Developmental Review最新文献

This paper poses a novel theoretical framework for a developmentally-informed mechanism explaining how adolescents who are highly sensitive and reactive to rejection may respond to interpersonal stress in ways that ultimately perpetuate relational difficulties. Specifically, heightened distress from rejection is proposed to activate impulsive reactions that immediately modulate the negative emotions from rejection, but which are socially aversive and thus often come at the expense of long-term relational harmony. We start by exploring the overlap of two dispositions: a hyper-sensitivity to rejection and an escalated reactivity to negative affect. We then trace distal factors underlying the development of both dispositions, the mechanisms through which the convergent effects of these dispositions produce socially aversive responses, and the individual and contextual differences that influence this process and explain the continuum of rash responses to rejection. The developmental and clinical importance of considering sensitivity and reactivity to rejection concurrently is emphasized, with directions for future research.

In this review, we describe multiple pathways that may lead to risk-taking in adolescence. We review behavioral and neuroimaging studies showing heightened risk-taking tendencies and associated neural reward activity in mid to late adolescence, but evidence points to risk taking as highly context and sample dependent. Here, we suggest that individual differences, specifically reward drive, may be a differential susceptibility factor that shows heightened sensitivity in adolescents and that makes some adolescents more sensitive to their environment. Furthermore, we review evidence that an elevated reward drive in mid-adolescence in interaction with prosocial and cognitive development can lead to various trajectories of risk taking. In this review we propose to extend existing models with individual-difference factors, specifically reward drive, and accompanying developmental processes, including cognitive control and prosocial development, that drive the development of multiple pathways of risk taking.

Empathy reflects the ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others, often eliciting a motivation to care for their well-being. It plays a central role in prosocial behavior and inhibition of aggression. While the development of empathy has traditionally been examined with behavioral and observational methods, a growing body of work in neuroscience using eye-tracking, functional MRI, electroencephalography, electromyography and near-infrared spectroscopy, casts new light on the neurobiological mechanisms involved in the capacity to connect with one another and share their subjective states. This article selectively reviews and critically examines the current knowledge on the developmental neuroscience of empathy in early childhood. Deconstructing empathy into functional components such as sensitivity to signals of distress, emotion sharing, perspective taking, and caring for others within the framework of natural sciences, in conjunction with examining their developmental trajectory in early childhood is beneficial to research and theory with implication for psychopathology. This developmental neuroscience perspective advances our understanding of empathy, its underlying mechanisms, and functions.

Popular culture often portrays adolescence as a period of peak risk-taking, but that developmental trend is not consistently found across laboratory studies. Instead, meta-analytic evidence shows that while adolescents take more risks compared to adults, children and adolescents actually take similar levels of risk. Furthermore, developmental trajectories vary across different measures of laboratory decision making and everyday risky behavior. Indeed, the psychological concept of “risk” is multifactorial, such that its different factors exhibit different developmental trajectories. Here, we examine how economic risk preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with known probabilities, is distinct from economic ambiguity preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with unknown probabilities -- and how economic risk and ambiguity may differentially influence adolescent decision making. Economic ambiguity engages distinct neural mechanisms from economic risk – both in adults and adolescents – and differentially relates to everyday risk-taking. However, to date, it remains elusive how economic ambiguity aversion develops across adolescence, as the relative paucity of such work limits the conclusions that can be drawn. We propose that developmental research into adolescent decision making should consider economic ambiguity as a distinct component within the multifactorial construct of adolescent risk-taking. This will set the stage for future work on economic ambiguity preferences as an explanatory mechanism for behaviors beyond risk taking, such as learning and prosocial behavior.

The relation of various math attitudes to math achievement has been extensively studied in adolescents and adults. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the math attitude-math achievement relation in young children. We review theories and research on four attitudes relevant to early math learning—math anxiety, math self-concept, mindset, and math-gender stereotype. These attitudes emerge and are related to math achievement by early elementary school. Our review suggests that early math achievement plays an important role in the initial development of either positive or negative math attitudes, which in turn, may initiate a vicious or virtuous cycle that can enhance or undermine math learning. Additionally, gender differences in math attitudes (favoring boys) emerge by early to mid-elementary school. An important future direction involves understanding how early attitudes about math relate to each other, and whether certain constellations of attitudes are prevalent. We also consider three types of math attitudes that key socializers—parents and teachers—hold: general (math-gender stereotypes and mindsets), self-relevant (math anxiety), and child-specific (expectations and value of math for their child or student). Our review highlights a link between key socializers’ math attitudes and associated behaviors, and their children’s math attitudes and math achievement. Based on these findings, we propose the Early Math Achievement-Attitude model (EMAA). An important future direction involves increasing our understanding of how key socializers with different math attitude constellations engage with children around math. Finally, based on our review of these topics as well as intervention studies, we discuss intervention approaches that hold promise for improving young children’s math achievement and math attitudes.

