Journal of Genetic Psychology最新文献

Problematic Use of the Internet (PUI) is characterized as the inability to control one's internet use or as an excessive use of the internet that may result in social, psychological, and emotional difficulties (Fernandes et al., 2019). It is regarded nowadays as an increasingly worrisome public heath issue, especially among youth. This study explored the contexts in which youth PUI occurs and its associations with socio-emotional functioning that may lead to a decrease in one's sense of well-being. We conducted this exploration among 783 middle school students from the US (425 students; 54.27%) and Israel (358 students; 45.73%). The overall age of both samples ranged between 12 and 16 (M = 13.94, SD = 1.59). In the Israeli sample, 49.1% of the students were girls and 50.9% were boys, whereas in the US sample, 48.8% were girls and 51.2% were boys. The study examined the role of depressive mood, loneliness, resilience, self-control, and school engagement in mediating the relationship between PUI and well-being, and how country of origin might moderate these relationships. Results indicate PUI was related to lower well-being only for the US sample. Yet, for both samples, higher loneliness was related to lower well-being, and higher school engagement was related to higher well-being. A moderated mediation analysis revealed the socio-emotional variables were all mediators in these associations, but differently for each country sample. The study results are discussed according to key factors required for developing intervention programs for coping with youth PUI behaviors.

This longitudinal study examined bidirectional relations between parental harsh punishment and psychoticism at the between‑ and within‑family levels in Chinese adolescents. There were 3,307 Chinese youth (43.6% girls, M_age = 11.30 years, SD = 0.24) who participated in a 4-wave longitudinal study, spaced 12 months apart. The results of cross-lagged panel modeling (i.e. CLPM) found the significant bidirectional relations between parental harsh punishment and psychoticism at the between-family level. However, the within-person level analysis of random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (i.e. RI-CLPM) only revealed parental harsh punishment significantly predicted youth psychoticism, but not vice versa. Moreover, no sex differences were observed in the bidirectional relations between parental harsh punishment and psychoticism at the between- or within-family level. These results suggest parental harsh parenting could exacerbate the psychoticism trait at both the between- and within-family level, whereas the influence of young people's psychoticism on harsh parenting response from parents occurs only at the between-family level. The findings help to understand the nature of the dynamic process of change between psychoticism and harsh parenting among Chinese adolescents.

The present study employed the social-ecological diathesis-stress model as a theoretical framework to extend previous research by examining the underlying mechanism and conditional process that contribute to the positive association between bullying victimization and internalizing problems among adolescents. A moderated mediation model involving peer autonomy support and self-esteem was tested using a sample of 1723 adolescents (50.7% girls; M _age = 12.79, SD = 1.58), who completed questionnaires assessing internalizing problems, bullying victimization, peer autonomy support, and self-esteem. The findings revealed that self-esteem partially mediated the positive association between bullying victimization and adolescents' internalizing problems. Specifically, bullying victimization was inversely related to self-esteem, which, in turn, was negatively associated with internalizing problems. Further moderation analyses demonstrated that these direct and indirect associations varied based on levels of peer autonomy support. Simple slope analyses specifically indicated that (a) peer autonomy support buffered against the negative association of bullying victimization with self-esteem and internalizing problems, and (b) peer autonomy support mitigated the negative association of self-esteem with internalizing problems. The elucidation of this mechanism and conditional process holds important implications for early interventions and prevention efforts aimed at mitigating the detrimental association of bullying victimization with adolescents' healthy emotional functions.

School burnout is a worldwide issue that affects adolescents at every academic level. Despite the significant impact of this issue on adolescents' mental health and academic performance, few studies have examined its influence on mind wandering and its underlying mechanisms. This research endeavors to address this knowledge gap by examining the mediating role of Internet addiction in the relationship between school burnout and mind wandering and the moderating role of resilience among 2329 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 14.9 years, SD = 1.73) through an online questionnaire assessment. Participants completed measures of school burnout, Internet addiction, resilience, and mind wandering, which were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with SPSS 23.0 and Mplus 8.0. Results demonstrated that school burnout was positively linked with mind wandering, while Internet addiction mediated this relationship. Additionally, resilience moderated the association between Internet addiction and mind wandering. These findings significantly improve our comprehension of the consequences of mind wandering and offer valuable insights into possible intervention approaches for adolescents experiencing this phenomenon.

Research on parenting styles and attachment experiences has paid little attention to the dimensions of moral development. It is, therefore, interesting to explore the relationship between parenting styles, internal working models of attachment, and the development of moral skills, in terms of moral disengagement. The study involved 307 young people (aged 19-25 years), and the dimensions examined were: parental styles (measured by the PSDQ: Tagliabue et al., 2014); attachment styles (ECR: Picardi et al., 2002); moral disengagement (MDS: Caprara et al., 2006). Results showed that the authoritative parenting style is negatively correlated with the two measures of attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance) and moral disengagement. The authoritarian and permissive styles are positively correlated with the two measures of attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance) and moral disengagement. Results also revealed a significant indirect effect of the authoritative style (b = -0.433, 95% BCa, CI [-0.882, -0.090]) and authoritarian style (b = -0.661, 95% BCa, CI [.230, 1.21]) on moral disengagement through anxiety. A serial mediation of anxiety and avoidance on the relationship between permissive style and moral disengagement (b = .077, 95% BCa, CI [.0006, .206]) is significant.

