International Journal of Behavioral Development

The COVID-19 pandemic posed significant risks to children, yet there is little longitudinal research on children’s coping during this period. The current study used data from the Child Resilience and Managing Pandemic Emotional Distress (CRAMPED) Families project, a longitudinal study of 1,096 children nested within 548 families across seven timepoints from May 2020 to October 2022. We examined trajectories of child coping over 2.5 years of the pandemic and associations with COVID-19 stress, positive family adaptation, and caregiver social support. Multilevel modeling revealed a curvilinear trend of child coping, with an increase in coping in early months followed by declines over time, suggestive of allostatic load. Higher COVID-19 stress was negatively associated with coping, whereas higher family adaptation and caregiver social support were positively associated with coping. Social support buffered the association between COVID-19 stress and child coping. Despite the transition toward a “post-pandemic” society, continued focus on children’s long-term adjustment is warranted. Family-level supports appear crucial for promoting coping, and while caregiver’s social support is protective against stress, mobilization of additional resources (e.g., government, community) beyond the caregiver’s network may be necessary to promote healthy coping.

Despite calls for antiracism, research on potential links between parental socialization and anti-Black bias and behavior in young White children remains limited. With the goal of further informing evidence-based suggestions toward high-quality racial socialization in a dominant racial group, this study examined 5- to 6-year-old White children’s (n = 123; 49% female; M_age = 5.46 years; Median_{Household Income} = $75,000–$100,000/year) potential racial bias in allocation and punishment behaviors toward White and Black peers. Results showed no differences in allocation by peer race. However, girls punished Black peers significantly less than White peers, whereas boys showed no difference. We also tested whether individual and parent characteristics were related to children’s behaviors. Parents’ lower color-evasive attitudes and lower household income were related to children’s increased punishment of White compared to Black peers. Findings highlight gender differences in racial bias in young children, the importance of punishment behavior in the future study of children’s racial bias, and the apparent, yet nuanced, links between parents’ color-evasive attitudes and children’s anti-Black punishment bias. We offer suggestions for parents and researchers.

The bystander effect is well-documented in adults, but its developmental origins and underlying mechanisms in young children remain unclear. This study examined how bystander characteristics influence 5-year-olds’ prosocial decisions through three experiments with 247 young children (M = 5.00 years, SD = 0.58; 121 girls). Using a helping task paradigm in which young children chose between personal gain and helping others, we systematically manipulated three variables: the physical presence of bystanders (Experiment 1), their awareness of the dilemma (Experiment 2), and their perceived capability (Experiment 3). Results showed that the mere physical presence of bystanders did not significantly affect young children’s helping rates or response times. However, when bystanders were aware of the dilemma, young children’s helping decreased significantly compared to when bystanders were unaware. Critically, this effect was moderated by bystander capability: when high-capability bystanders were aware of the dilemma, young children’s helping rates were lowest and response times longest. These findings suggest that bystander effects in 5-year-olds are not driven by mere presence but by a dynamic assessment of responsibility distribution, contingent on perceptions of others’ awareness and capability. Young children appear to prioritize responsibility attribution over reputation concerns when deciding whether to help.

This study examined whether daily variation in maternal phubbing (smartphone distractions in the presence of children) was associated with daily variation in child inattentive and oppositional behaviors. Daily diary data were provided by the mothers of 78 fourth graders (mean age = 9.20 years; age range = 8–10 years) studying in five elementary schools in Hong Kong. On each of five consecutive days, mothers filled in an online questionnaire in the evening on their own smartphone use and their children’s behavioral adjustment during the day. Multilevel autoregressive lag-1 models within the dynamic structural equation modeling framework were run separately for child inattentive behaviors and child oppositional behaviors. Results indicated that on days when mothers phubbed their children more than usual (compared to their cross-day averages), children showed more inattentive and oppositional behaviors than usual (compared to their cross-day averages), even controlling for children’s momentary behavioral changes on the prior day. Theoretically, findings pointed to the potential role of parents’ smartphone distractions during parent-child interactions in understanding day-to-day variation in children’s behavioral adjustment. Practically, findings highlighted the possible utility of helping parents manage their smartphone use as ways to promote their children’s positive development.

