Journal of Genetic Psychology最新文献

Bullying victimization is associated with sleep disturbance. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of bullying victimization on sleep disturbance, and the moderating effect of mindfulness on this association, also exploring differences across sex. A sample of 420 Chinese children (Mage = 9.60, SD age = 1.11, 48.10% girls) in grade 3 to grade 6 were recruited to complete the revised Bully/Victim Questionnaire, the Chinese version of Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure, as well as the Family Affluence Scale. Results showed that bullying victimization was positively associated with sleep disturbance (β = 0.20, p < 0.001). And the effect of bullying victimization on sleep disturbance was moderated by mindfulness (β = -0.16, p < 0.001), and the effect was invalid for children with high mindfulness (β = 0.04, p > 0.05). Subgroup analyses indicated the buffering effect of mindfulness only existed among boys (β = -0.19, p < 0.01) but not girls (β = -0.11, p > 0.05), suggesting that mindfulness may buffer this association, mainly for boys.

Childhood is a period of pronounced improvements in children's ability to remember connections between details of an event (i.e. binding ability). However, the mechanisms supporting these changes remain unclear. Prior evidence is mixed, with some proposing that improvements in the ability to identify previous connections (i.e. increases in hits) account for memory changes, whereas other evidence suggests changes are additionally supported by the ability to identify inaccurate connections (i.e. decreases in false alarms). To disentangle the role of each process, we investigated changes in hits and false alarms within the same paradigm. The present study of 200 4-to-8-year-old children (100 female) used a cohort sequential design to assess longitudinal change in binding ability. Developmental trajectories of d', hit, and false alarm rates were examined using latent growth analysis. Findings demonstrated non-linear improvements in children's binding ability from age 4-to-8-years. Improvements were differentially supported by hits and false alarms. Hit rates improved non-linearly from 4-to-8-years, with greater growth from 4-to-6-years. False alarm rates did not significantly change from 4-to-6-years, but significantly decreased from 6-to-8-years. Overall, findings show improvements in binding ability are predominantly supported by increased hit rates between 4-to-6-years and by both increasing hit rates and decreasing false alarms rates between 6-to-8-years. Together, these results suggest that binding development is non-linear and that mechanisms underlying improvements differ across childhood.

A growing body of research has indicated that Facebook addiction is a salient risk factor for sleep quality among high school students. This study examined whether procrastination and life satisfaction serially mediate the relationship between Facebook addiction and sleep quality and whether this mediating process is moderated by self-compassion. This research uses quantitative research approach to examine Facebook addiction, procrastination, life satisfaction, sleep quality, and self-compassion, in the sample of 280 Vietnamese high school students (M_age = 16.75 years, SD = .0825). Facebook addiction was not significantly associated with sleep quality among high school students. The serial mediator role of procrastination and life satisfaction on the pathway from Facebook addiction to sleep quality was not significant. Moderated mediation analysis further revealed that self-compassion moderated the association between Facebook addiction and high school students' sleep quality. These findings elucidate the role of Facebook addiction, procrastination, and self-compassion in high school students' sleep quality. Furthermore, they suggest that self-compassion intervention programs may be promising to reduce procrastination, Facebook addiction, as well as to enhance sleep quality and life satisfaction for high school students.

Young children's receptiveness to teaching is unquestioned, but their understanding of pedagogy has only begun to be explored. Two experiments (N = 90; 45 female) with 4-year-olds from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds were conducted to test if they exchange general information and use generic language when teaching. Children in both experiments taught more general than episodic information and used more generic than episodic language when teaching. Experiment 2 showed that children did not prefer to report general information or use generic language in a non-pedagogical context. The findings suggest that by 4 years old, children understand that the goal of teaching is to transmit general knowledge.

Anger has been recognized as a natural emotion; however, its poor management in adolescence is associated with some adverse developmental outcomes. The aims of this study were to compare the antecedents and coping strategies of anger episodes between adolescents and adults and the role of perceived self-efficacy on the coping strategies. A total of 88 adolescents (44 female, M_age = 16.81 years, SD = 1.21) and 94 adults (49 female, M_age = 28.11 years, SD = 5.82) reported an anger episode and the coping strategy adopted. Participants also filled in the Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RESE). The results show that there are no specific antecedents among only adolescents or adults, although there are differences between the two age groups. Furthermore, the results indicate a different use of coping strategies between adolescents and adults. Specifically, a greater propensity of adolescents to use more often maladaptive strategies such as avoidance and denial emerged, but in addiction inaction, considered an adaptive strategy, can also be found. However, although adults use less maladaptive coping strategies they report a high frequency of feeling of powerlessness. The adaptive differences in coping also are explained by the different levels of self-efficacy beliefs of the participants. These findings are discussed in the light of the adaptive role of the coping strategies.

