Developmental Psychology最新文献

This study aimed to identify distinct trajectories of children's digital technology use from ages 3 to 9 years and examine their associations with key aspects of learning and social interaction. Data were drawn from a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of children recruited at birth in 2008 and followed biennially. Latent class growth analysis was used to estimate digital technology use trajectories, and conditional regression analyses assessed associations with standardized measures of reading and attention, as well as parent-reported prosocial behavior and peer relationships. The analytic sample included 9,783 children with data on digital technology use from at least one of the four data collection waves, equally balanced by gender and predominantly identified as White Irish. Four trajectories of digital technology use were identified: stable low use (11%, N = 1,060), low increasing use (35%, N = 3,413), high decreasing use (16%, N = 1,543), and stable high use (38%, N = 3,765). Trajectories characterized by stable high or increasing use were associated with elevated peer relationship problems between ages 3 and 9, as well as lower selective attention and reading outcomes at age 9. Conversely, high decreasing use was associated with a steeper increase in prosocial behaviors across childhood. These correlational findings indicate that sustained or increasing digital technology use co-occurs with less favorable learning and social outcomes, whereas declining use co-occurs with more favorable changes in prosocial behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Cultural narratives often portray children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds as "strivers" or "go-getters" rather than naturally gifted. Could this reflect a more pervasive stereotype? Bridging insights from developmental, social, and educational psychology, we hypothesized that children endorse a stereotype that portrays children from low-SES backgrounds as more hardworking than smart-and that children acquire this stereotype, in part, through their parents. We tested this in a within-subjects experiment (October 2021, the Netherlands) involving children (N = 251, aged 8-13, 52% girls, 48% boys) and one of their parents (aged 29-59, 58% women, 42% men). As hypothesized, children perceived peers from low-SES backgrounds as more hardworking than intelligent. They attributed these peers' success more to hard work than intelligence and failure more to a lack of intelligence than a lack of hard work. Parents held similar stereotypes. Children's stereotypes correlated with their parents' (standardized coefficient = 0.31). Children had stronger stereotypes when their parents had higher SES or stronger essentialist beliefs about SES (i.e., beliefs that SES is easily discerned, stable, and rooted in biology). These associations did not depend on children's age. Together, results reveal an early emerging stereotype, partially shared between parents and children, that portrays children from low-SES backgrounds as more hardworking than smart. Cultural narratives that provide seemingly positive portrayals of low-SES individuals as primarily hardworking might reflect and reinforce this stereotype. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding and strengthening the developmental pathways of Australian Aboriginal and Torres strait islander young people is of critical importance to efforts seeking to redress more than 200 years of disadvantage due to colonization. Although systemic factors play a key role in addressing disparities, individual-level capacities such as self-regulation and executive function are also essential for positive developmental outcomes and may act as protective factors. This study advances the first longitudinal model of adolescent executive functioning in Australian Indigenous children, examining the role of early home and learning environments and key developmental skills. Using longitudinal data for 473 young people from Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, we found preschool visual motor and literacy skills (β = .15) and early school classroom self-regulation (β = .18) predicted adolescent executive function. Contextual factors, including socioeconomic status, preschool attendance, home learning engagement, and parent social support, were linked to early skill development but did not directly predict executive function outcomes. Children living in more remote areas had lower early skill capability, underscoring the important role of environmental constraints. Findings support strengths-based approaches, in which policy and programs reinforce families as children's first teachers in the home and build social capital for parents. Family and early learning services should be made equitably available, particularly in remote areas, and should focus on core skill development for children, as well as home learning and family social support, to ultimately enhance executive function development among Indigenous children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Hot and cool executive function (EF) skills are typically measured using distinct tasks that differ in a variety of ways. In the present study, we added time pressure to a standardized measure of cool EF to create a comparable measure of hot EF. Children (N = 111) aged 3 to 7 years old (M_age = 5.22, SD = 1.32; 61% female; 82% White; 89% bachelor's degree or higher) completed two versions of the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS; Carlson & Zelazo, 2014), the standard, cool version, and a hotter version (hot MEFS) in which an hourglass counted down time. Children's reaction times were 359 ms/trial faster on the hot MEFS, and behavioral indicators of emotion and attention revealed a significant effect of the hourglass on children's motivational state. Older children, and children who responded more slowly on the hot MEFS, responded more accurately on this version, suggesting that reflection plays an instrumental role in hot EF. Individual differences in temperament and metacognitive reflection were significantly related to children's EF performance across the two conditions. Children high in surgency performed worse on the hot MEFS than the cool MEFS, supporting the validity of the modified task. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficacy of introducing a countdown timer into existing tests of cool EF as a method of standardizing hot EF measurement, and it provides further evidence for the relation in childhood between reflection (pausing before responding) and successful EF performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

In the present study, longitudinal associations between parental depressive symptoms and child behavior (externalizing and internalizing problems and adaptive skills) were examined using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. The participants were 200 Finnish children (106 boys, 94 girls) and their parents. Both fathers and mothers reported their depressive symptoms and rated child behavior of their children at the ages of 4, 6, and 9. In the combined models including effects from both parents, the results showed that at the between-person level, maternal depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with child behavior, while paternal depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with maternal depressive symptoms yet not with child behavior. Significant within-person-level predictive panels from child internalizing behavior at child ages of 4 and 6 to maternal depressive symptoms at child ages of 6 and 9, and from paternal depressive symptoms at child age of 6 to child externalizing behavior and adaptive skills at child age of 9 emerged in the model identifying the unique effects of maternal and paternal depressive symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The aim of this study was to assess previously observed relationships between object locations and early word learning within an ecologically valid design. Adults labeled objects during openly structured interactions with their child. Fine-grained distributions of object locations were determined by a convolutional neural network. However, an analysis of the distributions of these locations during the interactions revealed that none of the spatial variables-the areas, overlap, or distances-were able to significantly predict which corresponding labels were learned by the child. A consequent power analysis enabled specific predictions for future work. An interaction between the child's age and the area or the overlap of these locations would predict word learning in a sample of around 50 dyads or more. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study examines the associations between toxic industrial air pollution around elementary schools and children's executive functioning (EF) skill development among a racially and ethnically diverse sample of kindergarteners from low-income families in Tulsa, Oklahoma (N = 763; 50% female; 52% Hispanic/Latinx, 18% Black, 13% White, 10% multiracial, 6% American Indian, 1% Asian American/Pacific Islander). Data on ambient industrial pollution were derived from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory and geo-matched to children's schools. Children's EF was directly assessed: Specifically, two dimensions of EF-inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility-were measured by trained assessors three times between the fall of kindergarten and the fall of first grade using tasks from the National Institutes of Health Toolbox. Longitudinal mixed models predicted children's EF skill development from their schools' national percentile of toxicity-weighted air pollution. Results suggest that although there were no differences by school pollution in children's EF skills at the start of kindergarten-suggesting that the role of school pollution in children's EF development is distinct from the role of residential pollution-higher levels of school pollution were associated with slower growth in inhibitory control across the subsequent year, even after adjusting for a rich set of child and school covariates. There were no differences by school pollution in children's rate of growth in cognitive flexibility. Researchers should continue to investigate the potentially understudied role of the physical environment in shaping children's EF and self-regulatory development, including malleable features of the school environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Human adults accommodate language use to the characteristics of their partners. A well-known example of linguistic accommodation is child-directed communication. When communicating with young children, we tend to use simpler vocabulary, longer structures, and more repetition. Even as toddlers, we adjust speech when communicating with younger partners, but when exactly this capacity emerges remains unknown. Prior to the onset of speech, gesture is a key channel of communication. We explore whether toddlers accommodate their prelinguistic gestures, in particular gestures' complexity, temporal patterns, and prominence, to partners of different ages. Video data from 53 toddlers (13.7-36 months; 27 boys) were collected during free play in four groups from three Portuguese nursery schools. We first investigated whether toddlers used different gestural registers toward adults (n = 672 tokens) and peers (n = 923 tokens) and then focused on peer-directed gestures to assess whether toddlers adjusted gestural communication when addressing younger or older peers. Toddlers adjusted the complexity and temporal patterns of their gesturing to their recipient's age but did not change gesture prominence. Contrary to typical child-directed communication patterns, toddlers used a more diverse set with shorter gestures toward peers as compared with adults. However, within their peer group, toddlers communicated with younger peers at a slower pace and used a simpler set of gestures, in line with typical linguistic child-directed communication patterns. Our findings suggest that our ability to accommodate communication emerges before language is fully developed and is present in our use of prelinguistic gestures to partners of different ages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Past research links media use to infant negative affect, and parents report using media to cope. However, trait-level measures mask within-person effects that reflect regulatory and relational mechanisms more directly. In this study, 401 predominantly White (70.32%), college-educated (88.28%) parents (75.31% mothers) of 12- to 24-month-olds (M_age = 16.43, 51.37% boys) completed daily diaries reporting the frequency of parent and child behaviors and affective states for 21 consecutive days. Temporal network modeling was used to examine associations among parents' daily reports of media motivations, infant affect, and parenting behavior. On days when infants were fussier than usual, parents reported more yelling and more media use to occupy children, regulate children, and regulate parents' own emotions the same day and more media to occupy children the next day. The reverse was not true: Media use did not predict negative affect the next day. On days when parents reported more frequent media use to relax alone and to regulate children than usual, they also reported more comforting the next day, while more frequent media to connect with children on a given day predicted more infant positive affect the next day. Again, the reverse was not true. Results differed little as a function of infant age. Thus, temporal effects suggest media use may be an adaptive short-term strategy across the second year of life. Critically, within-person effects were not found at the between-person level, underscoring the importance of examining fluctuations within individuals to identify mechanisms and potential intervention targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study examined patterns of digital exposure (frequency, duration, mothers' intentions for exposure, and co-viewing) of 7-month-old infants (N = 221) from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. One half heard another language at home, usually alongside German. Links to family variables were analyzed for the whole sample and to children's later toddler-age societal language vocabulary for a less linguistically diverse subsample (n = 136). Latent mixture models identified three distinct digital exposure patterns: zero dosage, moderate background TV dosage, and higher foreground and background dosage. In the latter group, more mothers exposed their infants to media with specific intentions (e.g., distract or educate). Families in the higher fore- and background dosage group exhibited lower incomes, lower maternal education, less observed maternal sensitivity, and less frequent picture book reading. Infants in this group were more likely to hear a heritage language at home. Even after accounting for these family-related differences, infants with higher fore- and background dosage displayed smaller societal language vocabularies at age 1.5 years. Statistical interactions between digital exposure patterns, the quality of mother-child interaction (sensitivity, stimulation), and the frequency of picture book reading were nonsignificant. Findings indicate high fore- and background dosages may be detrimental, but moderate background TV poses less risk for very young children's societal language. This underscores the importance of a nuanced understanding of digital exposure in the context of family resources and risks. Recommendations should move beyond blanket prohibitions toward emphasizing the critical role of direct, language-rich interactions for language development, particularly in socioeconomically disadvantaged settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).