Although existing studies have separately documented the heterogeneous development of Problematic internet use (PIU) and aggression and identified sex differences, little is known about their sex-specific co-developmental patterns among Chinese adolescents. Even less is known about how these patterns are linked to changes in mental health over time. Therefore, this study aims to (a) examine the sex-specific co-developmental trajectories of PIU and aggression, (b) examine whether baseline mental health predicts membership in different joint trajectory classes, and (c) examine whether these trajectory classes are differentially associated with subsequent mental health outcomes. This longitudinal study collected data from 1,531 Chinese junior middle school students (age: M = 12.30 years, SD = 0.55, range = 11–15 years, 51.05% girls) at three points at 6-month intervals. PP-LCGM models revealed three trajectories for boys (i.e., average, congruent-low, and moderate-increasing) and four trajectories for girls (i.e., low-increasing, moderate-increasing PIU and moderate-stable aggression, congruent-low, moderate-stable PIU and moderate-decreasing aggression). Further analyses indicated that mental health exhibited stronger predictive effects in the girls subgroup than in the boys subgroup, with significant variations in mental health outcomes observed within both subgroups. Findings highlight the importance of prioritizing prevention and intervention efforts for high-risk subgroups.

Subjective age—how old individuals feel, look, behave, think, identify based on interests, and wish to be—is a multidimensional construct linked to health and wellbeing. We examined whether stable (self-perceptions of aging, aging expectations) and daily (stress, affect) factors predict six subjective age dimensions: Felt, Look, Behave, Mental, Interest, and Ideal Ages. A community sample of 209 Australian adults (19–84 years; M_age = 54.56, SD = 17.49; 64.59% female) completed two 7-day diary bursts 4 weeks apart, providing 2,385–2,419 observations collected near the end of COVID-19 restrictions. Multilevel models estimated between-person (stable) and within-person (daily) associations and tested moderation by chronological age. Between persons, lower positive affect was associated with older subjective age across all dimensions except Ideal Age. More negative self-perceptions of aging predicted older Ideal Age. Age moderated the relationship between self-perceptions of aging and Interest Age: negative self-perceptions were linked to younger Interest Ages, especially among older adults. Within persons, days with higher positive affect predicted feeling younger for all except Ideal Age, whereas higher negative affect predicted older Felt Age. On days with more stress, people reported older Felt, Mental, and Interest Ages. Findings support subjective age as a dynamic, multidimensional construct in understanding aging.

This study examined the specific and potential joint contribution of early onset of gambling participation (GP) and substance use (SU) in preadolescence to the frequency and characteristics of both behaviors in late adolescence, while controlling for confounders. Participants (N = 1,270; 51.2% boys) were part of a Canadian birth cohort. Age 10–12 years self-reports of GP and SU over the past year (collected 2007–2009) were used to identify preadolescents with either no onset of GP or SU (reference group), onset of GP-only, onset of SU-only, or onset of both GP and SU. Results showed that (1) preadolescent onset of either GP or SU is associated with corresponding behaviors and characteristics reflecting their seriousness at age 17 (collected 2014); (2) preadolescent onset of GP-only constitutes a risk for adolescent SU, but not the reverse; and (3) among preadolescents who initiated either GP or SU, those initiating both showed a higher number and severity of both types of outcomes at the end of adolescence. These findings are consistent with developmental models of addictive behaviors and highlight the importance of assessing both GP and SU for a comprehensive evaluation of preadolescents’ early involvement and underlying risk for addictive behaviors in late adolescence.

Parents are early socialization agents who promote both independence and interdependence in their interactions with children. However, given that cultural contexts differ in the relative emphasis placed on the self versus others, the manifestations of these behaviours are likely to differ across cultures. This study compares mothers’ observed independence- and interdependence-promoting behaviours during a naturalistic snack interaction with their preschool-aged child in two urban samples from Canada (n = 112) and Singapore (n = 136), using a novel coding system. In addition to comparing Canadian and Singaporean mothers in terms of their behaviours, we also examine associations between mothers’ observed behaviours and their self-reported socialization goals. Results show that Canadian mothers generally exhibited more independence-promoting behaviours (i.e., by affirming or complying with child initiatives, orienting to the physical environment, and discussing their own internal states), while Singaporean mothers exhibited more interdependence-promoting behaviours (i.e., by issuing commands and initiating physical touch/control). Singaporean mothers also endorsed stronger interdependent socialization goals than Canadian mothers, which were positively correlated with most observed dimensions of interdependence-promoting behaviour and negatively correlated with one dimension of observed independence-promoting behaviour. Overall, this study describes differences in mother–child interactions across two distinct cultural contexts, while providing evidence suggesting that these behaviours may be informed by contextually relevant parental beliefs about children’s socialization.

