How adolescents' lives were disrupted over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal investigation in 12 cultural groups in 9 nations from March 2020 to July 2022.

It is unclear how much adolescents' lives were disrupted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic or what risk factors predicted such disruption. To answer these questions, 1,080 adolescents in 9 nations were surveyed 5 times from March 2020 to July 2022. Rates of adolescent COVID-19 life disruption were stable and high. Adolescents who, compared to their peers, lived in nations with higher national COVID-19 death rates, lived in nations with less stringent COVID-19 mitigation strategies, had less confidence in their government's response to COVID-19, complied at higher rates with COVID-19 control measures, experienced the death of someone they knew due to COVID-19, or experienced more internalizing, externalizing, and smoking problems reported more life disruption due to COVID-19 during part or all of the pandemic. Additionally, when, compared to their typical levels of functioning, adolescents experienced spikes in national death rates, experienced less stringent COVID-19 mitigation measures, experienced less confidence in government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, complied at higher rates with COVID-19 control measures, experienced more internalizing problems, or smoked more at various periods during the pandemic, they also experienced more COVID-19 life disruption. Collectively, these findings provide new insights that policymakers can use to prevent the disruption of adolescents' lives in future pandemics.

Attachment security, environmental adversity, and fast life history behavioral profiles in human adolescents.

One species-general life history (LH) principle posits that challenging childhood environments are coupled with a fast or faster LH strategy and associated behaviors, while secure and stable childhood environments foster behaviors conducive to a slow or slower LH strategy. This coupling between environments and LH strategies is based on the assumption that individuals' internal traits and states are independent of their external surroundings. In reality, individuals respond to external environmental conditions in alignment with their intrinsic vitality, encompassing both physical and mental states. The present study investigated attachment as an internal mental state, examining its role in mediating and moderating the association between external environmental adversity and fast LH strategies. A sample of 1169 adolescents (51% girls) from 9 countries was tracked over 10 years, starting from age 8. The results confirm both mediation and moderation and, for moderation, secure attachment nullified and insecure attachment maintained the environment-LH coupling. These findings suggest that attachment could act as an internal regulator, disrupting the contingent coupling between environmental adversity and a faster pace of life, consequently decelerating human LH.

The relations among prosocial behavior, hedonic, and eudaimonic well-being in everyday life.

INTRODUCTION: Existing research highlights the significance of prosocial behavior (voluntary, intentional behavior that results in benefits for another) to people's well-being. Yet, the extent to which this expected positive relation operates at the within-person level (e.g., is more prosocial behavior than usual related to a higher than usual level of well-being?) while taking into account stable interindividual differences, remains a research question that deserves further investigation. In this study, we aimed to explore the relations between prosocial behavior and hedonic (HWB; subjective assessment of life satisfaction and happiness) and eudaimonic (EWB; actualization of human potential in alignment with personal goals, including concepts like meaning in life and closeness to others) well-being in daily life. METHOD: Using ecological momentary assessment for 4 weeks, data were collected from two British samples, comprising 82 adolescents and 166 adults. RESULTS: Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling revealed a positive relations between prosocial behavior and HWB/EWB at both between and within-person levels across the samples. CONCLUSION: In summary, these findings further support the positive link between prosocial behavior and well-being in everyday life. Notably, this association was consistent across different age groups (adolescent and adults) at both between and within-person levels.

Investigating Longitudinal Trajectories of COVID-19 Disruption: Methodological Challenges and Recommendations.

Relatively few studies have longitudinally investigated how COVID-19 has disrupted the lives and health of youth beyond the first year of the pandemic. This may be because longitudinal researchers face complex challenges in figuring out how to code time, account for changes in COVID-19 spread, and model longitudinal COVID-19-related trajectories across environmental contexts. This manuscript considers each of these three methodological issues by modeling trajectories of COVID-19 disruption in 1080 youth from 12 cultural groups in nine nations between March 2020-July 2022 using multilevel modeling. Our findings suggest that for studies that attempt to examine cross-cultural longitudinal trajectories during COVID-19, starting such trajectories on March 11, 2020, measuring disruption along 6-month time intervals, capturing COVID-19 spread using death rates and the COVID-19 Health and Containment Index scores, and using modeling methods that combine etic and emic approaches are each especially useful. In offering these suggestions, we hope to start methodological dialogues among longitudinal researchers that ultimately result in the proliferation of research on the longitudinal impacts of COVID-19 that the world so badly needs.

Adolescents' relationships with parents and romantic partners in eight countries.

