The present study investigated 3‐ to 6‐year‐old (total n = 158) children's restoration behaviors both when they were second‐party victims (Experiment 1) and when they were third‐party bystanders (Experiment 2) of transgressions. We also explored how group membership (based on color preference) affects these behaviors. We found that children preferred restoration to punishment, and that they emphasized

Children tend to discount negative feedback about their performance even when the feedback is delivered by an expert. This indifference toward feedback could hinder self‐improvement. We examined whether children would be receptive to negative feedback from an expert when provided with an explicit reason why it was given. One‐hundred twenty‐one 4 to 8 year olds heard about a target peer whose work product

Most research on weight‐related social difficulties in adolescence emphasizes categorical measures of weight status (e.g., overweight/obese vs. non‐overweight/non‐obese). However, teens who are not overweight can also experience weight‐related social adjustment problems, and girls may be at higher risk for maladjustment due to weight‐related stigmatization than their male counterparts. The current

Although solitude has been portrayed as a potentially constructive domain in adolescence, time alone has been consistently associated with socio‐emotional maladjustment. To address this discrepancy, we explored how adolescents spend their time alone and the links between solitary activities and adjustment outcomes. Adolescents (N = 869, 68% female, Mage = 16.14 ± .50) completed self‐report measures

Parental psychological control (PPC)'s association with romantic relationships and the mechanisms through which PPC impairs relationship qualities remain crucial questions to understanding PPC. To this end, we examine if insecure attachment at age 18 mediated the association between PPC perceived at age 16 and jealousy at age 22. Our results showed that PPC perceived at age 16 predicted attachment

Cyber aggressive behaviors such as nonconsensual image sharing, nasty comments, and social exclusion frequently take place on WhatsApp. These behaviors often involve group processes, where adolescents conform to peers’ behaviors. WhatsApp is pre‐eminently suited for group‐communication among adolescents, and, thus, may facilitate conformity to such behaviors. However, research on conformity on WhatsApp

This investigation examined cross‐lagged relations between expressive control (i.e., management of expressed affect) and inhibitory control (i.e., management of behavior) to elucidate the development of self‐regulation across affective and behavioral domains. Regulation was assessed longitudinally at ages four, six, and eight using both observational laboratory tasks and teacher reports in a diverse

Across two experimental studies, this research examined the effects of positive and negative imagined intergroup contact on adolescents’ (Study 1, N = 124) and early adults’ (Study 2, N = 169) stereotype content, emotions, and behavioral intentions toward two immigrant groups in Spain: Ecuadorians, a valued group, and Moroccans, a devalued group. The results showed that the imagined contact valence

There is substantial research on children's evaluations of transgressors, but less is known about the extent to which children view actions toward recipients as indicative of a recipient's personality or deserved outcomes. We examined the extent to which 3‐ to 5 year olds, relative to an adult comparison group, judged the recipients of negative behavior as bad people who deserve punishment and recipients

Recent research suggests that imagination, defined as engaging in behaviors or cognitions not representative of one's current reality, is related to the development of emotion regulation (ER) skills in early childhood. Yet, the underlying mechanisms responsible for driving this relationship are unknown. The present study aimed to elucidate one potential pathway through which imagination may influence

Although the Family Stress Model (FSM) has been widely tested, expanded conceptualizations of stressors, intervening mechanisms, and developmental outcomes from this perspective is becoming increasingly common in order to better explain the adolescent adjustment. Additionally, though extant research analyzes the utility of the FSM in African American and European–American samples, little is known about

Mother–child conversations reflect and support many important skills—including, perhaps, children's understanding of personality. Children acquire an understanding of people's personalities during the preschool and early elementary years. This study of 4‐ to 9‐year‐old children and their mothers (Npairs = 135) investigated the relation between mothers’ ability to reason about the personalities of self

Adolescence represents a developmental period of marked increase in the development of ethnic–racial identity (ERI) and the importance and influence of friends. Moreover, scores of studies have revealed that ERI and friendships are influential factors in many different academic and psychosocial outcomes for adolescents. However, the development of these relations between ERI, friendships, and academic

Although the emergence of gender segregation in early childhood is a well‐established pattern in formal settings (i.e., group childcare, preschool) from research predominantly in North America, little is known about the gender segregation among young children in Sub‐Saharan Africa, especially in the contexts of ethnically diverse informal urban settlements. Using naturalistic observations of 62 focal‐children

Adults manifest a number of attributional biases in explaining the behavior of in‐ versus out‐group members. The present study investigated the developmental origins of such biased explanation. Children from majority and minority populations in Israel, and from majority populations in Germany (N = 165), were asked to explain the behavior of in‐ and out‐group members. Across ages and groups, children