This preregistered study examined whether child temperament predicts social-emotional functioning and moderates the associations between parental distress, COVID-19–related stressors, and children’s social-emotional outcomes during the pandemic. The participants were 1,305 Finnish children (46% girls) from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort, with temperament assessed at age 2.5 years and follow-ups conducted from ages 5 to 9 years. Across five time points, parents reported their distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms) and family COVID-19–related stressors, and rated their children’s social-emotional functioning (i.e., emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems, and prosocial behavior) at four follow-ups (data from up to 568 children). Covariate-adjusted linear regression and mixed-effects models were used to test the main and moderating effects. Higher negative affectivity and lower effortful control in children predicted greater emotional and behavioral problems and fewer prosocial behaviors, while higher surgency was linked with fewer internalizing but more externalizing problems. Temperament also moderated the associations between COVID-19–related stressors and social-emotional functioning. Children high in negative affectivity showed stronger links to emotional symptoms early in the pandemic, whereas, unexpectedly, those low in negative affectivity exhibited more conduct problems under higher stress. Effortful control mitigated the effects of parental distress on conduct problems and hyperactivity. These findings highlight the role of temperament in influencing children’s resilience and vulnerability under prolonged stress, emphasizing the importance of identifying temperamental risk profiles for guiding future prevention and support efforts.

Gender role attitudes can explain gender differences in occupational success and familial and domestic responsibilities. These attitudes are especially salient during emerging adulthood as young adults lay the first foundations for their future career paths and familial decisions. We aim to determine whether gender role attitudes in young adulthood have long-term consequences for occupational success and familial and household responsibilities 9 (M age = 31) and 18 years (M age = 40) later. The question will be addressed by using three waves of a longitudinal dataset from Germany (N = 4,812). Gender role attitudes were assessed in young adulthood in 2000/2001 (M age = 22), while the occupational success indicators, full-time employment, income, occupational prestige, and sector, as well as familial and household responsibilities, were assessed in the year 2009/2010 (M age = 31) and 2018 (M age = 40). The results show positive bivariate associations between young women’s gender role attitudes and their income and prestige at ages 31 and 40. For men, more egalitarian gender role attitudes were linked to lower income at age 31 when accounting for background characteristics. A positive significant bivariate association emerged between men’s early gender role attitudes and their occupational prestige at ages 31 and 40.

Early-life family relationships have been linked to childhood emotional (internalising) and behavioural (externalising) problems and adolescent social functioning but developmental pathways between them remain underexplored. We examined whether trajectories of children’s internalising and externalising problems mediate between low-quality early family relationships and adolescent social outcomes, including interpersonal distrust and low perceived social support (perceived social isolation). Using a UK-representative cohort ( N = 11 , 069 ), we modelled internalising and externalising problem trajectories (ages 3–11) via latent growth curves and tested whether their growth parameters mediated associations between mother–child and interparental relationships (age 3) and social outcomes (age 14), adjusting for child, family, and neighbourhood characteristics. Higher interparental relationship quality predicted lower distrust and social isolation, both directly and indirectly via lower baseline externalising problems, whereas indirect pathways through internalising parameters were non-significant. Findings for the mother–child relationship were more nuanced, however, with higher relationship quality predicting greater distrust and social isolation, while paths via slopes (positive) and quadratic components (negative) acted in opposing directions for both internalising and externalising problems, yielding no net mediation for distrust and a small protective effect for social isolation. Interventions reducing parental discord in early childhood alongside addressing children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties may help reduce adolescent social disconnection.

Increasing reports of racial microaggressions raise concerns about their impact on young adults’ mental health. Social support can act as a protective process in the association between racial microaggressions and mental health symptoms. In this article, we used an egocentric network approach to examine the extent to which network size and functions of support moderated the effect of racial microaggressions on anxiety among racialized and White young adults. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that a larger network size and support in the emotional, instrumental, and informational domains reduced the effect of racial microaggressions on anxiety for racialized participants. Findings have implications for supporting young adults who experience racial microaggressions and have reduced social supports.

