The roles of parenting, resilience, and interpersonal relationships on adolescents' mental health and stress-related growth during COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The present longitudinal study investigated parenting style as a precursor for Chinese adolescents' stress-related growth and mental health difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the mediating roles of intrapersonal resilience and interpersonal relationships (i.e., peer and parent-adolescent). METHODS: Chinese adolescents in a middle school (7th grade) and their parents in Beijing, China, were invited to complete a survey at two time points (T1: September 2020, T2: June 2021). A total of 206 adolescents (52.9% boys; Mage = 12.90 years, SDage = 0.33) and parents (17.5% fathers, 82.4% mothers; Mage = 43.50 years, SDage = 4.76 years) were included in this study. RESULTS: Results showed that Chinese parents' authoritarian, not authoritative parenting, predicted adolescents' mental health difficulties nine months later. In addition, parent-adolescent relationships, but not peer relationships nor resilience, mediated the relations between parenting style and stress-related growth. Adolescents' resilience predicted fewer mental health difficulties. CONCLUSION: It is important to target multiple ecologies (e.g., family) of adolescents for promoting positive adjustment.

COVID-19 Stressful Life Events and Chinese Adolescents' Mental Health: Examining Resilience, Peer Relationship, and Parenting as Moderators.

The current study examines intrapersonal characteristics or factors (i.e., resilience), peer (i.e., quality of peer relationships), and family processes (i.e., parental involvement, critical comparison) as potential risk and protective factors for mental health of Chinese adolescents during COVID- 19 pandemic. A total of 504 seventh-grade students (52% boys) and their caregivers in Beijing, China completed an online survey in September 2020. Youth reported experiencing various COVID-19-related stressful life events (i.e., conflicts with parents, poor learning environment and efficiency, family financial pressure), and about 15% reported slightly elevated scores of mental health difficulties. Findings suggested personal resilience and quality of peer relationship predicted positive mental health (i.e., covitality or co-occurrence of positive psychological dispositions) and less mental health difficulties. Parent's critical comparison intensified the negative link between stressful life events and youth mental health. Implications for promoting youth mental health as schools reopen are discussed.

Need for cognitive closure and trust towards government predicting pandemic behavior and mental health: comparing United States and China.

Residents of the United States and China have responded very differently to the implementation of COVID-19 preventive measures. This study introduces the uncertainty reduction theory and the need for cognitive closure (NFC) framework into the context of a public health crisis and compares models across the United States and China. Specifically, we collected survey data to examine how NFC, trust in government, and attitudes toward preventive measures predicted pandemic compliance behaviors, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction among 745 college students (399 from China and 346 from the United States). Chinese participants trusted their government more, believed COVID preventive measures to be more beneficial, and reported more pandemic compliance and fewer depressive symptoms than U.S. PARTICIPANTS: Trust in government and attitudes towards preventive measures mediated the relationships between NFC and pandemic compliance behaviors among Chinese participants but not U.S. PARTICIPANTS: NFC predicted better mental health outcomes among participants in China compared to U.S. PARTICIPANTS: Trust in government mediated NFC and mental health outcomes among Chinese participants. Trust in government predicted better mental health (fewer depressive symptoms and more life satisfaction) in both the United States and China. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for promoting mental health and pandemic compliance behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed.

Parent work-life conflict and adolescent adjustment during COVID-19: Mental health and parenting as mediators.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented challenging time for parents and adolescents. The present study examines the role of parent work-life conflict on adolescent adjustment (i.e., academic engagement and mental health) and family processes (i.e., parental mental health and parenting) as potential mediators for this association. A total of 692 middle school students (53.2% boys; Mage = 13.54 years, SDage = 0.58) and their parents (29.6% fathers and 70.4% mothers; Mage = 44.75 years, SDage = 4.14 years) completed an online survey in May 2020 in Beijing, China. Results indicated that many parents (24.6%) experienced work-life conflicts amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings also showed that parent work-life conflict was negatively associated with youth academic engagement and mental health indirectly through parental mental health difficulties and parenting behavior (parental control, autonomy granting, and parental involvement). In addition, parental mental health difficulties had direct and indirect effects on youth adjustment via parenting behaviors, such that parental involvement and autonomy granting predicted greater academic engagement and covitality (co-occurrence of positive traits and positive mental health), whereas the parental control predicted youth mental health difficulties. Our findings extend prior research by examining the pathways linking parental work-life conflict to youth adjustment during COVID-19. Findings are discussed in terms of how to better support families and promote better youth academic engagement and well-being during COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The roles of resilience, peer relationship, teacher-student relationship on student mental health difficulties during COVID-19.

