Moral Beauty During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prosocial Behavior Among Adolescents and the Inspiring Role of the Media.

In this study, we examined whether adolescents helped others during the COVID-19 pandemic and how stories in the media inspired them in doing so. Using an online daily diary design, 481 younger adolescents (M = 15.29, SD = 1.76) and 404 older adolescents (M = 21.48, SD = 1.91) were followed for 2 weeks. Findings from linear mixed effects models demonstrated that feelings of being moved by stories in the media were related to giving emotional support to family and friends, and to helping others, including strangers. Exposure to COVID-19 news and information was found to spark efforts to support and help as well and keeping physical distance in line with the advised protective behaviors against COVID-19. Moreover, helping others was related to increased happiness. Overall, the findings of this study highlight the potential role of the media in connecting people in times of crisis.

Promoting water consumption among children: a three-arm cluster randomised controlled trial testing a social network intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To test the effectiveness of a social network intervention (SNI) to improve children's healthy drinking behaviours. DESIGN: A three-arm cluster randomised control trial design was used. In the SNI, a subset of children were selected and trained as 'influence agents' to promote water consumption-as an alternative to sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB)-among their peers. In the active control condition, all children were simultaneously exposed to the benefits of water consumption. The control condition received no intervention. SETTING: Eleven schools in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: Four hundred and fifty-one children (Mage = 10·74, SDage = 0·97; 50·8 % girls). RESULTS: Structural path models showed that children exposed to the SNI consumed 0·20 less SSB per day compared to those in the control condition (ß = 0·25, P = 0·035). There was a trend showing that children exposed to the SNI consumed 0·17 less SSB per day than those in the active control condition (ß = 0·20, P = 0·061). No differences were found between conditions for water consumption. However, the moderation effects of descriptive norms (ß = -0·12, P = 0·028) and injunctive norms (ß = 0·11-0·14, both P = 0·050) indicated that norms are more strongly linked to water consumption in the SNI condition compared to the active control and control conditions. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that a SNI promoting healthy drinking behaviours may prevent children from consuming more SSB. Moreover, for water consumption, the prevailing social norms in the context play an important role in mitigating the effectiveness of the SNI.

Promoting water consumption among Dutch children: an evaluation of the social network intervention Share H2O.

BACKGROUND: There is a need to develop and improve interventions promoting healthy drinking behaviors among children. A promising method could be to stimulate peer influence within children's social networks. In the Share H2O social network intervention (SNI), peer influence was utilized by selecting a subset of influential children and training them as 'influence agents' to promote water consumption-as an alternative to SSBs. Previous research has mainly focused on the process of selecting influence agents. However, the process of motivating influence agents to promote the behavior has hardly received any research attention. Therefore, in the SNI Share H2O SNI, this motivation process was emphasized and grounded in the self-determination theory (SDT). This study evaluated the implementation of the Share H2O SNI, focusing on whether and how applying SDT-based techniques can motivate the influence agents and, indirectly, their peers. METHODS: This study included data collected in the Netherlands from both the influence agents (n = 37) and the peers (n = 112) in the classroom networks of the influence agents. Self-reported measurements assessed the influence agents' enjoyment of the training, duration and perceived autonomy support during the training, and changes in their intrinsic motivation and water consumption before and after the start of the intervention. Changes in the peers' intrinsic motivation, perceived social support, and social norms were measured before and after the start of the intervention. RESULTS: The influence agents enjoyed the training, the duration was adequate, and perceived it as autonomy supportive. There was an increase in the influence agents' intrinsic motivation to drink water and their actual water consumption. Providing personal meaningful rationales seemed to have motivated the influence agents. The intrinsic motivation and perceived descriptive norm of the peers remained stable. The peers reported an increase in their perceived social support and injunctive norm concerning water drinking after the intervention. Influence agents appeared to mainly use face-to-face strategies, such as modeling, talking to peers, and providing social support to promote the behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings provided preliminary evidence of the promising effects of using SDT-based techniques in an SNI to motivate the influence agents and, indirectly, their peers. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NTR, NL6905, Registered 9 January 2018, https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/6905.

