Developmental Psychology最新文献

Social goals (i.e., objectives that individuals aim to attain or avoid in their peer relationships through their actions; Emmons, 1996; Parkhurst & Asher, 1985) are important for a variety of adjustment outcomes, but little is known about the factors that foster them. Exposure to peer victimization, either at a young and formative age or as a long-term burden, has a significant impact on how youth negotiate their social world, and may alter social goal orientation during the adolescent transition. The present study examined the hypothesis that exposure to higher early (second grade) levels of victimization and smaller decreases or larger increases in victimization over time (second-seventh grade) would uniquely predict lower levels of social mastery goals and elevated levels of social performance goals in the seventh grade. Longitudinal growth curve analysis was employed in a sample of 636 youth (298 boys, 338 girls; M_age = 7.97, SD = 0.37) followed from second to seventh grade. Youh reported annually on peer victimization and reported on social goals in second and seventh grades. Compared to youth experiencing lower early levels and/or normative declines in peer victimization over this span, youth experiencing elevated early levels and/or smaller decreases/larger increases in victimization between second and seventh grade tended to endorse greater seventh-grade performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. No association was evident for mastery goals. These results provide evidence that peer victimization can have resounding implications for the development of social goals, which can have long-lasting effects on social health and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Unaddressed adolescent delinquency may contribute to negative adult outcomes, such as poor mental and physical health (Harris-McKoy & Cui, 2013; J. Kim et al., 2020). Although family instability has been identified as a risk factor for adolescent delinquency (Vargas et al., 2013), the hypothesized underlying mechanism of parental monitoring remains relatively underexplored. This is especially the case for Mexican-origin families where parental monitoring is embedded within the cultural values of the family (e.g., family obligation values) and with the larger social context of youth (e.g., affiliation with deviant peers). The intersection of family, social, and cultural factors likely predicts variability in whether Mexican-origin youth engage in delinquent behaviors. Using longitudinal data (2013-2020) from 483 Mexican-origin families (M_{wave1 age} = 12.36, SD_{wave1 age} = 0.92, 54% females) from low-income families (M_{Wave 1 family income} = $20,001-$30,000), the study found that parental-reported family instability was associated with lower adolescent-reported maternal monitoring, subsequently leading to higher adolescent-reported delinquency. Moreover, the promotive effect of parental monitoring in reducing delinquent behaviors was stronger among adolescents with higher levels of family obligation values or those who had more contact with deviant peers. These findings underscore the need for culturally sensitive interventions that strengthen parental monitoring to mitigate youth delinquent behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although many antibullying programs encourage students to defend victimized peers, there is little empirical evidence that being defended actually helps victims of bullying by diminishing victimization and improving their psychological adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and loneliness) over time. Therefore, the current longitudinal study examines whether defended victims experience a stronger within-person decrease in victimization and psychological problems over time than nondefended victims, while distinguishing between bully- and victim-oriented defending and evaluating the effect of the number of defenders. Among n = 6,470 Finnish fourth- to ninth-grade students, surveys were administered in September/October (T1), January (T2), and April. A total of n = 1,493 and n = 1,303 students indicated that they were victimized by their peers at T1 and T2, respectively; 75.1% of the T1 victims and 70.6% of the T2 victims reported being defended. Descriptive statistics indicated that defended victims were less frequently victimized and experienced fewer psychological problems than nondefended victims at most time points (cross-sectional associations). However, longitudinal findings consistently indicated that defended victims did not experience stronger within-person decreases in victimization and psychological problems than nondefended victims. No significant interaction effects with gender and age were detected. Thus, the benefits of being defended for victims of bullying may be more limited than often assumed, at least in the longer term. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Major amendments in neonatal care have been introduced in recent decades. It is important to understand whether these amendments improved the cognitive sequelae of preterm children. Through a large-scale meta-analysis, we explored the association between prematurity-related complications, neonatal care quality, and cognitive development from birth until 7 years. MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, and EBSCO were searched. Peer-reviewed studies published between 1970 and 2022 using standardized tests were included. We evaluated differences between preterm and full-term children in focal developmental domains using random-effects meta-analyses. We analyzed data from 161 studies involving 39,799 children. Preterm birth was associated with inferior outcomes in global cognitive development (standardized mean difference = -0.57, 95% CI [-0.63, -0.52]), as well as in language/communication, visuospatial, and motor performance, reflecting mean decreases of approximately 7.3 to 9.3 developmental/intelligence quotients. Extreme prematurity, neonatal pulmonary morbidities, and older assessment age in very-to-extreme preterm cohorts were associated with worse outcomes. Contemporary neonatal medical and developmental care were associated with transient improvements in global cognitive development, evident until 2 to 3 years of age but not after. Blinding of examiners to participants' gestational background was associated with poorer outcomes in preterm cohorts, suggesting the possibility of a "compassion bias." The results suggest that preterm birth remains associated with poorer cognitive development in early childhood, especially following pulmonary diseases and very-to-extreme preterm delivery. Importantly, deficits become more pervasive with age, but only after births before 32 gestational weeks and not in moderate-to-late preterm cohorts. Care advancements show promising signs of promoting resiliency in the early years but need further refinements throughout childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although the significance of teacher-student relationships for children's development has long been of interest to developmental scientists, few prior studies have used modeling approaches that explicitly document the intraindividual, dynamic processes that link teacher-student relationships with children's adjustment. The present study used bias-adjusted Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001) scores to document the within-person developmental processes that link teacher-student relationship quality with key developmental outcomes (including social competence, academic competence, and externalizing and internalizing symptoms) from kindergarten through Grade 6. Data were drawn from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,041; 80.4% White, 12.9% Black, 6.1% Hispanic; 31.5% of mothers had a high school diploma or less). Within- and between-person bivariate associations were estimated using a series of latent curve models with structured residuals. Findings revealed consistent within-year associations with both school and home adjustment. Longitudinal findings suggested that within-person variations in teacher-student relationship quality are associated with subsequent academic functioning and externalizing symptoms. Furthermore, analyses suggested that social competence, academic competence, and externalizing symptoms are associated with subsequent teacher-student relationship quality. Results highlight the dynamic, bidirectional interactions between teacher-student relationships and children's social, academic, and behavioral trajectories over time. Future studies are needed to explore teacher-student relationships and adjustment at different timescales and to understand the extent to which teacher-student relationships are impactful for different students at various levels of developmental risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

During a lesson, children must pay attention to relevant information while they also have to ignore distractors. This study investigated attention in 36 neurotypical children (M = 8.5 years; 19 female, 17 male; 36 White) during the lesson with lesson-related decorations, with unrelated decorations, and with empty walls. Overt attention was recorded via eye-tracking glasses. Postlesson learning was measured directly after the lesson and 1 week later. Children looked more to the lesson-related compared with lesson-unrelated decorations, and more to the teacher when decorations were unrelated. Lesson learning was best with lesson-related decorations. Bayesian statistics confirmed similar learning scores between lesson-unrelated decorations and empty walls. This pattern of results was also observed a week later. Results indicate that successful attention control, which includes the ability to flexibly attend to lesson-relevant information in the learning environment, can boost learning in a classroom-like room. Irrelevant information did not impair learning in middle childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The expression of intellectual humility-publicly admitting confusion, ignorance, and mistakes-can benefit individuals, but can it also benefit others? Five studies tested the hypothesis that teachers' expressions of intellectual humility would boost U.S. students' motivation and engagement in learning. In two pilot studies (one preregistered, combined N = 231), adults (50% women; 58% White, 25% Black) and adolescents (48% girls; 53% White, 33% Hispanic) anticipated being most comfortable expressing intellectual humility and interested in a hypothetical math class when a teacher's class description modeled the expression of intellectual humility relative to when the teacher recommended that students show intellectual humility or mentioned nothing about intellectual humility. Two fully powered, preregistered experiments with undergraduates (both 50% women; Study 3: 58% Asian, 17% Hispanic or Latinx, 16% White; Study 4: 53% White, 16% Asian, 16% Hispanic or Latinx; combined N = 767) replicated these effects and identified three mechanisms: an increase in a sense of acceptance by the teacher, an increase in the sense of belonging with peers, and a decrease in the belief that failure hurts learning. Study 5 (preregistered) revealed that high school students (51% girls; 92% White; N = 411) were more interested and engaged in their classes when they perceived their teachers to be more intellectually humble, with the largest benefits for young women. Longitudinally, teachers' modeling intellectual humility predicted changes in students' grades via a willingness to express intellectual humility. Teachers' intellectual humility may benefit students' interest, engagement, and learning in school. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Regulations and policy in early care and education (ECE) is based largely on the idea that structural elements of ECE, such as child-adult ratio, predict teacher-child interactions that then predict child developmental outcomes. This structure-process-outcome model was initially proposed when many states had minimal ECE quality standards. Our study tested the structure-process-outcome model using four large early childhood data sets that were collected over a 30-year period. Data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 606, 24% non-White), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study's Birth Cohort (n = 1,420, 56% non-White), the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2014 Cohort (n = 2,105, 76% non-White), and the University of North Carolina's Early Learning Network (n = 455, 75% non-White) were analyzed. Child-adult ratios and teachers' highest level of education were associated with measures of observed classroom quality during the historical period when there were minimal regulations and classroom ratios were higher and teacher education was lower; relations were not found when regulations required higher levels of structural quality. Notably, we also did not find significant relations between process quality measured by commonly used quality assessments and children's academic and behavioral outcomes in the preschool year. These findings suggest that as policies have improved structural quality, there is a need to refine the structure-process-outcome theoretical model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Friends are often a source of emotional and informational support, which suggests that friends can directly assist adolescents to more effectively cope with stressful experiences, reducing emotional distress. In this longitudinal study, we examined the direct impact of friendship on adolescents' use of help seeking, comfort seeking, concealment, and rumination to cope with peer stressors. We used path modeling with two waves of data to consider the unique roles of friendship quality and coping on change in peer victimization (both overt and relational/reputational) and depression over time. Gender and age moderation were also examined. Participants were 619 Australian adolescents (M_age = 12.14) who experienced peer victimization in the past year and participated in two surveys over 1 year. In a comprehensive path model, higher quality friendship related to increased comfort-seeking responses to peer stress and decreased overt victimization over time. Regarding coping with peer stressors, comfort seeking was associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time, and concealment and rumination were associated with more overt and relational victimization, as well as increased depressive symptoms. Additionally, adolescents higher in overt victimization decreased help and comfort seeking over time, those higher in relational victimization increased comfort seeking, and those higher in depression increased concealment and rumination over time. Girls reported more problematic responses to peer stressors, and, although effects were small, gender and age moderated some longitudinal associations. Future research is needed to better understand how friendships may influence coping responses, with the aim of supporting adolescents to help each other cope with stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescence is a formative time for identity development. A key component of identity development involves weighing the explicit opinions of close others when forming one's preferences. Little is known about how more subtle forms of social input may influence adolescents' formation of their own preferences. In the present study, we used a novel social influence paradigm to assess shifts in adolescents' preferences after viewing implicitly delivered social influence cues provided from both an adolescent's mother and a real-life friend. In a sample of 100 adolescents (aged 10-17 years), recruited in 50 pairs of real-life friends and their mothers, we tested changes in adolescents' preferences after viewing supposed ratings from each partner. We also confirmed the validity of the novel task and evaluated the effects of individual differences (i.e., participant age, gender) and relationship quality separately with parents and peers on adolescents' preference changes. Results indicated that adolescents' preferences changed as a function of the source of influence (i.e., friend or mother) and endorsement status (i.e., endorsed or not endorsed) of the stimulus, whereby preference ratings increased to stimuli endorsed by friends relative to mothers. This effect was stronger for early versus middle adolescents and for adolescent girls compared to boys. Change in preferences was unrelated to relationship quality with either partner. Findings from this study provide insight into the features of social information that are relevant for adolescent identity development. Specifically, it pinpoints who has strong influence on which adolescents and what characteristics of ecologically based social information are influential. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).