The present cross-sectional study aimed to (a) expand our understanding of the role of risk and resilience factors for adolescent adjustment during coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and (b) examine personal resilience, peer and teacher-student relationships as protective factors against mental health difficulties. A total of 3,662 students from 4th to 11th grades in Urumchi, China completed a survey in June 2020. Urumchi is an ethnically diverse city, with nearly 40% of the population in this school district being ethnic minority students. The schools of Urumchi closed in February 2020 and reopened in April 2020. The results of latent moderated structural equation modeling suggested that peer victimization was associated with greater mental health difficulties in students. Personal resilience and teacher-student relationships were promotive factors for better mental health and also served as a buffer from the negative effect of peer victimization on mental health. The results also showed divergent patterns for elementary versus secondary school students as well as gender differences. Implications for how schools can support students during COVID-19 were discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Early pubertal maturation and externalizing behaviors: Examination of peer delinquency as mediator and cognitive flexibility as a moderator.

INTRODUCTION: While peer delinquency is a known mediator between early pubertal timing and externalizing behaviors, little is known about factors that could protect against the adverse influence of peer delinquency. This study assesses the possible moderating role of cognitive flexibility, which is one index of executive functioning that facilitates flexible and adaptive responses to challenging situations. We assessed the interactive influence of peer delinquency and cognitive flexibility in the association between pubertal maturation and externalizing behaviors in boys and girls. METHOD: Participants were 220 adolescents (111 boys) from the United States, between the ages of 11 and 16 years (M = 13.2, SD = 1.53) who participated in the Adolescent Emotion Study (AES). RESULTS: Findings from the cross-sectional path modeling analyses provided evidence for the mediating role of peer delinquency for boys and girls, indicating that early maturing adolescents tend to affiliate with delinquent peers, which in turn exacerbates externalizing problems. Additionally, the moderating role of cognitive flexibility was also demonstrated for both boys and girls. Region of significance tests revealed that relatively well-developed cognitive flexibility skills could protect against the adverse influences of peer delinquency, whereas lower levels could exacerbate those negative influences. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that involvement with deviant peers increases vulnerability for both early maturing boys and girls. Additionally, cognitive flexibility was an important moderating factor for adolescents, such that youths with less developed skills would be at a higher risk for psychopathology, whereas those with better development could be protected.

The influence of visual and vestibular orientation cues in a clock reading task.

We investigated how performance in the real-life perceptual task of analog clock reading is influenced by the clock's orientation with respect to egocentric, gravitational, and visual-environmental reference frames. In Experiment 1, we designed a simple clock-reading task and found that observers' reaction time to correctly tell the time depends systematically on the clock's orientation. In Experiment 2, we dissociated egocentric from environmental reference frames by having participants sit upright or lie sideways while performing the task. We found that both reference frames substantially contribute to response times in this task. In Experiment 3, we placed upright or rotated participants in an upright or rotated immersive virtual environment, which allowed us to further dissociate vestibular from visual cues to the environmental reference frame. We found evidence of environmental reference frame effects only when visual and vestibular cues were aligned. We discuss the implications for the design of remote and head-mounted displays.

"Dropping Out is Not an Option": How Educationally Resilient First-Generation Students See the Future.

First-generation college students (FGCS) often have different cultural values, practices, and goals from those of students from college-going families. As they navigate college, FGCS coordinate these values, practices, and goals with those of their families, noncollege-going friends, and communities. We draw on longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of FGCS attending a public university in California to address three research questions: (1) What challenges do FGCS face in their transition to and through college?; (2) What resources do they use to surmount these challenges?; and (3) What is the association between FGCS' resources and challenges and their academic persistence and career goals? Results showed that FGCS who surmounted challenges and persisted toward graduation had emotional support from family and friends from home; developed supportive relationships with university peers, staff, and faculty; and believed that college would allow them to attain their future life and career goals.

Persistent illusory apparent motion in sequences of uncorrelated random dots.

We report a novel phenomenon in which long sequences of random dot arrays refreshing at 2.5 Hz lead to persistent illusory percepts of coherent apparent motion. We term this effect illusory apparent motion (IAM). To quantify this illusion, we devised a persistence task in which observers are primed with a particular motion pattern and must indicate when the motion pattern ends. In Experiment 1 (N = 119), we induced translational apparent motion patterns and show that both drifting motion (e.g., up-up-up-up) and rebounding motion (e.g., up-down-up-down) persists throughout many frames of uncorrelated random dots, although rebounding motion tends to persist for longer (a rebounding bias). In Experiment 2 (N = 60), we induced rotational IAM on an annulus-shaped display, and show that the topology of the display (whether the annulus is complete or has a gap) determines whether or not the rebounding bias is present. Based on our findings, we argue that IAM provides a powerful tool to study the mechanisms, constraints, and individual differences in the perception of illusory motion.