Developmental regulation strategies and identity processes are hypothesized as influencing one another over time. This three‐wave longitudinal study (N = 369; 20% male) examined, for the first time, the extent to which (a) identity exploration and commitment processes and (b) developmental regulation strategies (goal engagement and disengagement) predicted one another over time; and whether change

This study examined whether ethnicity moderated trajectories of mothers’ and children’s positive and negative emotional expressions, as well as within‐time and lagged associations between these variables. European American and Mexican American mothers’ and children’s emotional expressions toward each other were observed when children were aged 15, 25, and 37 months. Children’s positivity increased

Parents' responses to children's negative emotional states play a key role in the socialization of emotion regulation skills in childhood. Much of the prior research on child ER has focused on early development using cross‐sectional designs. The current study addresses these gaps by using a longitudinal design to examine individual differences of ER at two times points in middle childhood. We examined

Using piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners' physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children's independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to and recovery from this challenge. We used respiratory

Previous research has found that children can engage in rectification of pre‐existing inequality by allocating more resources to individuals and groups of disadvantaged status, but less research has investigated how children address the inequalities using resources of different values, especially when they are linked to group membership (i.e., in‐group or out‐group member) in the first‐party (Study

We investigated humor production in relation to social understanding and relationship quality in early childhood, by coding N = 72 5‐year‐olds’ (M = 5.78, SD = .41) spontaneous humor production during play with an older (n = 34; M age = 7.84 years, SD = .84) or younger sibling (M age = 3.72 years, SD = .54). Children who demonstrated better understanding of minds also produced more humor (preposterous

Emotion regulation is a multi‐modal construct, that includes both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive‐behavioral processes. However, many classifications of regulation strategies do not take this multi‐modality into account. In this study, two classification systems were integrated. Participants were 336 adolescents (56% boys, Mage = 15.41, SD = 1.45). Anger regulation strategies were measured with

Parents and friends are important influences on adolescents’ academic outcomes. We examine whether and how adolescents’ social networks compensate for or enhance the effects of their parents’ education on academic outcomes. Among a large ethnoracially diverse sample of high school students in the Southwestern (N = 2,136) and Midwestern (N = 1,055) United States, results from network autocorrelation

Inductive discipline can reduce problem behavior and promote moral internalization in children, but its role in reducing peer aggression in adolescence is less well‐understood, especially across diverse socialization agents. Using hypothetical vignettes, this study examined adolescents’ evaluations of and expected emotional reactions to parents’, teachers’, and friends’ inductive responses to peer

This lab‐based longitudinal study examines whether parental structuring (i.e., encouragement, modeling, and praise) has effects on helping behavior across developmental time, across recipients or both. Based on behavioral data assessed at 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 months (N = 38 dyads), the main findings are that, first, when analyzing the effects of parental structuring on toddlers' helping across developmental

Friendship is a fundamental part of being human. Understanding which cues indicate friendship and what friendship entails is critical for navigating the social world. We survey research on 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children’s friendship concepts, discussing both classic work from the 1970s and 1980s using interview methods, as well as current work using simpler experimental tasks. We focus on three core features

Research has indicated that the majority of infants and toddlers prefer prosocial to antisocial agents, but little research has examined interindividual differences in children's preference. This study examined whether 24‐month‐olds' (n = 107) sociomoral preference was associated with attachment security or empathy, assessed with the Attachment Q‐Sort and the Empathy Questionnaire. Toddlers were presented

There is growing evidence that motivations reflecting social withdrawal are linked to various correlates and outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. However, little work has examined the subtypes of withdrawn motivations in early adulthood. Hence, the purpose of this study was to compare shy, avoidant, unsocial, mixed‐withdrawn, and non‐withdrawn men and women in early adulthood

While elevated shyness is associated with weaker pragmatic language abilities for some children, not all shy children demonstrate pragmatic challenges. Understanding the factors that may account for this variability is important as proficient pragmatic abilities have been found to protect shy children from subsequent socio‐emotional maladjustment (Coplan & Weeks, 2009). Individual differences in cognitive

Frontal Electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry during emotion‐eliciting tasks has been underexplored, and the current study considered changes in infant frontal asymmetry during positive and negative emotion‐eliciting tasks relative to baseline, consistent with the capability model. Importantly, variability in parent–child interaction factors related to task‐related EEG asymmetry changes was examined