Exposure to Online Alcohol Marketing and Adolescents' Drinking: A Cross-sectional Study in Four European Countries.

AIMS: The Internet is the leading medium among European adolescents in contemporary times; even more time is spent on the Internet than watching television. This study investigates associations between online alcohol marketing exposure and onset of drinking and binge drinking among adolescents in four European countries. METHOD: A total of 9038 students with a mean age of 14.05 (SD 0.82) participated in a school-based survey in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Logistic regression analyses of cross-sectional cross-country survey data were undertaken. Exposure to online alcohol marketing, televised alcohol advertising and ownership of alcohol-branded items was estimated to be controlled for relevant confounders. Onset of drinking and binge drinking in the past 30 days were included in the study as outcome variables. RESULTS: Adjusted for relevant confounders, higher exposure to (online) alcohol marketing exposure was found to be related to the odds of starting to drink (p < 0.001) and the odds of binge drinking in the past 30 days (p < 0.001). This effect was found to be consistent in all four countries. Active engagement with online alcohol marketing was found to interact more strongly with drinking outcomes than passive exposure to online alcohol marketing. CONCLUSIONS: Youngsters in the four European countries report frequent exposure to online alcohol marketing. The association between this exposure and adolescents' drinking was robust and seems consistent across national contexts.

A social network-based intervention stimulating peer influence on children's self-reported water consumption: A randomized control trial.

UNLABELLED: The current pilot study examined the effectiveness of a social network-based intervention using peer influence on self-reported water consumption. A total of 210 children (52% girls; M age = 10.75 ± SD = 0.80) were randomly assigned to either the intervention (n = 106; 52% girls) or control condition (n = 104; 52% girls). In the intervention condition, the most influential children in each classroom were trained to promote water consumption among their peers for eight weeks. The schools in the control condition did not receive any intervention. Water consumption, sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption, and intentions to drink more water in the near future were assessed by self-report measures before and immediately after the intervention. A repeated measure MANCOVA showed a significant multivariate interaction effect between condition and time (V = 0.07, F(3, 204) = 5.18, p = 0.002, pη(2) = 0.07) on the dependent variables. Further examination revealed significant univariate interaction effects between condition and time on water (p = 0.021) and SSB consumption (p = 0.015) as well as water drinking intentions (p = 0.049). Posthoc analyses showed that children in the intervention condition reported a significant increase in their water consumption (p = 0.018) and a decrease in their SSB consumption (p < 0.001) over time, compared to the control condition (p-values > 0.05). The children who were exposed to the intervention did not report a change in their water drinking intentions over time (p = 0.576) whereas the nonexposed children decreased their intentions (p = 0.026). These findings show promise for a social network-based intervention using peer influence to positively alter consumption behaviors. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This RCT was registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12614001179628). Study procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University (ECSW2014-1003-203).

Parental co-viewing and susceptibility for smoking and drinking in adolescents: an experimental pilot study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The current pilot study is the first experiment to examine whether parents are able to diminish the adverse influences of smoking and drinking depicted in movies through co-viewing. METHODS: For this study, 99 adolescents (M = 12.82 years old; SD = .95; 38.8% boys) watched the 3D version of Titanic in the cinema. Through randomization, adolescents were invited to come with either a parent or a friend. After watching the movie, adolescents filled out a questionnaire that assessed their susceptibility for smoking and drinking and their social images concerning these behaviors. RESULTS: The findings revealed that adolescents who co-viewed the movie with their parents, compared to with their friends, were at the same or an even higher risk for future smoking or drinking after watching the movie. The findings also indicated that only a few parents communicated about smoking and drinking while watching the movie. CONCLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: Simply co-viewing might not be an effective way for parents to blunt the effect of smoking and drinking in movies. In addition to ensuring more caution when advising parents to simply co-view movies, the present findings encourage additional research on the impact of instructive mediation strategies.

