Developmental Psychology

Exposure to community violence as a mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to amygdala reactivity and the protective role of parental nurturance.
Emerging literature links neighborhood disadvantage to altered neural function in regions supporting socioemotional and threat processing. Few studies, however, have examined the proximal mechanisms through which neighborhood disadvantage is associated with neural functioning. In a sample of 7- to 19-year-old twins recruited from disadvantaged neighborhoods (354 families, 708 twins; 54.5% boys; 78.5% White, 13.0% Black, 8.5% other racial/ethnic group membership), we found that exposure to community violence was related to increased amygdala reactivity during socioemotional processing and may be one mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to amygdala functioning. Importantly, parenting behavior appeared to modulate these effects, such that high parental nurturance buffered the effect of exposure to community violence on amygdala reactivity. These findings elucidate the potential impact of exposure to community violence on brain function and highlight the role parents can play in protecting youth from the neural effects of exposure to adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Neighborhood features moderate genetic and environmental influences on children’s social information processing.
Neighborhood is a key context where children learn to process social information; however, the field has largely overlooked the ways children’s individual characteristics might be moderated by neighborhood effects. We examined 1,030 six- to 11-year-olds (48.7% female; 82% White) twin pairs oversampled for neighborhood disadvantage from the Twin Study of Behavioral and Emotional Development in Children. We evaluated neighbor reports (N = 1,880) of neighborhood structural and social characteristics as moderators of genetic and environmental influences on children’s social processing. Although there was no evidence of moderation for children’s hostile attributions, there was robust evidence that the social and structural characteristics of the neighborhood moderated the genetic and environmental origins of children’s positive expectations of aggressive behavior. Specifically, we found that genetic influences on aggressive expectations increased in the presence of neighborhood deprivation and decreased in the presence of protective social processes and availability of resources. Such findings suggest that protective neighborhood social processes may buffer against the development of aggressive expectations during middle childhood by suppressing the expression of genetic influences on those outcomes. In doing so, they suggest that neighborhood social processes may be able to promote youth resilience to neighborhood deprivation “under the skin.” (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
White parents’ racial socialization during a guided discussion predicts declines in white children’s pro-white biases.
Although parent–child conversations about race are recommended to curb White U.S. children’s racial biases, little work has tested their influence. We designed a guided racism discussion task for U.S. White parents and their 8–12-year-old White children. We explored whether children’s and parents’ (a) pro-White implicit biases changed pre to postconversation, (b) racial socialization messages (color conscious, external attributions for prejudiced behavior and colorblind racial ideology [CBRI]) predicted changes in each other’s implicit biases, and (c) associations varied by the type of racism (subtle vs. blatant) discussed. Children’s and parents’ biases significantly declined, pre to postdiscussion. Parents’ color conscious messages predicted greater declines and messages reflecting CBRI and external attributions predicted smaller declines in children’s bias. These patterns were observed during discussions of subtle, but not blatant bias. Effects of children’s messages on parents’ bias were mixed. Our findings suggest that color conscious parent–child discussions may effectively reduce implicit pro-White bias in White children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
“Honestly, they are just like us”: U.S. parents choose middle-class gender and racial ingroup peers for their children.
Children and adolescents benefit from positive intergroup peer interactions, but they are unlikely to have many opportunities for these interactions if their parents are uncomfortable with them. Drawing primarily on social identity theory (SIT), this study investigated how U.S. parents’ (N = 569) comfort with their children’s potential intergroup peer interactions (a) differed by child and peer group gender (boy, girl), race (Black, White), and social class (higher-, middle-, or lower-subjective social status), (b) changed over the transition from childhood to adolescence (8–10, 11–13, and 14–16 years), and (c) varied by context intimacy (hanging out vs. sleeping over). The sample was equally balanced between parents of children reflecting those same group memberships. Consistent with SIT, when asked to choose, parents were typically most comfortable with their child spending time with middle-class peers who shared their child’s gender and racial ingroup membership. Moreover, parents often explained their decisions with reference to similarities between these peers and their own child or family. Parents’ comfort did not differ systematically by child age, but many parents were less comfortable with cross-gender peer interactions in the more intimate sleepover context than the less intimate hangout context. All groups of parents also exhibited at least some openness to cross-group interactions. These findings advance developmental scientists’ understanding of parents’ roles as potential facilitators or gatekeepers of their children’s intergroup peer interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
How is race perceived during adolescence? A meta-analysis of the own-race bias.
