Daily dynamics of feeling loved by parents and their prospective implications for adolescent flourishing.

Feeling loved by one's caregiver is essential for individual flourishing (i.e., high levels of psychological well-being in multiple dimensions). Although similar constructs are found to benefit adolescent well-being, research that directly tests parental love as a feeling from the recipient's perspective is rare. Historically, parental love has been measured using single-assessment methods and assumed to be a stable, trait-like characteristic; yet, like any feeling, it may fluctuate in meaningful ways on a day-to-day basis-the implications of which are unknown. Using a sample of 150 adolescents (59.3% female; ages 14-16), this study estimated level (person's mean level across days) and instability (fluctuations across days) of feeling loved by a caregiver across 21 days for each adolescent, and then examined their prospective effects on adolescent flourishing 1 year later. After controlling for demographics (adolescent age, gender, family income, and parent's sex) and variable baseline levels, feeling more loved by one's caregiver in daily life significantly predicted higher levels of flourishing in two global measures 1 year later. Moreover, level and instability of feeling loved by one's caregiver played different roles for different dimensions of flourishing: higher levels significantly predicted higher levels of autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth, whereas higher instability significantly predicted lower levels of positive relations with others and environmental mastery. Findings emphasized the importance of considering daily dynamics of feeling loved by one's caregiver and demonstrated that level (of feeling loved) is particularly important for intrapersonal aspects while instability is particularly important for interpersonal aspects of flourishing. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Adolescents feeling more loved by their caregiver in daily life had higher levels of overall flourishing 1 year later. Level (of feeling loved) is particularly important for intrapersonal aspects of adolescent flourishing, including autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth. Stability (of feeling loved) is particularly important for interpersonal aspects of adolescent flourishing, including positive relations with others and environmental mastery.

Gratitude improves parents' well-being and family functioning.

Parents are inundated with suggestions to improve their relationships with their children and promote child development, but improving caregiver well-being is often overlooked despite being considered one of the most important methods to promote healthy child development. Drawing on the robust literature on the emotional and relationship benefits of gratitude, we present two studies demonstrating the advantages of gratitude for parents' well-being and family functioning. First, in a 7-day daily experience study conducted in 2018 (N = 270), daily gratitude predicted greater well-being and family functioning, controlling for daily happiness, coder-rated care difficulty, and sociodemographics. Second, in a short-term longitudinal experiment conducted in 2018 (N = 619), participants were randomly assigned to write a gratitude letter or to complete a control activity. In this study, expressing gratitude predicted greater well-being and family functioning 1 week later via increases in positive emotions. Notably, across both studies neither felt nor expressed gratitude referred to one's children; however, the results of our studies suggest that gratitude in general improves parent-child relationships and family well-being. This work provides insights regarding ways to improve parents' well-being without requiring greater effort, energy, or attention to one's children, and it suggests that promoting parents' gratitude in general may benefit the entire family. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

When do adolescents feel loved? A daily within-person study of parent-adolescent relations.

Feeling loved has many benefits, but research is limited on how daily behaviors of one person in a relationship shape why someone else feels more or less loved from day to day. The parent-adolescent relationship is a primary source of love. We expected parent-reported warmth and conflict would explain daily fluctuations in how loved adolescents reported feeling. In a sample of 151 families (adolescent MAge = 14.60; 61.6% female) over a 21-day period, we used multilevel models to disentangle within-family (daily variability) and between-family (average levels) parent-reported daily warmth and conflict in relation to adolescents' daily reports about how loved they were feeling. Findings indicated adolescents in families with higher parent-reported warmth across days and higher adolescent-reported closeness with parents felt more loved by their parents, on average. At a within-person level, we found considerable day-to-day variability in how loved adolescents reported feeling that was partially explained by meaningful variability in both parent-reported warmth and conflict across days. On days when parents reported more warmth than usual and less conflict than usual, adolescents reported feeling more loved. Further, a significant within-day interaction indicated that the importance of days' parent warmth was greater on high conflict days, but when parents directed more warmth toward their adolescents, the difference between high- and low-conflict days was negligible. Theoretical implications for studying daily emotional love in parent-youth relationships and suggestions for parenting interventions that focus on daily practices of parent warmth are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Sexual Experiences and Attachment Styles in Online and Offline Dating Contexts.

Nearly 50% of adults under age 29 report using some form of online dating to find sexual partners or romantic relationships. Limited evidence suggests online and offline dating behaviors and experiences can vary. We aimed to expand understanding these differences by examining how attachment styles are associated with online and offline search for partners and emotional responses to sexual experiences. In a sample of single adults (N = 247; M age= 27.34), we examine how attachment styles relate to individual differences in how people search for partners and respond to sexual experiences with partners met online and offline. Individuals high in attachment anxiety reported higher use of online dating apps and more negative experiences (e.g., lower satisfaction, more guilt) following their most recent sexual encounters with partners met online and offline, and reported feeling more used after engaging in sexual activity specifically with partners met offline. Individuals high in avoidance also reported more negative experiences following their most recent sexual encounters, but only with partners met offline. This study moves our understanding by highlighting nuances in how attachment insecurity is associated with differences in online dating app use and emotions following sexual experiences when meeting partners online and offline.

Cascades of infant happiness: Infant positive affect predicts childhood IQ and adult educational attainment.

Parents want their children to be happy, educated, and successful, but are these goals related? People assume that success leads to happiness, but research on adults supports a reverse conceptualization: Happy people are more successful. Is happiness during childhood also linked to later success? Across the lifespan positive affect is linked with expanded cognitive abilities, learning, and resource building that can be adaptive and useful such that it leads to more success. Conversely, ongoing negative affect can reduce opportunities for growth and learning. Thus, happiness at any age may predict future success. Yet, no research has examined if positive and negative affect during infancy predicts childhood cognitive abilities and adult academics success. In a community sample, I hypothesized that higher infant positive affect (but not negative affect) would predict higher childhood cognitive abilities (i.e., IQ) and adult academic success (i.e., education attainment) in a 29-year study (n = 130). Positive affect, but not negative affect, during infancy (age 1.5), directly predicted higher childhood IQ (ages 6-8) and higher educational attainment (age 29), even after controlling for family socioeconomic status and infant intelligence. Childhood IQ partially explained the link between positive affect during infancy and adult educational attainment. This study advances understanding of how happiness during infancy (before formal education has begun) is linked to gold standard indicators of cognitive abilities and adult academic success. Parents, educators, and policymakers may want to place a higher value on early affective experiences when considering educational success. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Shedding light on the specificity of school-aged children's attachment narratives.

A prominent research tradition within the field of attachment involves analyzing relationship narratives for qualities thought to reveal important information regarding the organization of attachment, and the different ways in which attachment insecurity presents. Researchers increasingly use this method to assess attachment in middle childhood, but further work needs to be conducted with respect to the divergent validity of attachment narratives in this age range. Thus, the current study examined differential associations between children's discursive style and linguistic behavior when completing an attachment interview (Child Attachment Interview [CAI]) and Non-Relational Interview (NRI). In addition, the discriminant validity of attachment narratives was assessed in predicting children's physiological reactivity to a relational challenge. Children (N = 125) completed the NRI and the CAI at Time 1. A subset of the original sample (n = 64) completed another assessment 1.5 years later involving simulated non-relational and relational challenges. While narrative coherence was moderately associated across the two interviews, CAI narrative coherence uniquely predicted reactivity to a relational probe. We discuss implications for understanding children's narrative styles across discourse topics as well as the significance of the results for using attachment interviews in this age range.