The associations of anticipated parental reactions with smoking initiation and progression in adolescents.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine whether anticipated parental reactions to smoking were related to smoking onset and progression during adolescence. METHODS: Data were used from the six-wave, 5-year longitudinal "Family and Health" project, in which N = 428 adolescents (M = 13.4, SD = .50; 52.3% girls) and their families participated. RESULTS: Parental reactions, as anticipated by adolescents, included benign indifference, conflict engagement, disclosing disappointment, and positive problem-solving. Findings of discrete-time survival analyses indicated no direct association between anticipated reactions at baseline and smoking onset within 5 years. However, a significant interaction effect was found between parental smoking and anticipated parental disappointment. This finding indicates that adolescents of non-smoking parents, who expected reactions of annoyance and disappointment, were less at risk for initiating smoking than adolescents from smoking parents who expected such reactions. None of the anticipated parental reactions were significantly related to smoking progression, neither directly nor indirectly. CONCLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: Findings from this study suggest that focusing on anticipated reactions to smoking is probably not the most promising endeavor for effective smoking prevention and intervention.

Understanding the behavioral determinants of adolescents' water consumption: A cross-country comparative study.

Substituting the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) with that of water can have a positive effect on adolescents' health. However, despite the attention on this topic in the Global North, it is relatively understudied in other regions of the world, such as the Caribbean. To guide the development of future interventions, understanding the factors determining water consumption among Caribbean adolescents is important. This study examined the behavioral determinants of water consumption among adolescents in Aruba (the Caribbean) and compared them to those in the Netherlands (Western Europe). We used a theoretical model that integrates the dominant theoretical perspectives in the field of public health, including theories of planned behavior, social norms, and intrinsic motivation. This cross-country study included 1,584 adolescents from Aruba and the Netherlands (52% girls; M = 12.34 years; SD = 2.14). The data were analyzed using regression analyses. This study found that in Aruba, adolescents with higher scores of intrinsic motivation, friends' descriptive norms, attitudes, and behavioral control regarding water consumption drank more water. Moreover, the associations between water consumption and both intrinsic motivation as well as friends' descriptive norms for adolescents in Aruba were stronger than those found in the Netherlands. These associations imply that it is even more important for Aruban adolescents than Dutch adolescents to be intrinsically motivated or to perceive their friends often consuming water to drink more water. The cross-country comparison implies that future interventions in Aruba aimed at increasing adolescents' water consumption as an alternative to SSB should focus on enhancing their intrinsic motivation while considering their friends' social norms.

Explaining Children's News Avoidance During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Despite growing concerns that children (8-13 years old) tend to avoid the news, the reasons why have received little research attention. Therefore, the current study aims to develop and test a model conceptualizing the relations between children's news consumption, news avoidance, emotional responses (negative emotions and anxiety-related behaviors), and parent and child mitigation strategies. The model was tested using data collected during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current, preregistered, survey study was part of a longitudinal project and used data from the second wave. Data were collected in November/December 2020 among 510 children (M age = 10.40; 53.72% girls). Findings showed that children who consumed more news during the pandemic avoided pandemic news less often. Children who experienced more anxiety-related behaviors regarding pandemic news avoided pandemic news more often. The relation between news consumption and emotional responses was stronger for children who experienced restrictive parental mediation more often, indicating that this was not an effective parental mediation strategy for tempering their emotional responses. Children with higher levels of emotional responses used reactive coping strategies more often. However, this did not seem to be an effective strategy against pandemic news avoidance because none of the strategies had a negative relation with pandemic news avoidance. Distancing was even positively related to pandemic news avoidance. Although the current study was not able to fully unravel how news avoidance-related constructs relate to one another, we were able to get some important insights guiding future research. Specifically, it is of crucial importance to unravel the mechanisms that increase the chance of children's news avoidance and those that mitigate it, to build interventions to counteract news avoidance and to protect children from the negative emotional consequences by news consumption.

