Parenting measurement, normativeness, and associations with child outcomes: Comparing evidence from four non-Western cultures.

This study compared parenting across four non-Western cultures to test cross-cultural commonality and specificity principles in three aspects: measurement properties, parenting normativeness, and their associations with child outcomes. Both mothers and fathers (N = 1509 dyads) with preschool-aged children (M = 5.00 years; 48% girls) from urban areas of four countries (Malaysia, N = 372; China, N = 441; Turkey, N = 402; and Japan, N = 294) reported on four parenting constructs (authoritative, authoritarian, group harmony socialization, and intrusive control) and their sub-dimensions using modified culturally relevant measures. Teachers reported on children's internalizing, externalizing, and prosocial behaviors. The commonality principle was supported by two sets of findings: (1) full measurement invariance was established for most parenting constructs and sub-dimensions, except that intrusive control only reached partial scalar invariance, and (2) no variations were found in associations between parenting and any child outcomes across cultures or parent gender at the construct level for all four parenting constructs and at the sub-dimensional level for authoritarian and intrusive control sub-dimensions. The specificity principle was supported by the other two sets of findings: (1) cross-cultural differences in parenting normativeness did not follow the pattern of economic development but yielded culture-specific patterns, and (2) at the sub-dimensional level, the authoritative parenting and group harmony socialization sub-dimensions were differently associated with child outcomes across cultures and/or parent gender. The findings suggested that examining specific dimensions rather than broad parenting constructs is necessary to reflect cultural specificities and nuances. Our study provided a culturally-invariant instrument and a three-step guide for future parenting research to examine cross-cultural commonalities/specificities. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This is the first study to use an instrument with measurement invariance across multiple non-Western cultures to examine the commonality and specificity principles in parenting. Measurement invariance was achieved across cultures for authoritative and authoritarian parenting, group harmony socialization, intrusive control, and their sub-dimensions, supporting the commonality principle. Cross-cultural differences in parenting normativeness did not follow the pattern of economic development but yielded culture-specific patterns, supporting the specificity principle. Both commonalities and specificities were manifested in associations between parenting and child outcomes across cultures.

Social withdrawal and psychological well-being in later life: does marital status matter?

Objectives: Personality researchers have found that dispositional traits are typically stabile over the life course, but shyness is one trait that has rarely been examined in later life. Shyness as a global trait has been linked negatively to multiple psychological indices of childhood well-being, including loneliness. Despite the fact that older adults may already be at risk for experiencing heightened loneliness, regret, or decreased fulfillment, research has not assessed these experiences in relation to personality in later life. In the past few decades, research on social withdrawal has moved beyond treating shyness as a global trait and started to examine the multiple motivations behind socially withdrawn behavior.Method: Employing data from 309 older participants of the Huntsman Senior Games, the current study used regression analyses to examine the potential relations between three forms of withdrawal (shyness, avoidance, and unsociability) and loneliness, regret, and fulfillment in later life.Results and Conclusion: Results indicated that shyness, avoidance, and unsociability, respectively, were significantly associated with increased loneliness and regret, and decreased fulfillment. Further, marital status (married, divorced, widowed) moderated links between withdrawal and psychological indices of well-being in later life.

Associations between brain and behavioral processing of facial expressions of emotion and sensory reactivity in young children.

The ability to decode and accurately identify information from facial emotions may advantage young children socially. This capacity to decode emotional information may likewise be influenced by individual differences in children's temperament. This study investigated whether sensory reactivity and perceptual awareness, two dimensions of temperament, as well as children's ability to accurately label emotions relates to the neural processing of emotional content in faces. Event related potentials (ERPs) of 4 to 6 year-old children (N  = 119) were elicited from static displays of anger, happy, fearful, sad, and neutral emotion faces. Children, as a group, exhibited differential early (N290) and mid-latency (P400) event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to facial expressions of emotion. Individual differences in children's sensory reactivity were associated with enhanced P400 amplitudes to neutral, sad, and fearful faces. In a separate task, children were asked to provide an emotional label for the same images. Interestingly, children less accurately labeled the same neutral, sad, and fearful faces, suggesting that, contrary to previous work showing enhanced attentional processing to threatening cues (i.e., fear), children higher in sensory reactivity may deploy more attentional resources when decoding ambiguous emotional cues.

