British Journal of Developmental Psychology最新文献

Emotional film clips are frequently used to induce emotions in age-mixed samples, but past research warrants doubt that this evokes comparable effects across age groups. We investigated age differences in target-emotion intensity and emotion specificity (the tendency to primarily respond with one target emotion rather than others), using data from a film-rating study with 5843 individual ratings. Ninety-nine persons from four age groups (adolescents; younger, middle-aged and older adults) rated their emotional responses to 66 happy, fearful, angry, sad, disgusting and neutral film clips. Crossed-random-effects models showed differential age effects across target emotions. When age differences emerged, older adults responded more intensely and adolescents responded less intensely than other age groups. Emotional specificity was lower in older adults versus younger age groups for disgusting and neutral films, but higher for happy films. We conclude that age-equivalent responding to emotional films may be rather the exception than the rule.

In the present study, 43 Italian school-age children (age range = 7-14 years, 16 females) with (N = 19) and without DD (N = 24) were presented with pairs of visual displays separated by varying interstimulus intervals and performed either a temporal integration or segregation task despite an identical visual input. Children with DD had lower accuracy and slower RTs for longer temporal intervals. Additionally, efficiency (combined accuracy and speed trade-off) increased as a function of age only in the DD group, most markedly for the integration condition. Results suggest that visual temporal processing deficits in DD may depend on short-term/working memory liability as well as the existence of possibly differentiated developmental trajectories for integration and segregation abilities.

Relations between children's motor skills and internalizing problems are poorly understood. The environmental stress hypothesis (ESH), originally developed for motor-impaired children, may provide understanding, yet has been scarcely examined in typically developing children. Therefore, we examined: (1) relations between children's motor skills and internalizing problems; (2) the role of secondary stressors, specifically interpersonal conflicts and externalizing problems; and (3) the role of personal resources, namely, prosocial behaviour and social self-efficacy (SSE). About 1154 Dutch primary school children (mean age 9.0 years, 50.0% boys) participated. Multilevel structural equation models showed that children's motor skills were related to internalizing problems, with a weak indirect relation via interpersonal conflicts. SSE had a weak indirect relation with internalizing problems. Prosocial skills (personal resource) and externalizing problems (secondary stressor) did not mediate relations between motor skills and internalizing problems. The ESH seemed applicable in typically developing children, although relations were weaker than for motor-impaired children.

This study investigated the nature of the association between spatial ability and prosocial behaviour in middle childhood. We used a general-population longitudinal survey from the United Kingdom, which allowed us to control for a wide range of area, family and child covariates, including early verbal ability and parenting, in a large sample (N = 13,355, 51% male). The study's primary aim was to determine whether intrinsic-dynamic spatial skills predicted prosocial behaviour and vice versa across ages 5 and 7 years. The results from cross-lagged panel models with various levels of adjustment indicated that both paths were significant and equally strong. However, when also controlling for verbal ability and parenting practices, verbal ability (but not parenting) confounded the path from prosocial behaviour at age 5 to spatial ability at age 7. Therefore, only the path from spatial to social skills remained significant after adjustment for all confounders. Sex-stratified analyses did not reveal significant differences between the paths for males and females. The present study contributes to our understanding of social and cognitive development in children, highlighting the impact of spatial skills across the social domain. The findings have implications for educational curricula in the early years and primary school.

Extensive research has examined empathy in autistic people; this has largely been conducted by asking autistic participants to complete measures and engage in experimental procedures or by consulting with close relatives. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first to seek the views of autistic participants on their self-perceived empathic capacity. In this case, empathy was explored within a wider context of self-concept. The study recruited 100 participants who were asked to complete 10 statements about themselves. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate their self-perceived empathy on a scale of 1-10, providing justification for this. Autistic and non-autistic participants made a comparable proportion of references to numerous psychological traits. However, non-autistic participants made a higher proportion of references to being happy, friendly and caring. Autistic participants gave lower self-ratings of empathy compared to non-autistic participants; however, the thematic analysis showed that both groups felt they had cognitive and affective empathic capacity, with nuanced differences between the groups. This paper highlights the importance of involving autistic voices in research about their empathic capacity and self-concept, identifying nuance in the autistic experience that has been generally overlooked in previous research.