Filament assembly of the C. elegans lamin in the absence of helix 1A.

Lamins are the major constituent of the nuclear lamina, a protein meshwork underlying the inner nuclear membrane. Nuclear lamins are type V intermediate filaments that assemble into ~3.5 nm thick filaments. To date, only the conditions for the in vitro assembly of Caenorhabditis elegans lamin (Ce-lamin) are known. Here, we investigated the assembly of Ce-lamin filaments by cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. We show that Ce-lamin is composed of ~3.5 nm protofilaments that further interact in vitro and are often seen as 6-8 nm thick filaments. We show that the assembly of lamin filaments is undisturbed by the removal of flexible domains, that is, the intrinsically unstructured head and tail domains. In contrast, much of the coiled-coil domains are scaffold elements that are essential for filament assembly. Moreover, our results suggest that Ce-lamin helix 1A has a minor scaffolding role but is important to the lateral assembly regulation of lamin protofilaments.

Motivating Social Influencers to Engage in Health Behavior Interventions.

Social influencers are widely known as the promotors of purchase behavior as well as for their potential to change health behaviors among individuals in their social networks. For social influencers to be successful in changing behaviors, it is essential that they convey their message in an authentic, original, credible, and persistent manner. In the context of health behavior interventions, this requires a focus on the motivation of social influencers to engage in the intervention. This perspective article describes the importance of motivating social influencers to engage in the desired health behaviors themselves and to promote it within their social network. We briefly describe the current state of knowledge and our empirical experience in implementing health interventions with social influencers. Using insights from self-determination theory, we demonstrate how social influencers can be motivated optimally in health behavior interventions and, thereby, improving the success of the intervention. To illustrate these insights and guide intervention practice, we provide concrete examples of techniques that can be applied in health interventions involving social influencers. We conclude with directions for further research and intervention practice to improve the delivery of health behavior interventions.

Daily prosocial actions during the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to giving behavior in adolescence.

Prosocial actions are a building block for developing mature and caring social relations. However, the global pandemic may hamper adolescents' prosocial actions. In this preregistered study, we examined the extent to which adolescents provided daily emotional support during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 10-25-year-old high school and university students participated at three timepoints (N = 888 at the first timepoint (May 2020); 494 at the second timepoint (Nov 2020) and 373 at the third timepoint (May 2021)). At the first and second timepoint, participants completed 2 weeks of daily diaries on providing emotional support. At all timepoints, participants performed Dictator Games to measure giving to peers, friends and COVID-19 targets (medical doctors, COVID-19 patients, individuals with a poor immune system). Across the three timepoints, adolescents gave more to COVID-19 targets than peers and friends, but giving to COVID-19 target was highest in the beginning of the pandemic (first timepoint relative to second and third timepoint). Results from the first timepoint showed that emotional support directed to friends peaked in mid-adolescence, whereas emotional support towards family members showed a gradual increase from childhood to young adulthood. Furthermore, daily emotional support increased between the first and second timepoint. Daily emotional support to friends predicted giving behavior to all targets, whereas emotional support to family was specifically associated with giving to COVID-19 targets. These findings elucidate the relation between daily actions and prosocial giving to societally-relevant targets in times of crisis, underlying the importance of prosocial experiences during adolescence.