Established adulthood: A new conception of ages 30 to 45.

In developed countries, the years from Age 30 to 45 are, for many, the most intense, demanding, and rewarding years of adult life. During this period of the life span most adults must negotiate the intersecting demands of progressing in a chosen career, maintaining an intimate partnership, and caring for children. Successes or difficulties in meeting these simultaneous demands have the potential to profoundly influence the direction of a person's adult life. As such, we believe that it is of critical importance to better understand this developmental period that we call established adulthood. This article provides a new theoretical conceptualization of established adulthood, outlining its distinctiveness from emerging adulthood and midlife in terms of physical health, well-being, cognitive development, and the career-and-care-crunch of competing work and family responsibilities. We also consider variations in the timing and experience of established adulthood, including variations by gender and social class, and provide suggestions for future research. As economic and social arrangements continue to evolve, so too will this developmental period, providing fertile ground for developmental theory and research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Social Withdrawal and Loneliness Among Older Adult Athletes: A Case for Playing Alone.

Some older adults may not receive social connection due to social withdrawal, potentially resulting in loneliness. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between social withdrawal and loneliness, in the context of sports participation. The authors hypothesized that individuals who are more shy and avoidant would be more lonely than those who are less shy and avoidant, and that those who are unsocial would not necessarily be more lonely. The authors also hypothesized individual sport participation would further exacerbate loneliness over group sport participation. Results from participants in the Huntsman Senior Games (n = 374) indicated that as shyness, avoidance, and unsociability increased, loneliness increased as well. Furthermore, shy athletes in group sports reported higher levels of loneliness than those in individual sports. Although the authors seek to prevent individuals from being lonely in later life, there may be instances where removing oneself from a group is beneficial for mental health.

Freedom to explore the self: How emerging adults use leisure to develop identity.

During a period of newly attained freedom preceding commitments expected in adulthood, emerging adults are faced with the major task of identity development. Leisure provides a context with relative freedom wherein emerging adults explore new experiences and access opportunities not always available in more constrained environments like work and school. In this case study of 40 emerging adults from 18 countries (Mage =23.14 years), qualitative interviews were used to investigate the role of leisure as a context for identity development. Results indicate five major themes for leisure-based identity development in emerging adulthood: discovering identity, forming identity, defining identity, positioning identity, and forgoing opportunities. These themes support leisure as an additional context wherein emerging adults may flourish on the pathway toward adulthood. Access to both novel and familiar leisure provide a context for emerging adults to actively direct their identity development through decisions made in leisure time.

A longitudinal growth mixture model of child disclosure to parents across adolescence.

The present study used a person-centered approach to examine heterogeneity in children's patterns of routine disclosure (i.e., sharing information regarding their whereabouts and activities to parents) across adolescence and explored predictors and outcomes of different trajectories. Participants included 500 adolescents (51% female, 67% White, 33% single-parent families) who completed questionnaires every year from age 12 to age 18. Growth mixture modeling suggested that the majority of adolescents (82%) experienced a gradual decrease in disclosure to parents across adolescence, while another group (13%) reported low and stable disclosure, and a third group (5%) a steep decrease and leveling out over time. Group membership varied as a function of predictors at age 12 (delinquency, prosocial behavior, maternal warmth) and of outcomes at age 18 (delinquency, substance use, depression, prosocial behavior). The discussion focuses on the implications of this person-centered approach for adolescent disclosure to parents across adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record

Withdrawing to a virtual world: Associations between subtypes of withdrawal, media use, and maladjustment in emerging adults.

An approach-avoidance model of social withdrawal (Asendorpf, 1990) identifies 3 types of social withdrawal including shyness, unsociability, and avoidance. Each appears to be uniquely associated with varying indicators of maladjustment in emerging adulthood (Nelson, 2013) but little, if any, work has been done to see how they might be linked to media use in the third decade of life. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine longitudinally the links between subtypes of social withdrawal, connective media (e.g., e-mail, social networking) and problematic (forms of media such as violent video games that, when used in high amounts, have been found to be linked to indices of maladjustment) media use, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. The participants in the study (Mage = 20.70, SD = 1.98, range = 18-29 at Time 2) consisted of 204 undergraduate students (58% female) recruited from 2 large public universities in the United States who completed questionnaires at 2 points of time separated by 1 year. Results revealed that avoidant individuals use problematic forms of media more than average, unsociable, and shy individuals. Furthermore, problematic media use predicted more withdrawn behavior at Time 2 and mediated the relation between avoidance and externalizing behaviors over time. Few problems were found for unsociable behavior. The need to differentiate between multiple forms of withdrawal in emerging adulthood and their links with problematic forms of media and subsequent risk factors is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Young Adults' Perceived Purposes of Emerging Adulthood: Implications for Cohabitation.

