

Research supports parental depressed mood, negative parenting, and family conflict as risk factors for poorer cognition in early childhood. The current study is the first to examine bidirectional associations between maternal and paternal depressed mood, negative maternal and paternal parenting, family conflict, and child cognition. Data was drawn from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study using interviews, self-report, and performance-based measures completed by parents when children were age 14 months, age 2 years, and age 3 years. Results showed bidirectional pathways between maternal depressed mood and child cognition, but a unidirectional pathway from child cognition to paternal depressed mood. Family conflict mediated links between greater maternal depressed mood and poorer child cognition, but negative maternal parenting mediated links between poorer child cognition and negative maternal depressed mood. Results highlight transactional relations among parents and children as well as the salience of family conflict and negative parenting in exacerbating this transaction.

Earlier work has shown that bilingual Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has positive effects on children's development of the minority language, and does not negatively impact on their development of the majority language. However, past studies leave unclear if these effects remain if home language exposure is taken into analysis. This study examines the effects of bilingual exposure at ECEC on vocabulary development in a linguistically diverse sample of 584 two- to four-year-old children attending bilingual (Dutch-English) ECEC in the Netherlands, taking into account the amount of exposure children received to Dutch and English at home. Latent Growth Modeling analyses showed that the amount of exposure to the non-majority language (English) at ECEC was positively related to children's growth of English receptive and expressive vocabulary. Amount of exposure to the majority language (Dutch) at ECEC did not bear significant relationships with growth of Dutch receptive and expressive vocabulary. The strengths of the relationships between the amount of Dutch and English exposure at ECEC and vocabulary development did not differ between two child groups depending on whether they were exposed to Dutch or English at home. Taken together, these results corroborate earlier effects of bilingual ECEC from small-scale studies for a larger sample, and indicate that these effects may remain if differences in home language exposure are taken into consideration.

To assess the effectiveness of a family card game training in improving children's executive function (EF) and compare with those achieved through kindergarten training, children aged 4–5 years were selected. Over a five-week period, children in the family training group (FTG) engaged in card games with parents, while children in the kindergarten training group (KTG) with peers. Children in the active control group (ACG) used encyclopedia cards with parents. During a follow-up period, the decision to continue using cards was left to FTG and ACG and no training session was provided to KTG. The results showed that five-week training demonstrated significant effects on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility for both group. The effects on inhibitory control persisted at delayed post-test. The effects on overall EF became significant for FTG at delayed post-test, likely due to additional spontaneous training. This research offers implications for fostering preschoolers' EF in family settings.

This longitudinal study related children's mastery motivation to a variety of biological, environmental, and developmental factors. The sample consisted of 40 children (24 males) with motor delays (10.93 ± 2.56 months corrected age at baseline), tested at baseline and 3-, 6-, 12-, and 36-months post-baseline. No significant relations were observed between mastery motivation and sex (biological factor) or socioeconomic status and home affordances (environmental factors). Children with mild motor delays (biological risk) had higher mastery motivation at the age of four years compared to children with significant delays. Advanced early development of fine motor, receptive language, expressive language, means-end problem-solving, and cognitive skills was associated with higher mastery motivation at four years. Mastery motivation may be linked with children's level of physical disability as well as their prior developmental experience.

Self-regulatory skills are increasingly recognized as critical early education goals, but few efforts have been made to identify all the features of the classroom that actually promote such skills. This study experiments with a new observational measure capturing three dimensions of the classroom environment hypothesized to influence self-regulation: classroom management, emotionally supportive interactions, and direct promotion of self-regulatory skills. These classroom dimensions were tested as predictors of change over the kindergarten year in both self-regulatory and academic skills in a sample of racially/ethnically-diverse low-income children in Tulsa, OK. Results showed that classroom management was associated with small gains in one of four measures of self-regulation, and four of six measures of academic skills. The other dimensions of the environment had weak or no associations with outcomes. These results indicate that further work is needed to refine both models and measures of the self-regulatory environment.