Adolescents have long been characterized as the stereotypical risk-takers, due to their apparent heightened risk behavior (e.g., delinquency, substance use). Hence, the raising of minimum ages for substance use are common legal actions that presume that limiting the exposure to substances (i.e., “risk exposure”) will decrease such heightened adolescent risk behavior. This ecological concept of risk exposure (access to risk conducive situations) is acknowledged in criminological models—to some extent. However, risk exposure is virtually absent from contemporary psychological models, which focus on neuropsychological development, particularly socio-affective and cognitive control development. Moreover, when theories in these disciplines do consider risk exposure, the ubiquitous developmental (i.e., age-dependent) component of this concept is overlooked. For example, in the real-word, adolescents encounter far more risk conducive situations (both offline and online) than children, which could at least partially account for heightened adolescent risk behaviors compared to children. A meta-analysis (Defoe et al. 2015) on laboratory studies provided suggestive evidence for this assertion. Namely, this meta-analysis showed that in laboratory settings—where risk exposure is equal for all participants regardless of age—children and adolescents are generally equally susceptible to engage in risks. Hence, in the above-mentioned meta-analysis, a hybrid Developmental Neuro-Ecological Risk-taking Model (DNERM) was put forward. DNERM emphasizes an interaction between adolescents’ neuropsychological development and their changing physical- and social- ecology, which is further embedded in a cultural context. The current paper further develops DNERM’s aims, which include bridging contemporary psychology models with criminology models to comprehensively describe the development of risk behavior during the youth period (ages 11–24).

The detrimental outcomes associated with certain risk behaviors during adolescence has perpetuated a narrative that risk taking during adolescence is inherently maladaptive and warrants prevention. This is not the case. In the broadest sense, risk taking is engaging in a behavior with uncertain probabilities of desirable or undesirable outcomes. Whether a risk is considered positive or negative depends on various factors, many of which are culturally defined, including the developmental benefits of the risk, the potential for harm, and social acceptability. Although adolescents take many negative risks, such as substance use and delinquency, adolescents take positive risks, too. Evolutionary theories have pointed to the importance of risk taking for adolescent development. In order to develop a sense of identity, establish autonomy, hone new skills, and take advantage of exciting opportunities, people need to have a willingness to try things they may not like or at which they may fail. This requires a tolerance of risk. Although researchers have speculated about positive risk taking for decades, empirical work on positive risk taking is relatively sparse in the developmental literature. Society has seen many examples of adolescent positive risk taking in the popular media through teen activists, Olympic medalists, and young inventors. Yet, little is understood about what motivates adolescents to take positive risks. To this end, the present paper reviews the literature on positive risk taking from various fields, summarizes existing theories of positive risk taking, identifies what is currently known about positive risk taking from empirical findings, and identifies remaining questions for future research.

Adolescents are often described as a strange and different species that behaves like no other age group, typical behaviours being excessive risk-taking and sensitivity to peer influence. Different theories of adolescent behaviour attribute this to different internal mechanisms like undeveloped cognitive control, higher sensation-seeking or extraordinary social motivation. Many agree that some of adolescent risk-taking behaviour is adaptive. Here we argue that to understand adolescent risk-taking, and why it may be adaptive, research needs to pay attention to the adolescent environments’ structure and view adolescents as learning and exploring agents in it. We identify three unique aspects of the adolescent environment: 1) the opportunities to take risks are increased significantly, 2) these opportunities are novel and their outcomes uncertain, and 3) peers become more important. Next, we illustrate how adolescent risk-taking may emerge from learning using agent-based modelling, and show that a typical inverted-U shape in risk-taking may emerge in absence of a specific adolescent motivational drive for sensation-seeking or sensitivity to social information. The simulations also show how risky exploration may be necessary for adolescents to gain long-term benefits in later developmental stages and that social learning can help reduce losses. Finally, we discuss how a renewed ecological perspective and the focus on adolescents as learning agents may shift the interpretation of current findings and inspire future studies.

Despite substantial grounds for such research, the role of chronic exposure to stressors in the onset and aggravation of learning disabilities (LDs) is largely unexplored. In this review, we first consider the hormonal, (epi)genetic, and neurobiological mechanisms that might underlie the impact of adverse childhood experiences, a form of chronic stressors, on the onset of LDs. We then found that stress factors combined with feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, and peer victimization could potentially further aggravate academic failures in children with LDs. Since effective evidence-based interventions for reducing chronic stress in children with LDs could improve their academic performance, consideration of the role of exposure to stressors in children with LDs has both theoretical and practical importance, especially when delivered in combination with academic interventions.