The authors investigated associations between young adults' perceived purposes of emerging adulthood and their attitudes toward and participation in cohabitation. In a sample of 775 never married individuals, ages 18-29 (69% female, 69% white) from the United States, young people's perceptions of this period of life were associated with their acceptance of cohabitation, their reasoning for accepting cohabitation, and the likelihood of cohabiting. Results showed that the perception that emerging adulthood is a time to prepare for future family roles was negatively associated with acceptance of cohabitation whereas the perception that emerging adulthood is a time to take risks was positively associated with acceptance of cohabitation. The perception that emerging adulthood is a time to prepare for future family roles was associated with an increased likelihood of having cohabited while the perception that emerging adulthood is a time of possibilities was associated with a decreased likelihood of having cohabited. Implications for future research are discussed.

Associations between relational sexual behaviour, pornography use, and pornography acceptance among US college students.

Pornography use among emerging adults in the USA has increased in recent decades, as has the acceptance of such consumption. While previous research has linked pornography use to both positive and negative outcomes in emerging adult populations, few studies have investigated how attitudes toward pornography may alter these associations, or how examining pornography use together with other sexual behaviours may offer unique insights into the outcomes associated with pornography use. Using a sample of 792 emerging adults, the present study explored how the combined examination of pornography use, acceptance, and sexual behaviour within a relationship might offer insight into emerging adults' development. Results suggested clear gender differences in both pornography use and acceptance patterns. High male pornography use tended to be associated with high engagement in sex within a relationship and was associated with elevated risk-taking behaviours. High female pornography use was not associated with engagement in sexual behaviours within a relationship and was general associated with negative mental health outcomes.

Black Hawk down? Establishing helicopter parenting as a distinct construct from other forms of parental control during emerging adulthood.

The purpose of the current study was to establish a measure of helicopter parenting that was distinct from other forms of parental control, and to examine parental and behavioral correlates of helicopter parenting. Participants included 438 undergraduate students from four universities in the United States (M(age) = 19.65, SD = 2.00, range = 18-29; 320 women, 118 men), and at least one of their parents. Analyses revealed that helicopter parenting loaded on a separate factor from both behavioral and psychological control, and that helicopter parenting was positively associated with behavioral and psychological control, but not at levels suggesting complete overlap. Results also revealed that helicopter parenting was positively associated with parental involvement and with other positive aspects of the parent-child relationship; but negatively associated with parental autonomy granting and school engagement. Discussion focuses on the implications of helicopter parenting for healthy development during emerging adulthood.

Associations between violent video gaming, empathic concern, and prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and family members.

Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, lowering empathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For these reasons, the current study investigated associations between violent video gaming, empathic responding, and prosocial behavior enacted toward strangers, friends, and family members. Participants consisted of 780 emerging adults (M age = 19.60, SD = 1.86, range = 18­29, 69% female, 69% Caucasian) from four universities in the United States. Results showed small to moderate effects between playing violent video gaming and lowered empathic concern for both males and females. In addition, lowered empathic concern partially mediated the pathways between violent video gaming and prosocial behavior toward all three targets (at the level of a trend for females), but was most strongly associated with lower prosocial behavior toward strangers. Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.

Parenting in emerging adulthood: an examination of parenting clusters and correlates.