The present study examined the associations between family conflict during toddlerhood and children's prosocial and aggressive behaviors approximately 9 years later, as well as whether maternal supportiveness and children's self‐regulation mediate those associations. Family conflict has been identified as a risk factor for children's well‐being and behavioral problems. However, these studies often

Although peer victimization is widely considered to be detrimental to children's well‐being, knowing what it feels like to be harmed is also thought to contribute to children's sense of concern for others. However, research has yet to establish a clear link between peer victimization and sympathy during childhood. Across two samples of Canadian 4‐ and 8‐year‐olds (total N = 504), we examined whether

Ascertaining whether and the extent to which different aspects of parenting are associated with prosocial behaviors could inform parenting programs in cultivating healthy development. Multilevel meta‐analyses (k = 124) involving children and adolescents were conducted to examine associations between parenting and prosocial behaviors while accounting for demographic and study characteristics. Authoritative

This study investigated whether recipients’ past moral or immoral behaviour shapes 4‐year‐olds’ judgements of the agents who either harm or help the recipients. Children (N = 161) watched the agent who either harmed or helped the antisocial, prosocial, or neutral recipient. Afterwards, children indicated their sociomoral judgement of the agent’s act, their attitude towards the agent and their perception

We examined whether fathers’ residency modified the associations among mothers’ supportiveness, father involvement, children’s negative emotionality during toddlerhood and children’s academic skills in pre‐kindergarten via children’s self‐regulation. Participants were 2,291 mothers (Mage = 23.24 years) and children (Mage = 14.99 months at Wave 1; 50.7% girls) in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation

Children’s ability to engage in pretend play is important for healthy development. However, relative to cognitive play features, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of affect expression in pretend play on child development. This study evaluated prospective relations of 250 preschoolers’ (Mage = 49.05 months, SD = 2.95; 50% female; 46% Latinx) expressions of prosocial and aggressive

Children's concern for others is shaped through socialization, but current theories make different predictions as to how and when in development this socializing occurs. Here we found that mothers' prosocial socialization goals (SGs) predicted concern for others in 2‐year‐old (n = 804) and 4‐year‐old (n = 714) children. In contrast, preschool teachers' SGs predicted concern for others only for 4‐year‐old

This study investigated the extent to which associations between mothers' elaborated talk about mental states and preschoolers’ behavioral adaptation (i.e., social competence and internalizing and externalizing behavior) and school readiness were moderated by emotion situation knowledge. Families (N = 120) were mostly middle‐income and White and 70 of the preschoolers (M = 50.65 months, SD = 6.19)

Parent emotion socialization refers to the process by which parents impart their values and beliefs about emotional expressivity to their children. Parent emotion socialization requires attention as a construct that develops in its own right. The socialization of child worry, in particular, has implications for children’s typical socioemotional development, as well as their maladaptive development

Extracurricular involvement in the school‐age years has widespread potential benefits for children's subsequent socioemotional development, especially for low‐income youth. However, there is a dearth of research on interventions aimed at increasing school‐age extracurricular involvement in low‐income youth. Thus, the present study aimed to test the collateral effect of a brief, family‐focused intervention

Interpersonal skills play a vital role in the growth and development of adolescents. The current study explored the experience and manifestation of interpersonal skills in Pakistani adolescents. In phase I, using open‐ended phenomenological approach, key components of interpersonal skills were elicited from 32 adolescents (boys = 16; girls = 16) aged 11–19 years (M = 14.48; SD = 1.06). In phase II

Anchored in self‐determination theory (SDT), we used a sample of 310 Japanese father‐child dyads (fathers Mage = 47.95; children Mage = 14.98, 50% female), to investigate: (a) the structure of aspirations in a Japanese sample, (b) the association between fathers’ own intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations and the aspirations reported by their adolescent children, (c) the links between child‐reported father

Parent–child discussions about emotion are a key socialization influence on children’s socio‐emotional development. Extant research on parent–child discussions about emotion largely focuses on three main types of discourse content: parental elaboration, parental use of emotion labels and explanations, and parental emotion coaching. A new direction involves distinguishing between parents’ direct and

Both syntax and Executive Functions (EF) are involved in Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) but their contributory roles have mainly been studied separately. Moreover, researchers have mostly administered False Belief (FB) tasks while they may not be representative of all ToM abilities. Studies of adults give valuable information regarding whether syntax and EF are useful for ToM reasoning (i.e., Reasoning account)

Dual‐process theories contend that interplay between higher‐order (i.e., regulatory) and lower‐order (i.e., reactive) systems influences the development of attention in early childhood. We therefore investigated interactions between an aspect of children's top‐down self‐regulation (i.e., effortful control; EC) and positive reactivity (indexed by observed positive affectivity; PA) and negative reactivity

