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PurposeThis longitudinal investigation assessed how the frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19, moderated by adolescents' stress, influenced adolescents' empathic concern and adherence to health protective behaviors (HPBs) throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsParticipants were 181 adolescents (Mage = 15.23 years; 51% girls; 47% Latinx) and their parents. Frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19 (i.e., pandemic-related symptoms, health behaviors, and social effects), empathic concern toward vulnerable others, and adolescent HPBs were assessed via surveys in the first months of the pandemic, and empathic concern and HPBs were assessed again nine months later.ResultsResults revealed that more frequent parent-adolescent conversations early in the pandemic predicted increased adherence to HPBs throughout the pandemic when adolescents reported low stress (direct effect), but conversation frequency predicted decreased adherence to HPBs via reduced empathic concern when adolescents reported high stress (indirect effect).ConclusionsParents and other socialization agents, such as teachers, should be sensitive to adolescents' stress before engaging them in frequent conversations about the pandemic to mitigate the potential negative impact these conversations may have on adolescents' empathic concern and adherence to HPBs. Decreasing adolescents' stress may be an initial step in promoting effective message transference. Collective action (including wearing masks and receiving the vaccine) remains critical to overcoming COVID-19. The current study contributes to our understanding of the processes underlying adolescents' adherence to recommended HPBs, which is critical as pandemic fatigue and stress continue to rise.

Ed Zigler was a champion for underprivileged youth, one who worked alongside communities to fight for long-lasting systemic changes that were informed by his lifespan and ecological perspective on the development of the whole child. This paper reports on the development, implementation, and preliminary outcomes of an intervention that embodied the Zigler approach by adopting a community participatory research lens to integrate complementary insights across community-based providers (promotoras), Latinx immigrant families, and developmental psychologists in the service of promoting parent-child relationship quality and preventing youth aggression and violence. Analyses from the first 112 Latinx mother-youth dyad participants (46% female children, ages 8-17) in the resultant, Confía en mí, Confío en ti, eight-week intervention revealed significant pre-post increases in purported mechanisms of change (i.e., attachment security, reflective functioning) and early intervention outcomes (i.e., depressive, anxiety, and externalizing problems). Treatment responses varied by youth age. A case analysis illustrated the lived experiences of the women and children served by this intervention. We discuss future directions for the program, as well as challenges to its sustainability. Finally, we consider Ed's legacy as we discuss the contributions of this work to developmental science and our understanding of attachment relationships among low-income immigrant Latinx families.

IntroductionEthnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important developmental process for ethnic-racial minority youth. However, little is known about how adverse life experiences may be related to ERI development. Thus, the current study evaluated prospective associations of emancipated foster youth's histories of childhood maltreatment and foster placement disruption with ERI centrality and ERI private regard, as well as the adaptive implications of ERI.MethodParticipants were 144 emancipated foster youth (69.4% female) from ethnic-racial minority backgrounds (27.8% Black, 32.6% Latinx, 39.6% multiracial) who participated in a longitudinal study of youth's adaptation to aging out of the US child welfare system. Youth reported on their childhood maltreatment severity and child welfare placement history at wave 1 (Mage_w1 = 19.62, SD = 1.11), and on their ERI centrality, ERI private regard, and socioemotional adjustment (i.e., social support, self-esteem, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction) five years later (Mage_w2 = 24.15).ResultsPath analyses revealed that childhood maltreatment severity and placement disruption were associated with lower ERI private regard, but not ERI centrality. Moreover, private regard was associated with better socioemotional adjustment (i.e., higher levels of self-esteem and social support), whereas centrality was related to poorer adjustment (i.e., lower levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction, and higher rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms), and these relations varied by ethnicity-race.ConclusionsThe current findings suggest that efforts to promote positive feelings toward one's ethnic-racial group membership can support ethnic-racial minority foster youth's capacity to negotiate developmental challenges in and beyond the child welfare system.

Longitudinal measurement invariance is a major concern for developmental scholars who seek to evaluate the same underlying construct across time. Unfortunately, discontinuities in the expression of various psychological constructs, as well as essential changes in measurement that are necessitated by shifting developmental capacities and practice effects over time, make the task of establishing longitudinal invariance extremely difficult. Drawing on 5 waves of longitudinal data from 392 families (52% female; Mage_W1 = 12.89, SD = .48; Mage_W5 = 21.95, SD = .77; 199 European American and 193 Mexican American families), the current investigation sought to establish measurement invariance across developmentally appropriate changes in measures of depressive symptomatology from early adolescence through early adulthood. Using a combination of item parceling and the common and unique items from 2 assessment instruments for depressive symptoms, the data supported strong factorial invariance in youth's depressive symptoms across 5 waves of measurement. Findings suggest that traditional invariance approaches can be adapted to determine whether the same construct underlies different measurement instruments across time. This analytic strategy can allow researchers and clinicians to use more sophisticated techniques to understand changes in symptomatology regardless of changes in measurement or developmental capacity. Applying this approach to model patterns of depressive symptomatology from early adolescence to early adulthood has important clinical implications for elucidating periods when youth experience elevations in depressive symptoms and heightened needs for intervention services.