Although previous studies have confirmed the influence of neuroticism on problematic mobile social media use, mechanisms underlying this relation have not been well-understood. The present study investigated the mediating effect of self-control, as well as the moderating role of family socioeconomic status (FSES). A total of 1146 adolescents' data (M_age = 16.11, SD_age = 0.97, 498 boys) were collected. Participants completed questionnaires about neuroticism, self-control, problematic mobile social media use, and FSES. The moderated mediation analysis showed that self-control mediated the positive association between neuroticism and problematic mobile social media use. In addition, FSES moderated the negative relation between self-control and problematic mobile social media use. Specifically, compared with adolescents in low FSES, the association between self-control and problematic mobile social media use was stronger for adolescents in high FSES. This study advanced our understanding of the development of problematic mobile social media use by revealing the potential mechanism between adolescent neuroticism and problematic mobile social media use.

Related to some inconsistent evidence in the literature, the current study tested the links between three parenting styles and four measures of substance use in samples of adolescents and young adults from ten, socio-economically diverse countries in Southeastern Europe (N = 10,909, 50.3% males, M_age = 21.70, SD = 4.5); it also tested whether these links were moderated by a measure of social progress. Results indicated that only authoritative parenting style was negatively associated with substance use; both authoritarian and permissive parenting styles were positively associated with substance use. The country-level effect on substance use was modest, yet significant; it explained between 1% and 4% of the total variance. Findings also provided some evidence of a moderation effects by social progress. Exploratory follow-up HLM analyses also provided evidence of significant country level social progress effects on alcohol use, soft drug use, and hard drug use; however, no significant cross-level interactions effects were found. Key study implications include positive effects by both authoritarian and permissive parenting on young adult substance use, but importantly, negative ones by authoritative parenting. Findings have important implications for potential intervention and prevention efforts, in addition to addressing potential country-level differences.

Peer reputation (PR) refers to how peer groups collectively view an individual in terms of socio-behavioral characteristics, such as aggression, social withdrawal, leadership, and prosociality. Despite considerable research on PR, few studies have considered PRs in relation to indices of friendship, particularly with a person-centered approach. The goal of the current study was to adopt such an approach and identify peer reputation configurations and their defining characteristics, and to examine how such configurations are linked to friendship prevalence and quality. Four hundred and twenty-six Italian seventh-grade students (57.3% male, M_age = 12.07) completed peer nomination measures of PR and reported on their friendships. Their mutual best friends were subsequently determined, and a friendship quality measure was completed. Teachers rated participants' problem behaviors and competencies. Cluster analytic methods produced four PR configurations that were defined by the following characteristics: (1) Shy/Excluded/Victimized, (2) Normative, (3) Aggressive/Arrogant, and (4) Prosocial/Popular. Teacher ratings supported these configurations such that Prosocial/Popular students were rated the lowest in problem behaviors and Shy/Excluded/Victimized and Aggressive/Arrogant were the highest in learning problems. Additional analyses showed numerous linkages between the configurations and friendship. For instance, Prosocial/Popular students were more likely to have mutual and satisfying friendships relative to students in the other groups. These findings provide new insights into the complex linkages between group- and dyadic-level peer experiences during early adolescence and may inform prevention and intervention efforts aimed at Shy/Excluded/Victimized youth struggling with peers.

Executive functions play an important role in various developmental aspects of children; however, environmental factors influencing individual differences in children's executive function and their neural substructures, particularly in middle childhood, are rarely investigated. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the home executive function environment (HEFE) and screen time with the executive function of children aged 8-12 years by employing the mediating variables of alpha, beta, and theta waves. The parents of 133 normal children completed Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning, HEFE, and Screen Time Scales. Alpha, beta, and theta brain waves were also measured. Data were examined using correlational and path analysis. The results suggested a positive and significant relationship between home executive functions and the executive functions of children. Furthermore, the results indicated an inverse and significant relationship between screen time and executive function. The results also proved the mediating role of alpha, beta, and theta brain waves in the relationship between screen time and the children's executive function. Environmental factors (such as home environment and screen time) affect the function of brain waves and, thus, the daily executive function of children.

Parental emotional warmth plays a prominent role in adolescents' hope, but few studies have examined the underlying mechanism between parental emotional warmth and hope in rural adolescents, or have compared the gender differences in the mediation models between parental emotional warmth and hope. Based on the developmental contextualism theory and Bernardo's hope theory, this study examined the sequential mediating effect of perceived social support and prosocial behavior between parental emotional warmth and hope and test the gender differences between them. Seventeen hundred and one rural adolescents were surveyed with the Short-Form Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran (s-EMBU-C), Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), Prosocial Tendency Measure (PTM), and Hope Scale (HS). Correlation analysis showed that there were positive correlations between parental emotional warmth, perceived social support, prosocial behavior, and hope. The structural equation model showed that parental emotional warmth indirectly affected hope through the separate and sequential mediation of perceived social support and prosocial behavior. Multi-group analysis showed that boys were significantly higher than girls in the relationship between perceived social support and prosocial behavior. The results emphasized that improving parental emotional warmth, perceived social support, and encouraging rural adolescents' prosocial behavior could effectively promote their hope.