Adolescence is a critical developmental period that is marked by drastic changes in face recognition, which are reflected in patterns of bias (i.e., superior recognition for some individuals compared to others). Here, we evaluate how race is perceived during face recognition and whether adolescents exhibit an own-race bias (ORB). We conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis to estimate the summary effect size of the ORB across 16 unique studies (38 effect sizes) with 1,321 adolescent participants between the ages of ∼10–22 years of age. This meta-analytic approach allowed us to inform the analysis with prior findings from the adult literature and evaluate how well they fit the adolescent literature. We report a positive, small ORB (Hedges’s g = 0.24) that was evident under increasing levels of uncertainty in the analysis. The magnitude of the ORB was not systematically impacted by participant age or race, which is inconsistent with predictions from perceptual expertise and social cognitive theories. Critically, our findings are limited in generalizability by the study samples, which largely include White adolescents in White-dominant countries. Future longitudinal studies that include racially diverse samples and measure social context, perceiver motivation, peer reorientation, social network composition, and ethnic–racial identity development are critical for understanding the presence, magnitude, and relative flexibility of the ORB in adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Do school grades matter for growing up? Testing the predictive validity of school performance for outcomes in emerging adulthood.
In putatively meritocratic societies, doing well in school is a pivotal precondition for accessing further and higher education, which, in turn, has a pervasive, long-term influence on adulthood development. Yet, doing well in school may also predict “real-life success” outside formal education settings and independent of the educational qualifications that a person attains. Such predictions are likely to become salient during emerging adulthood, a life period characterized by career explorations and social-emotional adjustment. Here, we tested the predictive validity of end-of-compulsory school grades at age 16 years in a U.K.-representative population cohort sample of up to N = 6,488, who were born between 1994 and 1996, for a broad range of occupational, financial, and social-emotional outcomes at age 23. End-of-compulsory school performance accounted for 1%–20% of the variance across occupational, financial, and social-emotional outcomes in emerging adulthood. Educational attainment attenuated these associations only slightly, with school grades at age 16 accounting for variance in emerging adulthood outcomes independent of later educational attainment. We found that school grades were equally predictive for boys’ and girls’ outcomes. In children from lower family socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, school grades were more predictive of their educational attainment, financial attitudes, and anxiety compared to higher SES children, with varying effect sizes (i.e., 0.3%–4.2%). Our findings suggest that school-leaving grades facilitate the successful transition from adolescence to adulthood, independent of educational attainment, and that they might enable children from low-SES families to compensate for some of their background disadvantages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Cognitive and motivational numeracy parenting practices: Implications for children’s numeracy engagement during early elementary school.
Parents are considered a major resource in children’s numeracy development. The relative role of cognitive and motivational parenting practices, however, is unclear given that the two types of practices have largely been studied in isolation. The current study simultaneously estimated the contributions of several cognitive and motivational parenting practices hypothesized to be important, but which may have overlapping effects. To capture parents’ cognitive practices, the level and structure (i.e., prompts vs. statements) of 529 American parents’ (80% mothers; 65% White, 20% Black; 33% less than a bachelor’s degree) numeracy talk was coded during a challenging numeracy activity. Parents’ motivational practices were assessed by coding their autonomy support and control in the activity. Children’s (Mage = 7.5 years; 49% girls) engagement of numeracy strategies was also coded. Multilevel minute-to-minute modeling predicting children’s engagement from both cognitive and motivational parenting practices indicated that parents’ cognitive practices, particularly advanced prompts, predicted children’s subsequent engagement of numeracy strategies, which were often advanced. Parents’ motivational practices, as reflected in their autonomy support (vs. control), also foreshadowed children’s engagement. These effects of the two types of practices were independent of one another. Taken together, the findings are consistent with the idea that cognitive and motivational parenting practices provide distinct resources that can benefit children’s math learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Examining changes in adolescents’ high school math and science motivational beliefs and their relations to parental STEM support and STEM major choice at the intersectionality of gender and college generation status.