INTRODUCTION: Creating romantic relationships characterized by high-quality, satisfaction, few conflicts, and reasoning strategies to handle conflicts is an important developmental task for adolescents connected to the relational models they receive from their parents. This study examines how parent-adolescent conflicts, attachment, positive parenting, and communication are related to adolescents' romantic relationship quality, satisfaction, conflicts, and management. METHOD: We interviewed 311 adolescents at two time points (females = 52%, ages 15 and 17) in eight countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Generalized and linear mixed models were run considering the participants' nesting within countries. RESULTS: Adolescents with negative conflicts with their parents reported low romantic relationship quality and satisfaction and high conflicts with their romantic partners. Adolescents experiencing an anxious attachment to their parents reported low romantic relationship quality, while adolescents with positive parenting showed high romantic relationship satisfaction. However, no association between parent-adolescent relationships and conflict management skills involving reasoning with the partner was found. No associations of parent-adolescent communication with romantic relationship dimensions emerged, nor was there any effect of the country on romantic relationship quality or satisfaction. CONCLUSION: These results stress the relevance of parent-adolescent conflicts and attachment as factors connected to how adolescents experience romantic relationships.

Developmental Trajectories of Parental Self-Efficacy as Children Transition to Adolescence in Nine Countries: Latent Growth Curve Analyses.

Little is known about the developmental trajectories of parental self-efficacy as children transition into adolescence. This study examined parental self-efficacy among mothers and fathers over 3 1/2 years representing this transition, and whether the level and developmental trajectory of parental self-efficacy varied by cultural group. Data were drawn from three waves of the Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) project, a large-scale longitudinal, cross-cultural study, and included 1178 mothers and 1041 fathers of children who averaged 9.72 years of age at T1 (51.2% girls). Parents were from nine countries (12 ethnic/cultural groups), which were categorized into those with a predominant collectivistic (i.e., China, Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, and Jordan) or individualistic (i.e., Italy, Sweden, and USA) cultural orientation based on Hofstede's Individualism Index (Hofstede Insights, 2021). Latent growth curve analyses supported the hypothesis that parental self-efficacy would decline as children transition into adolescence only for parents from more individualistic countries; parental self-efficacy increased over the same years among parents from more collectivistic countries. Secondary exploratory analyses showed that some demographic characteristics predicted the level and trajectory of parental self-efficacy differently for parents in more individualistic and more collectivistic countries. Results suggest that declines in parental self-efficacy documented in previous research are culturally influenced.

Cultural values, parenting and child adjustment in Italy.

The present study examined the association of mothers' and fathers' individualism, collectivism and conformity values with parenting behaviours and child adjustment during middle childhood in an Italian sample. Children (n = 194; 95 from Naples and 99 from Rome; 49% girls) were 10.93 years old (SD = .61) at the time of data collection. Their mothers (n = 194) and fathers (n = 152) also participated. Mother and father reports were collected about parental individualism and collectivism, conformity values, warmth, family obligations expectations and their children's internalising and externalising problems. Child reports were collected about their parents' warmth, psychological control, rules/limit-setting, family obligations expectations and their own internalising and externalising behaviours. Multiple regressions predicted each of the parenting and child adjustment variables from the value variables, controlling for child gender and parent education. Results showed that maternal collectivism was associated with high psychological control, parental collectivism was associated with high expectations regarding children's family obligations and fathers' conformity values were associated with more child internalising behaviours. Overall, the present study shed light on how parents' cultural values are related to some parenting practices and children's internalising problems in Italy.

Bidirectional longitudinal associations between parental self-efficacy and child rule-breaking behaviours: A random-intercept cross-lagged panel study.

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) is a pivotal determinant of change in children's adjustment. However, not only has previous research shown that PSE plays a protective role for children's rule-breaking (RB) behaviours (i.e., parent-driven process), but RB also can reduce parents' PSE over-time (i.e., child-driven process). This study examined the bidirectional longitudinal associations between PSE and RB behaviours by disentangling maternal from paternal influences and between- from within-person effects. In the present seven-wave longitudinal study involving 200 Italian children (T1: Mage = 9.80, SD = 0.65; 50.5% girls), their mothers (N = 200) and fathers (N = 190), two random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (one for mothers and one for fathers) were used to explore whether: (a) stable parts of PSE and RB were related to each other, (b) higher levels of PSE were associated with lower levels of RB at a given time point, and (c) higher levels of PSE at a given time point were associated with future lower levels of RB. Results provided evidence both for a parent- and a child-driven process between mothers' PSE and children's RB behaviours. However, these results were not replicated for fathers. Implications are discussed.