With the popularization of short-form video platforms, excessive use of short-form videos among preschool children has become increasingly prevalent. However, the mechanisms underlying its impact on children's social behaviour development remain unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship between the overuse of short-form videos and prosocial behaviour and aggressive behaviour in preschool children, as well as the mediating roles of empathy and emotional regulation. Parents of 799 preschool children were invited to complete the Short-Form Video Overuse Scale, Empathy Questionnaire, Emotional Regulation Scale, Prosocial Behaviour Scale and Aggressive Behaviour Scale. The results revealed that: (1) Short-form video overuse was negatively correlated with prosocial behaviours and positively correlated with aggressive behaviours; (2) Short-form video overuse influenced prosocial and aggressive behaviours through the mediating role of empathy (it is noteworthy that short-form video overuse was positively correlated with empathy, while higher empathy levels were simultaneously associated with both more prosocial and aggressive behaviours); (3) Short-form video overuse also affected prosocial and aggressive behaviours through the mediating role of emotion regulation. These findings contribute to understanding the multifaceted effects of short-form video overuse on children's behavioural development and highlight the need for parents and educators to address preschool children's video usage.

Using structural equation modelling (SEM), this study tested whether parental monetary investments (PMI) and parental time investment (PTI) mediate the effects of family income (FI) on primary math achievement (PMA) in a sample of Bangladeshi children (N = 760, 52% boys, M = 9.1 Years, SD = 3.3 at baseline), studying over 24 months. In doing so, the background variables (fourth-grade math scores, child's age, and sex) were controlled in the model. The results from SEM suggested that fewer PMIs in children's math stimulating materials and fewer PTIs in children's at-home math practices partially mediated the association between lower-FI and poor PMA. Although PTI had a greater amount of variance (15%) in the associations of lower-FI with lower-PMA as compared to PMIs (11%), the full model explained 25% of the variance in the lower-FI and lower-PMA link with control variables. Future directions for policy and research are discussed.

Despite extensive research on childhood maltreatment's pathogenic effects, transdiagnostic mechanisms linking maltreatment to psychiatric disorders remain underexplored. This study examined intolerance of uncertainty (IU) as a mediator and the behavioural inhibition system (BIS) as a moderator in the associations between childhood maltreatment and both anxiety and depression. Data were collected from 3503 Chinese adolescents (51.0% male; M_age = 14.00, SD = 1.34). The results showed that IU mediated the associations between childhood maltreatment and both anxiety and depression. BIS significantly moderated direct and indirect pathways in both models. Notably, Johnson-Neyman analysis identified a transition point (at standardized BIS scores ≤ -1.80) where BIS' moderating effect on the maltreatment-depression pathway shifted from significant to non-significant. This pattern was not observed in the anxiety model. This divergence suggests distinct roles of BIS in anxiety versus depression. The findings suggest that IU and BIS may serve as potential intervention targets in efforts to mitigate the psychopathological outcomes associated with childhood maltreatment.

This study investigates the network structure and interconnections of social-emotional skills among high-achieving 10- and 15-year-old students. Using cross-sectional data from the 2019 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, we identified central skills and examined how these skills interacted within the networks of the two age cohorts. The sample included 7731 10-year-olds and 7430 15-year-olds from 10 cities across nine countries. Empathy and cooperation were identified as the most central skills in the network of high-achieving 10-year-olds, while cooperation uniquely remained central among 15-year-olds. We also observed denser and more integrated network structures in adolescence. These findings highlight the importance of central skills, particularly cooperation and empathy, in fostering social-emotional competence through developmentally tailored educational programmes.

Whether scientific reasoning is a domain-general or domain-specific ability remains controversial. This longitudinal study followed 53 German aged 6-9 years (31 females, 22 males) from kindergarten into elementary school to investigate how kindergarten-age scientific reasoning, intelligence, and disciplinary knowledge influence their third-grade mathematics and German language abilities (based on teacher ratings). Scientific reasoning was assessed with comprehensive inventories (the Science-Kindergarten and the Science-Primary School Reasoning Inventories). Intelligence, language abilities (receptive language and text comprehension in kindergarten and elementary school, respectively), and kindergarten mathematics were assessed with standardized instruments. Kindergarten scientific reasoning predicted third-grade mathematics abilities independent of parental education levels, and also the intelligence and kindergarten mathematics ability of the children. The language ability of children was predicted solely by kindergarten language abilities. These findings support the view that scientific reasoning is a domain-general science skill, which is different from intelligence and relevant for mathematics learning among elementary school students.