Drawing on the situated expectancy-value, dimensional comparison theories, and the intersectionality approach, this article examined the changes in adolescents’ math and science motivational beliefs, the parental and college correlates of those beliefs, and the differences at the intersection of gender and college generation status (i.e., female and male first- and continuing-generation college students). Findings based on the nationally representative high-school longitudinal study data (N = 12,070; Mage = 14 years; 54% female students; 28% first-generation college students; and 14% Latinx, 9% Black, 10% Asian, and 57% White) suggest that although adolescents’ math and science ability self-concepts declined during high school, their science interest remained stable, and their math and science utility values increased. Adolescents’ motivational beliefs in ninth grade and the changes from ninth to 11th grade positively predicted whether they declared a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college major. Parents’ ninth-grade STEM support was more consistently associated with adolescents’ concurrent beliefs compared to the changes in their beliefs. Finally, we found that female first-generation college students, who were more likely to be Latinx and Black students, tended to have lower math and science motivational beliefs, received less parental STEM support, and were less likely to choose a STEM major than their peers. The findings of this study indicate adolescents’ math and science motivational development in high school matters for their college majors and that certain understudied groups, including female first-generation college students, may experience acute marginalization in STEM and warrant further attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Trajectories of math expectancies for success and values in Latinx and Asian students.
The heterogeneity in the developmental trajectories of math motivational beliefs (i.e., expectancies for success and subjective task value beliefs) was examined among Asian and Latinx male and female students from Southern California across Grades 8 through 10 (n = 2,710; 50% female; 85% Latinx; 15% Asian; Mage = 13.77). By conducting growth mixture modeling, we identified two classes of stable trajectories for expectancies for success; five classes of stable, decreasing, or increasing trajectories for interest and utility value; and three classes of stable, decreasing, or increasing trajectories for attainment value. The group comparisons demonstrated that variability exists in adolescents’ motivational belief development at the intersection of their race/ethnicity and gender for some trajectories. For example, Latina adolescents were more likely to maintain moderate expectancies for success than high expectancies for success compared to Latino and Asian male adolescents, but Asian female adolescents did not differ in their level of expectancies for success from the two male groups. Also, we found Latina adolescents displayed smaller decreases in interest compared to Asian female adolescents and in utility value compared to Latino adolescents. The findings from the present study challenge traditional stereotypes in math and highlight positive motivational belief development in students who are marginalized in math (e.g., Latina adolescents). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Promoting scientific understanding and conceptual change in young children using explanations and guidance.
Evaluating evidence and restructuring beliefs based on anomalous evidence are fundamental aspects of scientific reasoning. These skills can be challenging for both children and adults, especially in domains where they possess inaccurate prior beliefs that can interfere with the acquisition of correct scientific information (e.g., heavier objects fall faster than light ones). Across two experiments, we examined the additive benefit of combining explanations with guided activities to promote conceptual change. In Experiment 1 (N = 238), 4- and 5-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: guidance with explanations, guidance only, or baseline. The guided conditions varied only in the presence or absence of conceptual information (i.e., explanation about gravity). Pre- and posttest measures showed that children’s predictions improved from both guided conditions compared to the baseline condition but did not significantly differ from each other. Experiment 2 (N = 80, 5-year-olds) included a delay test and assessed children’s learning through the justification of their predictions. Although children’s performance at the immediate posttest improved in both conditions, in the guidance only, children’s performance returned to the pretest levels of understanding after the delay. Children in the guidance with explanations condition had greater understanding at posttest, retained this understanding long term, and transferred it to objects with the same weight. These findings highlight the role of explanations in aiding children’s long-term learning from anomalous evidence in guided activities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Examining timing effects in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety and depressive symptoms: A genetically informed study.