Individualism, collectivism and conformity in nine countries: Relations with parenting and child adjustment.

This study investigated how individualism, collectivism and conformity are associated with parenting and child adjustment in 1297 families with 10-year-old children from 13 cultural groups in nine countries. With multilevel models disaggregating between- and within-culture effects, we examined between- and within-culture associations between maternal and paternal cultural values, parenting dimensions and children's adjustment. Mothers from cultures endorsing higher collectivism and fathers from cultures endorsing lower individualism engage more frequently in warm parenting behaviours. Mothers and fathers with higher-than-average collectivism in their culture reported higher parent warmth and expectations for children's family obligations. Mothers with higher-than-average collectivism in their cultures more frequently reported warm parenting and fewer externalising problems in children, whereas mothers with higher-than-average individualism in their culture reported more child adjustment problems. Mothers with higher-than-average conformity values in their culture reported more father-displays of warmth and greater mother-reported expectations for children's family obligations. Fathers with higher-than-average individualism in their culture reported setting more rules and soliciting more knowledge about their children's whereabouts. Fathers who endorsed higher-than-average conformity in their culture displayed more warmth and expectations for children's family obligations and granted them more autonomy. Being connected to an interdependent, cohesive group appears to relate to parenting and children's adjustment.

Pre-pandemic psychological and behavioral predictors of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in nine countries.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents (N = 1,330; Mages = 15 and 16; 50% female), mothers, and fathers from nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, United States) reported on adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems, adolescents completed a lab-based task to assess tendency for risk-taking, and adolescents reported on their well-being. During the pandemic, participants (Mage = 20) reported on changes in their internalizing, externalizing, and substance use compared to before the pandemic. Across countries, adolescents' internalizing problems pre-pandemic predicted increased internalizing during the pandemic, and poorer well-being pre-pandemic predicted increased externalizing and substance use during the pandemic. Other relations varied across countries, and some were moderated by confidence in the government's handling of the pandemic, gender, and parents' education.

Predicting child aggression: The role of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression across 13 cultural groups in 9 nations.

Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from 13 cultural groups in 9 nations. Multiple group structural equation models explored whether age 8 child and parent endorsement of reactive aggression predicted subsequent age 9 child endorsement of reactive aggression and child aggression, after accounting for prior child aggression and parent education. Results revealed that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 predicted greater child endorsement of aggression at age 9, that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in girls, and that greater child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in boys. All three of these associations emerged across cultures. Implications of, and explanations for, study findings are discussed.

Emotion-related Self-regulation Profiles in Early Adolescence: A Cross-National Study.

Emotionality and self-regulation are crucial for positive development, especially during early adolescence when youths experience normative increases in behavioral problems and declines in prosociality. Using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA-a person-oriented technique to identify patterns of functioning within individuals), we identified youths' profiles based on dimensions of mother-reported negative emotionality (NE; anger/frustration, sadness/depressive mood), and Effortful Control (EC; attentional, activation and inhibitory control) and examined concurrent associations with self- and mother-reported aggressive and prosocial behaviors. We included a cross-national sample of 530 youths (M age =11.43; 49% males) from Colombia (17%), Italy (36%), and United States (47%). We identified four profiles: Adjusted (38%; low NE; high EC)-lowest aggression, highest prosociality; Average (34%; average NE and EC)-average aggression and prosociality; Emotional-regulated (20%; high NE; average EC)-average aggression and high prosociality; and Emotional-dysregulated (8%; high NE; low EC)-highest aggression, low prosociality. We highlight associations of different emotion-regulation patterns with specific behavioral responses in early adolescence.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Maladaptive Parenting and its Impact on Child Mental Health: Examining Cross-Cultural Mediating Pathways and Moderating Protective Factors.

Using a sample of 1338 families from 12 cultural groups in 9 nations, we examined whether retrospectively remembered Generation 1 (G1) parent rejecting behaviors were passed to Generation 2 (G2 parents), whether such intergenerational transmission led to higher Generation 3 (G3 child) externalizing and internalizing behavior at age 13, and whether such intergenerational transmission could be interrupted by parent participation in parenting programs or family income increases of > 5%. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we found that the intergenerational transmission of parent rejection that is linked with higher child externalizing and internalizing problems occurs across cultural contexts. However, the magnitude of transmission is greater in cultures with higher normative levels of parent rejection. Parenting program participation broke this intergenerational cycle in fathers from cultures high in normative parent rejection. Income increases appear to break this intergenerational cycle in mothers from most cultures, regardless of normative levels of parent rejection. These results tentatively suggest that bolstering protective factors such as parenting program participation, income supplementation, and (in cultures high in normative parent rejection) legislative changes and other population-wide positive parenting information campaigns aimed at changing cultural parenting norms may be effective in breaking intergenerational cycles of maladaptive parenting and improving child mental health across multiple generations.

