Developmental Psychology最新文献

Age-related declines in nonverbal anger reactivity during early childhood are attributed, in part, to expressive language development (Kopp, 1989). Although relations between language skills and emotion-related outcomes are well-established, how young children's language use evolves and supports emotional development is less understood. Does what children say account for systematic declines in anger reactivity? We investigated changes in relations between different types of speech content and nonverbal anger intensity from 24 to 70 months of age among 120 children from economically strained families during a frustrating waiting task. Multilevel models showed that (a) utterances related to task demands increased between 24 and 48 months and then declined by 70 months, whereas (b) unrelated utterances increased between 24 and 70 months. Controlling for language skills, more frequent use of unrelated utterances was associated with less intense anger, particularly in toddlerhood and preschool age. In contrast, task demand-related utterances were linked to greater anger at younger ages, but this effect diminished by kindergarten age. These findings suggest that how children use language in a frustrating situation where they must wait for a desired gift is distinctly related to their anger expressions. Further, the present study underscores the role of language in emotional development and invites further investigation on the nature of children's spontaneous speech during emotionally challenging situations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite well-established evidence linking racial discrimination and internalizing problems, little is known about the culturally specific mechanisms that underlie this association, particularly in adolescence or within a longitudinal framework. To address this gap, the present study utilized an intensive daily diary design to examine the extent to which racism-related vigilance mediates the association between racial discrimination and internalizing problems among ethnoracially minoritized adolescents. A nationally representative sample of 324 ethnoracially minoritized adolescents was recruited through a research survey panel (51.9% male; 43.8% Black, 18.5% Latino/a/x/e, 12.7% Asian; M_age = 15.71 years, SD_age = 1.95). In Spring 2024, participants completed daily surveys across 15 days assessing racial discrimination exposure, racism-related vigilance, depression symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Results indicated that after accounting for demographics and previous-day depression, previous-day racial discrimination predicted increased next-day depressive symptoms via heightened racism-related vigilance (b = 0.022, SE = 0.008, p = .005). The same pattern of findings emerged when the model was recomputed with anxiety as the outcome (b = 0.027, SE = 0.009, p = .003). This study is among the first to demonstrate that racism-related vigilance is a key developmental process linking racial discrimination to elevated depression and anxiety among ethnoracially minoritized youth at the daily level. Results underscore the need for prevention efforts that help youth balance the adaptive role of heightened vigilance amid ongoing racism exposure with the cultivation of a larger repertoire of skills necessary for meeting the broader developmental demands of adolescence, including navigating situations that do not involve racial threat. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Children begin to engage in deception at an early age, but such behavior becomes problematic during middle childhood. Although some cross-sectional studies have identified a link between parental negative control and children's problematic deception, the developmental pathways remain unclear. Children's dysfunctional attitudes, characterized by maladaptive beliefs about achievement and approval, may play a mediating role between parental negative control and children's deceptive behavior. This study employed a three-wave longitudinal design to examine the influence of parental negative control on parental assessment of children's deceptive behavior during middle childhood and to explore the mediating role of dysfunctional attitudes in this relationship. A sample of 302 Singaporean families (42% with female children) participated. Primary caregivers reported their use of parental negative control (including harsh parental punishment, discipline, and ignoring) and their children's frequency of deceptive behavior at ages 7, 8, and 9. Additionally, children self-reported their dysfunctional attitudes at ages 8 and 9. The results revealed that harsh parental punishment at ages 7 and 8 predicted parental assessment of children's deceptive behavior 1 year later. Children's deceptive behavior at age 8 also predicted harsh parental punishment at age 9. Furthermore, children's dysfunctional attitudes at age 9 mediated the effect of parental negative control at age 8 on parental assessment of children's deceptive behavior at age 9. These findings suggest that children's maladaptive social information processing might play a critical role in the development of problematic deception, potentially as a coping mechanism in reaction to harsh parental punishment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Play is important in many cultures and species, but the basic motivations behind play remain unclear. In two preregistered experiments, we examined what 5- to 10-year-old children (n = 124) think makes play rewarding under internally and externally motivated contexts using a novel game design task. We specifically compared children's choices about how to best configure a novel tossing game when either playing for fun or playing to win. We found that for "win-relevant" variables, children chose easier settings when playing to win than when playing for fun. By contrast, for "win-irrelevant" variables, children generally preferred similar settings across conditions. Children also judged "win-relevant" variables as more important to winning than "win-irrelevant" variables and judged both as irrelevant to having fun. These results suggest that playing to win and playing for fun are distinct motivational contexts to which children can appropriately adapt their decisions during play. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Literature suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may have disrupted children's executive functioning (EF) development, but most studies rely on caregiver reports, cross-sectional data, or comparisons across cohorts. We build on the existing literature with repeated, direct assessments of EF from longitudinal pre-post COVID-19 data on a race-ethnically diverse cohort of elementary-aged children (N = 667) from low-income families. Random-intercept models estimate children's growth in two key EF skills between the fall of kindergarten (2018) and fifth grade (2023) as a function of school closures. We also test for moderation in children's growth trajectories by teachers' reports of children's compliance with remote learning expectations. Results indicate that children's EF growth stagnated during school closures, resulting in an estimated 11-12 months of lost growth compared to prepandemic trends. Postreopening, EF growth continued but at a 65%-74% slower rate than preclosures. Children who completed insufficient remote work demonstrated less stagnation in their inhibitory control/attention growth, which may have been driven by selection. Changes otherwise did not vary according to children's level of participation in remote learning during school closures. Findings underscore the need for interventions to support children's recovery of EF growth, as well as more research on the roles of school closures versus other pandemic-related stressors in the observed patterns. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Helping others may serve as a resiliency-promoting factor for adolescents during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined short- and long-term within-person associations between providing emotional support and mood (i.e., vigor) among adolescents. We used data from an eight-wave longitudinal study with 6 months in-between timepoints (May 2020 and December 2023) among 2,430 adolescents aged 12-25. We performed random intercept cross-lagged panel models to examine daily and half-yearly lagged associations between emotional support and vigor and tested how sense of contribution and purpose, and age moderated these associations. Results revealed bidirectional lagged effects. Higher levels in emotional support to family were followed by subsequent higher vigor levels a day later, while higher vigor was followed by higher levels of emotional support to friends a day later. However, at the half-year level, higher vigor was associated with lower levels of emotional support to friends. Moderation analyses revealed that for adolescents who have a higher sense of contribution and purpose, providing emotional support to friends is more strongly associated with vigor increases, whereas providing emotional support to family is less strongly associated with such increases. Preliminary evidence also suggested that emotional support to friends was more strongly associated with vigor for older adolescents, whereas support to family showed stronger associations with vigor for younger adolescents. Our study highlights the potential of prosocial behavior to buffer against the negative effects of societal challenges for today's youth through feelings of purpose. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Longitudinal studies of emotion socialization are still lacking in the Majority World. Studies with father data are particularly scarce. The present study drew data from a 15-year longitudinal project of urban Chinese families and examined both concurrent and longitudinal associations between parental emotion socialization (ES) practices and youth psychosocial adjustment from early- to mid-adolescence. Youths (N = 272, 52.9% boys, M_age = 9.77 years, SD = 0.22) and their parents (247 mothers and 191 fathers) participated in the sixth wave of data collection when children were 10 years old (Year 10). Majority of them continued to participate 5 years later for the seventh wave of data collection (Year 15). Both mothers and fathers reported on their ES practices, and adolescents reported on their psychosocial adjustment outcomes at both waves. To examine how maternal and paternal ES were uniquely linked to adolescent psychosocial outcomes concurrently and across time, a series of multiple regression models were tested. Results showed that concurrently, maternal supportive ES (i.e., emotion encouragement, emotion talk or sharing, and emotion teaching) was positively linked to girls' self-esteem at Year 10, whereas paternal ES was inversely associated with boys' depressive symptoms at Year 15. Longitudinally, maternal supportive ES practices were uniquely related to girls' increases in self-esteem and decreases in depressive symptoms for all adolescents. Our findings suggest long-lasting associations between parental ES practices and adolescent psychological adjustment and unique roles of maternal and paternal ES in adolescent girls' and boys' development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This study aimed to further our understanding of the predictors of the decline of students' intrinsic motivation in math in secondary school. Based on cognitive evaluation theory and stage-environment fit theory, we tested the hypotheses that changes in the three basic needs (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) can explain interindividual differences in the decline of students' intrinsic motivation. A sample of N = 337 German students (t1: M = 11.33 years, SD = 0.59) was followed for 5 years from the end of Grade 5 to the end of Grade 10. Students gave self-reports on their intrinsic motivation in math, perceived competence, autonomy, and social relatedness. Latent change score models showed declines in students' intrinsic motivation in math over the period of time. Moreover, we found interindividual differences in changes of students' intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, decreases in students' perceived competence, autonomy, and social relatedness significantly predicted the decline in students' intrinsic motivation. Therefore, the present findings provide suggestions as to how the decline of students' intrinsic motivation in secondary school could be explained. Implications for future research as well as for educational practice in schools are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined the direction of relations between values and prosocial sharing during middle childhood. A total of 299 children participated (age at first time point in months: M_{first grade} = 80.49, SD = 4.16; M_{second grade} = 92.98, SD = 4.84; 53% female, 47% male) completed a values questionnaire and participated in a resource allocation task over four annual assessments. A random-intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed stable associations between the variables. Prioritizing others' welfare (self-transcendence values) was associated with increases in costly sharing over time, to a stronger extent than costly sharing was also associated with later increases in self-transcendence values. These reciprocal effects were not observed for noncostly giving or self-enhancement values. The findings underscore the role of values in relations to prosocial sharing development, even in middle childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

How do first-time fathers and mothers share the care of their new infant at night? Using smartphone-based experience sampling, we compared parental reports during maternity and paternity leave. During maternity leave, mothers reported engaging in 2.70 more nighttime care events than fathers, performing approximately 77% of the nighttime checking or responding to infants. During paternity leave, fathers' reported share of nighttime care increased by about 17%, while mothers reported that their share decreased by 14%. However, mothers checked on their infants on average 1.43 times more than fathers during paternity leave. The total number of nighttime checks was similar between the maternity and paternity leave periods, despite infants being older during paternity leave, when sleep patterns typically stabilize. We also found considerable discrepancies between partners' reports: both parents consistently reported their partners doing less nighttime care than the partners reported themselves. The discrepancy was particularly pronounced in mothers' evaluations of father involvement during maternity leave. These findings reveal persistent asymmetries in parental nighttime care, even when fathers are on paternity leave. We suggest that the distribution of nighttime care, therefore, is not solely driven by parental leave status but might reflect established infant care routines, social norms, and other biological factors. These findings have implications for understanding the development of co-parenting dynamics and informing policies aimed at promoting father involvement in early infant care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).