'One cigarette for you and one for me': children of smoking and non-smoking parents during pretend play.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether perceived parental smoking is related to pretend smoking in young children and whether children influence each other in pretend smoking. METHODS: Children who reported to have at least one smoking parent were coupled with children who had non-smoking parents. Both children were then asked to pretend that they were adults having a barbeque party. During their role playing, the children were observed in order to assess their pretend smoking behaviours and to examine whether children of smoking parents were more likely to initiate pretend smoking. Children were tested at their schools; the sample consisted of 206 children between 4 and 7 years of age (mean age=5.14, SD=0.87), of which 54.4% were girls. The main outcome was whether a child pretended to be smoking and whether the child initiated or followed the other child in this behaviour. RESULTS: During their play, 63.6% (n=131) of the children pretended to smoke. Children of smoking parents were more likely to initiate pretend smoking than to follow. CONCLUSIONS: Through their own smoking, parents appear to be able to influence the way in which their children interact with peers regarding pretend smoking. More specifically, children of smoking parents might instigate smoking among their peers.

Effects of parents' education and occupation on adolescent smoking and the mediating role of smoking-specific parenting and parent smoking.

The current study examined the independent effects of parents' educational attainment and occupational status on adolescent smoking and mediation of smoking-specific communication and parents' smoking behaviours on this link. Data were collected in a multi-informant, full-family design in two sampling waves separated by 3 years (n = 358). Education, occupational status, communication, and smoking were assessed via parent and child report. Different effects were found for the indicators of father and mother's socioeconomic status (education and occupation) for three study outcomes (adolescent lifetime smoking, smoking onset, and smoking continuation). Bootstrapping procedures revealed no mediation in any of the socioeconomic status adolescent smoking associations. Study limitations and implications are discussed.

Mood and emotional reactivity of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: short-term and long-term effects and the impact of social and socioeconomic stressors.

Adolescence is a formative period for socio-emotional development which is threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current longitudinal study examined two aims: (1) the short- and long-term effects of the pandemic on young people's mood (i.e. vigor, tension, and depression levels) and emotional reactivity (i.e. fluctuations in daily mood), and (2) the impact of stressors on mood, emotional reactivity, self-oriented (i.e. maladaptive behavior towards COVID-19 rules) and other-benefitting behaviors (i.e. behavior aimed at helping and comforting others). We conducted an online two-week daily diary study among 462 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 15.27 years, 64% females) and 371 young adults (Mage = 21.49 years, 81% females) in May 2020, with a follow-up in November 2020 (N = 238 and 231, respectively adolescents and young adults). In May 2020, young adults and older relative to younger adolescents showed higher levels and more fluctuations in tension and depression and lower levels of vigor. Vigor levels decreased and tension and depression levels increased between May 2020 and November 2020, especially for younger adolescents. There were positive associations between instability of negative emotions (i.e. tension and depression fluctuations) and the exposure to stressors (i.e. family stress and inequality of online homeschooling) in the adolescent sample. Together, this study demonstrates vulnerability regarding young people's mood and emotional reactivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for adolescents who experience more stressors.

Parental smoking and pretend smoking in young children.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether parental smoking was associated with smoking-related play behaviour in young children. DESIGN: Children were asked to pretend that they were grown-ups having dinner. They were invited to act out this situation in a play corner with a toy kitchen and a child-sized dining area, including a package of fake cigarettes on the table. SETTING: Children were tested individually at their school during regular school hours. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of 100 children between 4 and 8 years of age (mean=5.28, SD=0.94) of which 57% were boys. The majority of the children were born in The Netherlands (99%). MEASUREMENTS: The main outcome measure was whether or not a child pretended to be smoking a cigarette. Child and parent reports were used to assess parental smoking. FINDINGS: Findings revealed that 37% of the children had at least one 'puff' during their play. Children were more likely to pretend to smoke if they reported having smoking parents (OR=3.16, p=0.02; 95% CI=1.22 to 8.18). Analyses for the model with parent reports on parental smoking did not yield any direct association. Children's explicit attitudes were unrelated to their smoking-related play behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that young children, who reported having parents who smoke, already associate having dinner with a (after-dinner) cigarette.

Facial attractiveness and self-esteem in adolescence.