Discrete emotions convey distinct relational meanings that inform the response of a social partner, such as how to help. Although prosocial behaviors can take different forms and are observed in a variety of contexts across development, distinct forms of helping are often studied in forced‐choice settings in limited emotional contexts. This study examined the prevalence of three prosocial behaviors

Although peer conflict is a common experience in preschool classrooms, few studies have examined relations between coping with peer conflict and social competence (SC) in preschool samples. In this study, 166 preschoolers (95 male) were observed during dyadic play episodes designed to induce a resource‐based conflict. Coping tactics were coded using Zimmer‐Gembeck and Skinner’s framework, and their

We introduce the Parent Play Questionnaire (PPQ), a parent‐report measure designed to assess frequency of parent–infant play, parents’ attitudes towards play with their infant, and infants’ use of digital media. We describe measure development and empirical data across three samples of parent–infant dyads (total N = 414, offspring aged 0.3–2.5 years). Three latent factors explain the PPQ, corresponding

Research on children's social information processing (SIP) has mainly focused on negative attributions in peer provocation and rejection situations. The potential of balanced attributions—attributing both positive and negative intent—and of positive attributions has not been explored. We conducted a series of regressions to examine balanced, positive, and negative attributions and links to affective

The mapping of developmental relations between social cognition and real‐world social behaviors has theoretical and practical importance. In the domain of social anxiety, however, studies examining links between social cognitive ability and anxiety have produced mixed results. One potential explanation is that varied facets of social cognition are differentially linked to social anxiety across development

Social interaction, particularly in older adolescents, increasingly involves computer‐mediated communication. Although studies of public computer‐mediated communication are increasingly common, studies of private text messaging remain rare. As approaches for obtaining such data evolve with technological advances, developmental scientists need designs in which to use such approaches that reduce sampling

The aim of this study was to analyse the interpersonal relationships in the school context of children living in different care settings (adoptive families, residential care centres, birth families). Participants were 76 children between eight and fourteen years of age (M = 10.78, SD = 1.38), belonging to one of three groups: international adoptees, children living in residential care in Spanish institutions

After observing ostracism or social exclusion, older children, adolescents and adults report decreased satisfaction of the need for control. Attempting to regain control can motivate aggression in ostracized adults. Research has shown that the onset of ostracism’s harmful effects on children’s behavior is at preschool age. We investigated whether preschoolers would exert more control after witnessing

Maternal depression is associated with a range of child development outcomes, including difficult temperament. This longitudinal study investigated whether depressive symptoms (DS) that mothers experience after childbirth predict infant negative affect (NA), as well as potential effects of infant NA on maternal DS, across the first year of life. In the study (N = 63), questionnaires (the Beck Depression

This study examined whether teachers’ perceptions of students’ behavior (referring to halo effects) and the behavior of teacher‐perceived friends (referring to association effects) influenced teachers’ ability to recognize students identified as bullies, victims, and prosocial by their peers. Data came from 1,458 children (Mage = 10.5, 47.5% girls) and 56 teachers (Mage = 40.8, 66.1% females). Perceived

To elucidate cultural contrasts in children's family environments, we conducted in‐depth, direct comparisons of mind‐mindedness and self–other distinction from maternal speech. The study included 5‐min speech samples of 225 mothers from Japan (N = 111) and the U.K. (N = 114) talking about their 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (including 11 sibling pairs, n = 236). Compared with Japanese mothers, British

Popularity among peers might be related to behavior in gradual or non‐gradual ways. In this research, a popularity subgroups approach was used to examine whether some behaviors were associated with only specific levels of popularity. Moreover, observational data in popularity research is valuable yet scarce. This research, therefore, also examined the association between popularity and observed behavior

The present study considered the ways in which interactional quality in the classroom and teacher–child relationships independently and synergistically shaped the early academic, social‐behavioral, and executive function outcomes of 1,498 preschoolers from low‐income families from a large, culturally, and linguistically diverse county. The findings revealed that children who had closer and less conflictual

The family stress model (FSM) is an influential family process model that posits that socioeconomic disadvantage impacts child outcomes via its effects on the parents. Existing evaluations of the FSM are constrained by limited measures of socioeconomic disadvantage, cross‐sectional research designs, and reliance on non‐population‐based samples. The current study tested the FSM in a subsample of the

The quality of social pretend play may have a positive impact on children's development. This study investigated to what degree this quality is a characteristic of a child versus a function of the play partner or the specific pairing of two children. For this purpose, preschool children's general pretend play quality (actor effect), their general influence on their play partner's pretend play quality