The present study examined genetic, prenatal, and postnatal environmental pathways in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety and depressive symptoms from parents to early adolescents (when these symptoms start to increase), while considering timing effects of exposure to parent anxiety and depressive symptoms postnatally. The sample was from the Early Growth and Development Study, including 561 adopted children (57% male, 55% White, 13% Black/African American, 11% Hispanic/Latine, 20% multiracial, 1% other; 407 provided data in early adolescence) and their birth (BP) and adoptive parents (AP). Using a trait–state–occasion model with eight assessments from child ages 9 months to 11 years, we partitioned trait-like AP anxiety and depressive symptoms from time-specific fluctuations of AP anxiety and depressive symptoms. Offspring anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed at 11 years (while controlling for similar symptoms at 4.5 years). Results suggested that time-specific fluctuations of AP1 (mostly mothers) anxiety/depressive symptoms in infancy (9 months) were indirectly associated with offspring anxiety/depressive symptoms at 11 years via offspring anxiety/depressive symptoms at 4.5 years; time-specific fluctuations of AP1 anxiety/depressive symptoms at child age 11 years were concurrently associated with offspring anxiety/depressive symptoms at 11 years. AP2 (mostly fathers) anxiety/depressive symptoms were not associated with offspring symptoms. Genetic and prenatal influences measured by BP internalizing problems were not associated with offspring symptoms. Results suggested infancy and early adolescence as developmental periods when children are susceptible to influences of parent anxiety and depressive symptoms. Preventive interventions should consider time-specific fluctuations in parent anxiety and depressive symptoms during these developmental periods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The longitudinal impact of pre- and postnatal maternal depression and anxiety on children’s cognitive and language development.
We investigated the longitudinal associations among maternal pre- and postnatal depression, maternal anxiety, and children’s language and cognitive development followed from 15 to 61 months. Furthermore, we assessed the protective role of children’s early print experiences with books against the adverse effect of maternal depression on language development. Data for mothers and children (51.7% boys, 95% White, N = 11,662) were from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Prenatal maternal depression held an adverse association with child language (β = −.16, p = .002). Moreover, the risk was greater for girls than boys (β = .19, p = .02). In addition, prenatal depression was significantly and negatively associated with child verbal intelligence quotient (β = −.11, p = .02) and performance intelligence quotient (β = −.12, p = .01). In contrast, postnatal depression or anxiety were not unique predictors of child outcomes. Importantly, children’s early experiences with books, as measured by the reported frequency of parent–child shared reading, moderated the negative association between maternal depression and child language development (β = .30, p <.001). Although modest in size, these findings inform models of child risk and resilience related to maternal psychopathology. The results also have implications for clinical programs as well as for prevention and intervention studies focusing on at-home early literacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Associations between adolescent friends’ responses during problem talk and depressive symptoms.
The present study examined how friends’ responses to each other during problem talk predicted depressive symptoms over time. Participants included 271 adolescent friend dyads (69 female and 69 male early adolescent dyads; 72 female and 61 male middle adolescent dyads; 66.4% White and 26.6% Black). The adolescents were observed discussing a problem with the friend and reported on depressive symptoms at the time of observation and 9 months later. Friends’ responses were coded into one of nine response type categories (i.e., four positive/engaged response types, one neutral response type, and four negative/disengaged response types). Actor–partner interdependence models revealed significant actor and partner effects for both positive and negative responses. Notably, receiving and/or producing positive/engaged responses, including saying something supportive, sharing related experiences, and asking questions, were associated with lower depressive symptoms over time. Receiving and/or producing negative/disengaged responses, including sharing one’s own experience in a distracting way, changing the subject, saying something unsupportive or minimizing the problem, and saying nothing at all heightened risk for depressive symptoms. Additionally, significant Actor × Partner interactions revealed that greater differences between the friends in the degree to which they produced supportive responses were associated with increased depressive symptoms and that both friends saying nothing at all was associated with increased depressive symptoms. When gender and grade differences were found, the associations typically were particularly strong for middle-adolescent girls. These results highlight the importance of attending to friends’ specific behaviors in social support contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Developmental Psychology - Vol 60, Iss 4