The changing nature of the transition to adulthood in western societies, such as the United States, may be extending the length of time parents are engaged in "parenting" activities. However, little is known about different approaches parents take in their interactions with their emerging-adult children. Hence, this study attempted to identify different clusters of parents based on the extent to which they exhibited both extremes of control (psychological control, punishment, verbal hostility, indulgence) and responsiveness (knowledge, warmth, induction, autonomy granting), and to examine how combinations of parenting were related to emerging adult children's relational and individual outcomes (e.g. parent-child relationship quality, drinking, self-worth, depression). The data were collected from 403 emerging adults (M age = 19.89, SD = 1.78, range = 18-26, 62% female) and at least one of their parents (287 fathers and 317 mothers). Eighty-four percent of participants reported being European American, 6% Asian American, 4% African American, 3% Latino, and 4% reported being of other ethnicities. Data were analyzed using hierarchical cluster analysis, separately for mothers and fathers, and identified three similar clusters of parents which we labeled as uninvolved (low on all aspects of parenting), controlling-indulgent (high on both extremes of control and low on all aspects of responsiveness), and authoritative (high on responsiveness and low on control). A fourth cluster was identified for both mothers and fathers and was labeled as inconsistent for mothers (mothers were above the mean on both extremes of control and on responsiveness) and average for fathers (fathers were at the mean on all eight aspects of parenting). The discussion focuses on how each of these clusters effectively distinguished between child outcomes.

More than a just a game: video game and internet use during emerging adulthood.

The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the pattern of video game and internet use among college students and to examine how electronic leisure was related to risk behaviors (i.e., drinking, drug use, sex), perceptions of the self (i.e., self worth and social acceptance), and relationships with others (i.e., relationship quality with parents and friends). Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20, SD = 1.87) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents' home (90%). Results suggested that (a) video game use was linked to negative outcomes for men and women, (b) different patterns of video game and internet use existed for men and women and (c) there were different relations to risk behaviors, feelings about the self, and relationship quality based on the type of internet use, and based on gender. The discussion focuses on the implications of electronic leisure on the overall health and development of young people as they transition to adulthood.

Looking on the bright side: the role of identity status and gender on positive orientations during emerging adulthood.

Emerging adulthood has been characterized as an age of possibilities that involves heightened identity exploration and risk-taking. Although some scholars have investigated the relation between identity status and risk behaviors in emerging adulthood, less attention has been paid to the relation between identity status and prosocial orientations. Thus, the current study examined how emerging adults' engagement in positive behaviors (i.e., prosocial tendencies, internalization of values, religiosity) varied as a function of identity status and gender. Results indicated that emerging adults who were in identity diffusion reported fewer prosocial tendencies, lower scores on internalization of values and lower religiosity, but emerging adults who were experiencing moratorium reported prosocial tendencies and levels of religiosity as frequently as emerging adults who had reached identity achievement. Also, young women reported higher levels of emotional and altruistic prosocial tendencies, higher levels of internalization of values, and higher levels of religiosity than did young men. The discussion focuses on emerging adulthood as a period of possibilities and exploration for not only risk behaviors, but prosocial behaviors as well.

"If you want me to treat you like an adult, start acting like one!" Comparing the criteria that emerging adults and their parents have for adulthood.

The purpose of this study was (a) to identify the criteria parents of emerging adults consider necessary and important for their children to achieve adulthood, (b) to compare parents' criteria for adulthood with the criteria espoused by emerging adults, and (c) to examine how these criteria might differ on the basis of gender of the parent and gender of the child. Participants included 392 unmarried college students, ages 18-25, and at least 1 of their parents (271 fathers, 319 mothers). Results revealed that (a) as did their children, most parents did not yet view their children as adults, (b) there was disagreement between children and their parents in the emphasis they placed on various criteria for adulthood, (c) mothers and fathers did not always agree on the importance of various criteria, and (d) the gender of both the parent and the child played a role in the criteria parents deemed important for adulthood. Taken together, the findings suggest that parents and children view the transition to adulthood differently, which might have implications for the parent-child relationship during this period of development.

Characteristics of preschoolers with lower perceived competence.

The goal of the present study was to identify preschool children with "age-inappropriate" less positive self-perceptions, and to explore their parental and peer relationships as compared to their classmates with "age normal" self-perceptions. Participants were n = 127 preschool children (Mage = 54.98 mos., SD = 8.21). Data were collected from multiple sources including parental ratings, child self-reports, and teacher ratings. Results indicated that as compared to their peers, children with less positive self-perceptions demonstrated more internalizing problems (i.e., loneliness, social-withdrawal), were more excluded by peers, and had mothers with less positive parenting styles. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of poorer self-perceptions in early childhood.