Objectives: Experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination are associated with a host of problems in adolescence and adulthood, yet little is known about if and how such experiences influence children. Likewise, ethnic-racial identity (ERI) research has focused on adolescent and adult development to the detriment of understanding if and how ERI might influence early development, particularly in the context of ethnic-racial discrimination. To address these gaps, this study tested the hypotheses that a) children's perceived experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination would predict elevated behavior problems, and b) children's ERI with respect to their exploration of the meaning of their ethnicity-race and their sense of commitment to their ethnic-racial group(s) would mitigate this relation.Method: Path analyses evaluated the prospective contribution of children's perceived ethnic-racial discrimination at age 7 (N = 172) to examiner ratings of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later as moderated by child-reported ERI.Results: Perceived experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination predicted increased internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later, but only among children who had relatively less-well developed ERI, particularly with regard to their sense of commitment to their ethnic-racial group(s).Conclusion: These findings document the incidence and the prospective negative impact of children's experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination on their behavioral adjustment, while illuminating the heretofore underappreciated protective role of ERI on children's development in contexts of discrimination. By cultivating ERI among children, parents, educators, and other community leaders can help children navigate institutionalized racism, and the prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices it engenders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on Expressed Emotion (EE) in parents' Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSS) suggests that parental attitudes that are overprotective or blur boundaries between the parent and child (i.e., the criteria for self-sacrifice/overprotection; SSOP) are related to increases in children's behavior problems. Some theorists contend that parents who demonstrate high levels of SSOP treat their children more insensitively, but others argue that SSOP does not result in insensitive parenting during the early childhood years. To date, there is no evidence that can be brought to bear upon this tension within the field regarding the developmental implications of SSOP in childhood. This longitudinal investigation of 223 child-mother dyads (47.9% female; Mage_W1 = 49.08 months; 56.5% Hispanic/Latina) evaluated whether maternal insensitivity at age 6 mediated the link between mothers' SSOP with respect to their 4-year-old children and children's behavior problems (i.e., internalizing, attention/hyperactivity) at age 8. A path analysis revealed significant indirect pathways from mothers' SSOP during the preschool period to children's increased internalizing and attention/hyperactivity problems at age 8 via elevated maternal insensitivity at age 6. These associations did not differ significantly across groups as a function of child gender, maternal race/ethnicity, single-mother status, or family poverty. FMSS evaluations of SSOP may offer a culturally valid and clinically valuable screening tool to detect parental attitudes that confer elevated risks for insensitive parenting practices and later child adjustment difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional overinvolvement (EOI) in parents’ Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSSs; Magaña-Amato, 1993) is thought to measure overconcern and enmeshment with one’s child. Although related to maladaptive outcomes in studies of adult children, FMSS EOI evidences varied relations with behavior problems in studies with young children. These mixed findings may indicate that certain FMSS EOI criteria reflect inappropriate and excessive involvement with adult children, but do not indicate maladaptive processes when parenting younger children. Thus, this study evaluated relations of each FMSS EOI criterion with changes in child behavior problems from preschool to first grade in a community sample of 223 child–mother dyads (47.98% female; Wave 1 M(age) 49.08 months; 56.50% Hispanic/Latina). Maternal FMSS EOI ratings were obtained at Wave 1, and independent examiners rated child externalizing and internalizing behavior problems at Wave 1 and again 2 years later. Path analyses indicated that both the self-sacrifice/overprotection (SSOP) and statements of attitude (SOAs) FMSS EOI criteria predicted increased externalizing problems. In contrast, excessive detail and exaggerated praise were not related to child externalizing behavior problems, and Emotional Display was not evident in this sample. None of the FMSS EOI criteria evidenced significant relations with internalizing behavior problems. Multigroup comparisons indicated that the effect of SOAs on externalizing behavior problems was significant for boys but not for girls, and there were no significant group differences by race/ethnicity. These findings point to the salience of SSOP and SOAs for understanding the developmental significance of EOI in early development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the influence of caregiver-reported harsh physical and verbal punishment on children's behavioral and self-system adjustment. Children's emotion knowledge was evaluated as a heretofore unrecognized moderator of these relations. We assessed 250 preschool-aged children (50% female; Mage = 49.06 months) from diverse backgrounds (50% Hispanic, 18% African American, 10.4% Caucasian, 21.6% multiracial/other) using various instruments through teacher, caregiver, self, and observer report in the domains of harsh punishment, conduct problems, self-concept, and emotion knowledge. Emotion knowledge moderated the relation between harsh punishment and child adjustment. Harsh physical punishment was associated with conduct problems for children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for boys. Harsh verbal punishment was associated with self-concept deficits among children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for girls. These relations were also specifically applicable to non-Hispanic children. These results highlight the importance of investigating hypothesis-driven interactive effects and the specificity of experience to understand the psychosocial sequelae of parenting practices broadly, and to clarify the mixed evidence in the punishment literature specifically. Clinical implications point to the salience of emotion processes in parent-child disciplinary interventions for understanding the prevalence and pattern of child behavioral adjustment and self-concept, as well as more broadly to the role of individual differences in children's responses to adversity and subsequent therapeutic needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study represents a developmentally informed, empirically validated examination of competence across multiple domains (Social, Cognitive, Emotional well-being), gender and age (early childhood, middle childhood, early adolescence, middle adolescence). Competence indicators were created and the structure of these domains was tested using multi-method, multi-informant data collected on 191 participants drawn from a prospective study of at-risk children. The results indicated that inter-individual differences in Cognitive and Social competence were stable across time, whereas inter-individual differences in Emotional well-being were stable only between early and middle adolescence. While the strength of stability of Cognitive competence was similar across different time points, the stability of Social competence declined after middle childhood, suggesting more inter-individual variability with regard to change. The findings also indicated that both the structure and the stability of competence are similar for boys and girls. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]