Interactions between the MAOA uVNTR and rearing environment are suggested to influence the developmental manifestations of childhood internalizing and externalizing behavior. However, few studies in the MAOA literature have included continental African children, or focused on non-clinical samples. We explored the main and interactive effects of the MAOA uVNTR (high and low activity alleles) in Black South African male (n = 478) and female (n = 540) children who were part of the longitudinal Birth to Twenty Plus cohort. Historical data on birth weight, gestational age at delivery, socioeconomic status, and maternal education were combined with genotypic information and analyzed using regression modeling. We found no significant main effects for the MAOA uVNTR on childhood behavior in either sex. A significant interaction (p = .04) was identified between MAOA and maternal education, suggesting that externalizing behavior in boys carrying a low activity MAOA allele varied in direct proportion to the education levels of their mothers. However, the model fit failed to reach significance, possibly due to our inclusion of only non-clinical pre-pubertal males. No significant interactions were detected for female children. Our findings lend tentative credibility to the Environmental Sensitivity metaframework, which suggests that MAOA is an important plasticity factor in childhood development.

Intergroup bias has been a pervasive phenomenon throughout human history, but its psychological underpinnings are still the subject of debate. The present work tests whether intergroup attitudes and behaviors are motivated by ingroup positivity, outgroup negativity, or both, across the first few years of life. In two studies (total N = 128), children were introduced to an ingroup doll and an outgroup doll, and interacted with each one independently in a resource allocation task. Toddlers showed both ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity (Study 1). Preschoolers shifted from this pattern, showing positivity and avoiding negativity toward both ingroup and outgroup members (Study 2). Together, these studies suggest that outgroup negativity plays a stronger role in motivating early intergroup bias than previously thought.

Substance use is a perennial public health concern with associated health risks and economic impacts on society. In this article, we present a selective review of the epidemiological and clinical literatures on alcohol and substance use from a lifespan developmental perspective. We compare and contrast risk factors for the initiation of use and the development of a substance use disorder in adolescence, young adulthood, middle-age and later life. During adolescence, alcohol use experimentation is at its peak. Specific risk factors have been identified including trauma and parenting style that can increase the risk of substance use for teenagers. Emerging adults and college students are likely to experiment with other substances in addition to alcohol such as nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, and prescription medication such as Adderall. Middle-age and older adults with alcohol and substance use in their developmental histories may have an undiagnosed alcohol use disorder. Others will develop a late-onset substance use disorder in older age, possibly due to a dearth of social support, coping with bereavement, and medical complication. Based on Social Cognitive Theory, the roles of expectancies and self-efficacy are hypothesized to impact substance use and the risk of substance use disorder across the lifespan. Implications of the present review for future research on age-specific risk factors in alcohol use in relation to underlying developmental processes are considered.

From an early age, children are taught norms about socially-acceptable behaviors; however, children's ability to recognize these norms often predates their tendency to follow them. This conflict between understanding and action has been predominantly studied in cases when enacting the norm would be costly for the child (i.e. when sharing would result in forgoing resources), but is underexplored in more low-cost scenarios. The current study examined the gap between children's knowledge and behavior in a context with a low personal cost: telling a prosocial, or white, lie. Children (N = 46) evaluated objectively poor drawings in three contexts: in one context, children were asked how a third-party character should act in a story (to assess knowledge) and in the other two contexts, children were asked to provide real-time feedback to another person and to a puppet (to assess behavior). Results indicated that children endorsed prosocial lying norms (i.e. said the story character should give the drawing a good rating) at a significantly higher rate than they demonstrated through their own lie-telling behaviors (i.e. their willingness to give social partners good ratings). These data indicate that the discrepancy between children's knowledge of social norms and their actual behaviors cannot simply be attributed to the personal costs of enacting social norms. Instead, this competence-performance gap may be due to the fact that children are often taught social rules via hypothetical situations but enacting behaviors in real-world situations may require additional skills, such as inhibition and the processing of complex, multimodal social cues.

In five different online studies of community samples, participants (N > 2,200) estimated their IQ and EQ on a single scale and completed three different, short, untimed intelligence tests. In all studies, women estimated their IQ significantly lower than men (effect sizes from 0.22-0.47) and estimated their EQ higher (effect size 0.04-0.32). In only one study were there actual sex differences in IQ test scores. All correlations between the two estimates were significant and positive, and ranged from .37 < r < .47. The robustness of the IQ-EQ hubris-humility effect across measures and populations is discussed. Limitations are acknowledged, particularly in the use of tests.