Parenting, Adolescent Sensation Seeking, and Subsequent Substance Use: Moderation by Adolescent Temperament.

Although previous research has identified links between parenting and adolescent substance use, little is known about the role of adolescent individual processes, such as sensation seeking, and temperamental tendencies for such links. To test tenets from biopsychosocial models of adolescent risk behavior and differential susceptibility theory, this study investigated longitudinal associations among positive and harsh parenting, adolescent sensation seeking, and substance use and tested whether the indirect associations were moderated by adolescent temperament, including activation control, frustration, sadness, and positive emotions. Longitudinal data reported by adolescents (n = 892; 49.66% girls) and their mothers from eight cultural groups when adolescents were ages 12, 13, and 14 were used. A moderated mediation model showed that parenting was related to adolescent substance use, both directly and indirectly, through sensation seeking. Indirect associations were moderated by adolescent temperament. This study advances understanding of the developmental paths between the contextual and individual factors critical for adolescent substance use across a wide range of cultural contexts.

Predicting Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes Across Cultures: A Machine Learning Approach.

Adolescent mental health problems are rising rapidly around the world. To combat this rise, clinicians and policymakers need to know which risk factors matter most in predicting poor adolescent mental health. Theory-driven research has identified numerous risk factors that predict adolescent mental health problems but has difficulty distilling and replicating these findings. Data-driven machine learning methods can distill risk factors and replicate findings but have difficulty interpreting findings because these methods are atheoretical. This study demonstrates how data- and theory-driven methods can be integrated to identify the most important preadolescent risk factors in predicting adolescent mental health. Machine learning models examined which of 79 variables assessed at age 10 were the most important predictors of adolescent mental health at ages 13 and 17. These models were examined in a sample of 1176 families with adolescents from nine nations. Machine learning models accurately classified 78% of adolescents who were above-median in age 13 internalizing behavior, 77.3% who were above-median in age 13 externalizing behavior, 73.2% who were above-median in age 17 externalizing behavior, and 60.6% who were above-median in age 17 internalizing behavior. Age 10 measures of youth externalizing and internalizing behavior were the most important predictors of age 13 and 17 externalizing/internalizing behavior, followed by family context variables, parenting behaviors, individual child characteristics, and finally neighborhood and cultural variables. The combination of theoretical and machine-learning models strengthens both approaches and accurately predicts which adolescents demonstrate above average mental health difficulties in approximately 7 of 10 adolescents 3-7 years after the data used in machine learning models were collected.

Self-esteem development during the transition to work: A 14-year longitudinal study from adolescence to young adulthood.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies examined the trajectory of self-esteem during critical developmental periods and over the life-span. However, little is known about how self-esteem changes during the school-to-work transition. METHOD: We examined the effect of beginning a job for the first time on self-esteem development, using data from 368 adolescents assessed up to six times across a 14-year time span. Specifically, we analyzed the pattern of self-esteem change during the transition to work and whether the self-esteem trajectory varied as a function of several school- and job-related variables, while controlling for important covariates. RESULTS: Results revealed linear increases in self-esteem across the 14-year study period, with partial support that the rate of increase slowed slightly after the school-to-work transition. We found significantly greater variability in the slopes after the transition, supporting the idea that people differ in the way they cope with the developmental tasks associated with important life transitions. We also found evidence for an interaction between college graduation and educational expectations, such that the positive effect of college graduation on self-esteem change was stronger for those who graduated with low (vs. high) educational expectations. CONCLUSION: School-to-work transition has an effect on self-esteem development. Developmental processes of findings were discussed.

Development of internalizing symptoms during adolescence in three countries: the role of temperament and parenting behaviors.