Influential work in the gerontological literature in the 1990s has demonstrated that the discrepancy between objective and subjective evaluations of health increases with age. It is an open question though whether the direction and size of the age gradient in the discrepancies has changed over historical time. In this study, we examine cohort differences in age-related divergences in health evaluations using two markers of objective health (illnesses/functioning) and two markers of subjective health (overall/compared to others) obtained from cross-sectional samples of older adults in the Berlin Aging Studies in 1990–1993 (n = 516, aged 70–103) and 2018–2020 (n = 625, aged 68–94). We use both person-oriented and variable-oriented methodological frameworks that specifically facilitate study of aging as a process that propels individuals through a multidimensional health space: permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The person-oriented PERMANOVA results revealed that divergence across markers of health increased with age, but did not evidence any cohort differences. Complementary results from variable-oriented SEMs corroborated that the four-dimensional variance-covariance structure did not differ across cohorts and that the age pattern was consistent across cohorts. Results suggest that objective and subjective indicators of health are increasingly discrepant after age 70, but reveal no evidence that age gradient of the divergences has changed across historical time.

Although positive and negative affect may play unique roles in understanding child socioemotional development, few studies have simultaneously tested the associations of both positive and negative affect with socioemotional competence among children. Therefore, this multi-informant study examined the longitudinal associations of positive and negative affect with socioemotional competence among Chinese children. On two occasions separated by about 12 months, questionnaire data were collected from 378 children (mean age at Time 1 = 8.94 years; 61% female) from 189 families in Hong Kong, China, and their class teachers. At Time 1, children rated their positive and negative affect. At Times 1 and 2, class teachers rated children’s socioemotional competence, including emotion regulation, prosocial/communication skills, peer acceptance, and relational aggression. Multilevel models revealed that positive affect predicted increases in emotion regulation, prosocial/communication skills, and peer acceptance, and that negative affect predicted increases in relational aggression. Theoretically, findings highlighted the potentially distinct contributions of positive and negative affect to Chinese children’s socioemotional development. Practically, findings pointed to the possible utility of targeting children’s positive and negative affect as means to promote children’s socioemotional competence.

This study was designed to explore the longitudinal relations among parenting, internalizing symptoms, and different forms of prosocial behavior in Turkish children. The study tracked 293 mothers and their preschool-aged children (48% girls, M_age = 49 months) over 3 years. Mothers reported on their parenting practices, including demands for obedience, warmth, and inductive reasoning when children were 4 years old. They reported children’s internalizing symptoms at age 6 and prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, comforting, and cooperation at ages 4 and 7. Path analyses showed that obedience-demanding parenting positively predicted children’s helping behavior. Maternal warmth and inductive reasoning were negatively associated with children’s internalizing symptoms, which, in turn, were negatively related to all forms of prosocial behavior. These results emphasize the need for culturally informed parental socialization models of prosocial development that account for the multidimensional nature of prosocial behavior.

Although the association between perceived control and long-term trajectories of cognitive functioning is well-established, little is known about how day-to-day changes in control are linked to daily cognition or how this relationship may differ across socioeconomic lines. This study examined whether daily changes in perceived control were coupled with dynamic shifts in episodic memory and the extent to which this association was pronounced for middle-aged and older adults with lower education or income. We analyzed 14 days of data from the Modifiable Antecedents of Memory and Behavior in Adulthood (MAMBA) Study using multilevel models (n = 208, M_age = 54 years, range = 30–81; 64% female). Main effect models showed that daily, within-person increases in perceived control were positively, but not significantly, associated with changes in episodic memory (γ = .055, p = .068). Moderation models indicated that this relationship depended on individual differences in income, but not education: The within-person association between daily perceived control and episodic memory emerged for those with lower (γ = .123, p = .002), but not higher (γ = −.014, p = .735), levels of income. Findings inform theories of lifespan development in providing initial evidence that micro-longitudinal increases in perceived control are linked to dynamic changes in daily cognition for socioeconomic populations at increased risk of cognitive declines.