Facial attractiveness has been associated with many (social) advantages in life, like greater popularity, acceptance, and social competence. Because social evaluations and acceptance are important factors contributing to self-esteem (SE), we hypothesized that high levels of attractiveness would be related to increased levels of SE. To test this assumption, 230 adolescents from two age groups (13 and 15 years) were surveyed annually for 5 years. A latent growth curve model was used to model the influence of facial attractiveness on the development of SE over time. Results showed that younger adolescents with higher levels of attractiveness had lower levels of SE at baseline. Attractiveness was not found to be a significant predictor in explaining the development of SE over time. These findings indicate that attractive children are more likely to have lower levels of SE when they enter early adolescence compared to their less attractive counterparts.

The NSL complex maintains nuclear architecture stability via lamin A/C acetylation.

While nuclear lamina abnormalities are hallmarks of human diseases, their interplay with epigenetic regulators and precise epigenetic landscape remain poorly understood. Here, we show that loss of the lysine acetyltransferase MOF or its associated NSL-complex members KANSL2 or KANSL3 leads to a stochastic accumulation of nuclear abnormalities with genomic instability patterns including chromothripsis. SILAC-based MOF and KANSL2 acetylomes identified lamin A/C as an acetylation target of MOF. HDAC inhibition or acetylation-mimicking lamin A derivatives rescue nuclear abnormalities observed in MOF-deficient cells. Mechanistically, loss of lamin A/C acetylation resulted in its increased solubility, defective phosphorylation dynamics and impaired nuclear mechanostability. We found that nuclear abnormalities include EZH2-dependent histone H3 Lys 27 trimethylation and loss of nascent transcription. We term this altered epigenetic landscape "heterochromatin enrichment in nuclear abnormalities" (HENA). Collectively, the NSL-complex-dependent lamin A/C acetylation provides a mechanism that maintains nuclear architecture and genome integrity.

Nuclear Lamins: Thin Filaments with Major Functions.

The nuclear lamina is a nuclear peripheral meshwork that is mainly composed of nuclear lamins, although a small fraction of lamins also localizes throughout the nucleoplasm. Lamins are classified as type V intermediate filament (IF) proteins. Mutations in lamin genes cause at least 15 distinct human diseases, collectively termed laminopathies, including muscle, metabolic, and neuronal diseases, and can cause accelerated aging. Most of these mutations are in the LMNA gene encoding A-type lamins. A growing number of nuclear proteins are known to bind lamins and are implicated in both nuclear and cytoskeletal organization, mechanical stability, chromatin organization, signaling, gene regulation, genome stability, and cell differentiation. Recent studies reveal the organization of the lamin filament meshwork in somatic cells where they assemble as tetramers in cross-section of the filaments.

An integrated model of fruit, vegetable, and water intake in young adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we tested an integrated model for why young adolescents consume fruit, vegetables, and water. The model was based on evidence from studies applying three dominant theoretical approaches, including planned behavior, social norms, and intrinsic motivation. METHOD: The integrated model was tested with structural equation modeling using four data-collection waves of the MyMovez Project (MyMovez, 2017) in which 953 young adolescents (53.9% girls; Mage = 11.19, SDage = 1.36) participated. Self-reported measures were used to assess young adolescents' fruit, vegetable, and water consumption, self-efficacy, attitude, social norms of parents and peers, behavioral intentions, and intrinsic motivation. RESULTS: The analyses revealed that young adolescents' intrinsic motivation to eat fruits and vegetables or drink water predicted changes in their fruit, vegetable, and water consumption. Furthermore, adolescents' perceived descriptive norm of parents (i.e., perception of the prevalence of their parents' water consumption) also predicted changes, but only for water consumption. CONCLUSION: The current findings show that young adolescents' intrinsic motivation (and, to some extent, parental social norms) is the strongest predictor of their consumption of fruit, vegetables, and water. It is important to note, behavioral intentions do not predict their actual behavior over time. Consequently, interventions should focus on increasing young adolescents' intrinsic motivation to perform the targeted behavior while incorporating the influence of the social context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).