This longitudinal study examined the unique and joint effects of early adolescent temperament and parenting in predicting the development of adolescent internalizing symptoms in a cross-cultural sample. Participants were 544 early adolescents (T1: Mage = 12.58; 49.5% female) and their mothers (n = 530) from Medellín, Colombia (n = 88), Naples, Italy (n = 90), Rome, Italy (n = 100) and Durham, North Carolina, United States (African Americans n = 92, European Americans n = 97, and Latinx n = 77). Early adolescent negative emotionality (i.e., anger and sadness experience), self-regulation (i.e., effortful control), and parent monitoring and psychological control were measured at T1. Adolescent internalizing symptoms were measured at three time points. Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM) without covariates or predictors indicated a slight linear increase in internalizing symptoms from ages 13-16 years across nearly all cultural groups. Multi-group LGCMs demonstrated several paths were consistently invariant across groups when examining how well temperament and parenting predicted intercept and slope factors. Higher initial levels of internalizing symptoms were significantly predicted by higher adolescent negative emotionality and parental psychological control as well as lower adolescent effortful control and parental monitoring measured one year earlier. Overall, adolescent effortful control appeared to protect against the emergence of internalizing symptoms in all cultures, but this effect faded over time. This study advances knowledge of the normative development of internalizing symptoms during adolescence across cultures while highlighting the predictive value of early adolescent temperament and parenting.

Compliance with Health Recommendations and Vaccine Hesitancy During the COVID Pandemic in Nine Countries.

Longitudinal data from the Parenting Across Cultures study of children, mothers, and fathers in 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA; N = 1331 families) were used to understand predictors of compliance with COVID-19 mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy. Confidence in government responses to the COVID pandemic was also examined as a potential moderator of links between pre-COVID risk factors and compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy. Greater confidence in government responses to the COVID pandemic was associated with greater compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and less vaccine hesitancy across cultures and reporters. Pre-COVID financial strain and family stress were less consistent predictors of compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy than confidence in government responses to the pandemic. Findings suggest the importance of bolstering confidence in government responses to future human ecosystem disruptions, perhaps through consistent, clear, non-partisan messaging and transparency in acknowledging limitations and admitting mistakes to inspire compliance with government and public health recommendations.

Positive parenting, adolescent adjustment, and quality of adolescent diet in nine countries.

INTRODUCTION: We sought to understand the relation between positive parenting and adolescent diet, whether adolescents' internalizing and externalizing behaviors mediate relations between positive parenting and adolescent diet, and whether the same associations hold for both boys and girls and across cultural groups. METHODS: Adolescents (N = 1334) in 12 cultural groups in nine countries were followed longitudinally from age 12 to 15. We estimated two sets of multiple group structural equation models, one by gender and one by cultural group. RESULTS: Modeling by gender, our findings suggest a direct effect of positive parenting at age 12 on a higher quality diet at age 15 for males (ß = .140; 95% CI: 0.057, 0.229), but an indirect effect of positive parenting at age 12 on a higher quality diet at age 15 by decreasing externalizing behaviors at age 14 for females (ß = .011; 95% CI: 0.002, 0.029). Modeling by cultural group, we found no significant direct effect of positive parenting at age 12 on the quality of adolescent diet at age 15. There was a significant negative effect of positive parenting at age 12 on internalizing (ß = -.065; 95% CI: -0.119, -0.009) and externalizing at age 14 (ß = -.033; 95% CI: -0.086, -0.018). CONCLUSIONS: We founder gender differences in the relations among positive parenting, adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and adolescent diet. Our findings indicate that quality of parenting is important not only in promoting adolescent mental health but potentially also in promoting the quality of adolescents' diet.

A Longitudinal Examination of the Family Stress Model of Economic Hardship in Seven Countries.

The Family Stress Model of Economic Hardship (FSM) posits that economic situations create differences in psychosocial outcomes for parents and developmental outcomes for their adolescent children. However, prior studies guided by the FSM have been mostly in high-income countries and have included only mother report or have not disaggregated mother and father report. Our focal research questions were whether the indirect effect of economic hardship on adolescent mental health was mediated by economic pressure, parental depression, dysfunctional dyadic coping, and parenting, and whether these relations differed by culture and mother versus father report. We conducted multiple group serial mediation path models using longitudinal data from adolescents ages 12-15 in 2008-2012 from 1,082 families in 10 cultural groups in seven countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States). Taken together, the indirect effect findings suggest partial support for the FSM in most cultural groups across study countries. We found associations among economic hardship, parental depression, parenting, and adolescent internalizing and externalizing. Findings support polices and interventions aimed at disrupting each path in the model to mitigate the effects of economic hardship on parental depression, harsh parenting, and adolescents' externalizing and internalizing problems.