Perceptions of the legitimacy of parental authority (LoPA) reflect the degree to which parents and adolescents believe parental control over an adolescent’s behavior is appropriate. LoPA may impact the level of autonomy granted to adolescents and adolescents’ compliance with parental demands and rules. Although low perceived LoPA has consistently been linked to increased externalizing symptoms, the association with internalizing symptoms is less clear. Furthermore, few studies have considered whether and how age-related changes in LoPA are related to adjustment and the implications of LoPA trajectories for mental health symptoms. In a community sample of early adolescents (n = 387; 55% female; 83.1% non-Hispanic White; mean age at T1 = 11.61, SD = 0.55) and parents, latent growth curve modeling was utilized to characterize trajectories of LoPA perceptions and test associations with externalizing, anxious, and depressive symptoms. Parent and adolescent perceptions of LoPA generally declined with age, although there were differences across domains. Adolescent perceptions of LoPA were prospectively linked to externalizing, anxious, and depressive symptoms, and the rate of change was associated with externalizing and depressive symptoms such that lower initial levels and steeper declines were associated with poorer adjustment, while parent perceptions of LoPA were not associated with adjustment outcomes.

We investigated how social reputation, peer influence, and social distance affect pro-environmental behavior in young Chinese children across three studies (N = 224, 110 girls). Five-year-olds completed an environmental purchasing task, choosing between cheaper conventional and more expensive eco-friendly products. Study 1 examined behavior under reciprocal versus non-reciprocal observation. Study 2 informed children that a peer (friend or stranger) had purchased an eco-friendly or conventional product before they chose in public or private settings. Study 3 presented two peers (both friends, both strangers, or one of each) exhibiting consistent pro-environmental, consistent conventional, or conflicting behaviors before children made purchasing decisions publicly or privately. Study 1 found that social reputation enhanced pro-environmental behavior. However, Study 2 revealed that when friends acted pro-environmentally, children reduced their own pro-environmental actions publicly, showing vicarious moral licensing. Friends choosing conventional products or strangers’ behaviors had no effect. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that vicarious moral licensing was strongest publicly when friends acted pro-environmentally, while strangers did not. When both acted pro-environmentally, children maintained their pro-environmental behaviors publicly. These findings suggest 5-year-olds strategically manage reputation within their social networks through complex mechanisms shaped by social distance and behavioral consistency, not simple imitation.

This study used a five-wave longitudinal design to examine how the type and timing of parental questions during shared discussion of wordless picture books influence children’s emotion labeling. Participants were 323 children (150 girls, ages 2–3 at Wave 1 in 2019) and their primary caregivers, who were assessed annually until ages 6–7. Parent–child interactions were recorded, transcribed, and coded for the frequency of yes/no and open-ended questions during the first conversational turn and children’s subsequent correct emotion labels. An RI-CLPM controlling for conversation length, child age, and gender indicated that start-of-conversation open-ended questions were positively associated with children’s correct emotion labeling, whereas start-of-conversation yes/no questions were negatively associated. Emotion labeling and parental questioning showed stability across waves; however, start-of-conversation question type did not predict children’s labeling longitudinally. Moreover, a reverse longitudinal effect emerged: stronger child emotion labeling predicted decreases in parents’ use of yes/no questions the following year, suggesting that parents adapt their entry prompts as children’s skills improve. Sensitivity analyses showed that parent total question frequency across the full conversation was positively associated with labeling regardless of question type. These findings highlight the role of question type, timing, and caregiver responsiveness in socio-emotional development.

The diversity of measures used to assess early childhood development complicates comparison across studies, populations, and programs. The Global Scales for Early Development (GSED) address this challenge by providing interoperable long and short forms (GSED-LF and GSED-SF) linked through a shared measurement model to a common developmental metric, the D-score. This article presents an updated GSED core model based on Rasch analysis of data from seven sites (n = 9,287 children aged 0–41 months). The final model includes 281 items selected through item- and person-fit evaluation and shows improved measurement precision compared with earlier keys. Descriptive age-conditional reference curves derived from combined GSED-LF and GSED-SF data provide a methodological benchmark for typical development. We further demonstrate how external measures, including the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III), can be mapped onto the D-score scale by anchoring new items to the core model. D-scores and Development-for-Age Z-scores (DAZ) derived from GSED-LF, GSED-SF, and BSID-III show strong agreement, supporting the validity of the extension. The resulting GSED2510 key, implemented in the open-source dscore R package, enables standardized, measure-independent assessment of early child development.