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The COVID-19 pandemic has presented families around the world with extraordinary challenges related to physical and mental health, economic security, social support, and education. The current study capitalizes on a longitudinal, cross-national study of parenting, adolescent development, and young adult competence to document the association between personal disruption during the pandemic and reported changes in internalizing and externalizing behavior in young adults and their mothers since the pandemic began. It further investigates whether family functioning during adolescence 3 years earlier moderates this association. Data from 484 families in five countries (Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) reveal that higher levels of reported disruption during the pandemic are related to reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for young adults (M[subscript age] = 20) and their mothers in all five countries, with the exception of one association in Thailand. Associations between disruption during the pandemic and young adults' and their mothers' reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors were attenuated by higher levels of youth disclosure, more supportive parenting, and lower levels of destructive adolescent-parent conflict prior to the pandemic. This work has implications for fostering parent-child relationships characterized by warmth, acceptance, trust, open communication, and constructive conflict resolution at all times given their protective effects for family resilience during times of crisis.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested culture-general and culture-specific aspects of adolescent developmental processes by focusing on opportunities and peer support for aggressive and delinquent behavior, which could help account for cultural similarities and differences in problem behavior during adolescence. Adolescents from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) provided data at ages 12, 14, and 15. Variance in opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency, as well as aggressive and delinquent behavior, was greater within than between cultures. Across cultural groups, opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency increased from early to mid-adolescence. Consistently across diverse cultural groups, opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency predicted subsequent aggressive and delinquent behavior, even after controlling for prior aggressive and delinquent behavior. The findings illustrate ways that international collaborative research can contribute to developmental science by embedding the study of development within cultural contexts.

The present study examines parents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and irritability as predictors of harsh parenting and adolescent children's irritability (i.e., mediators), which in turn were examined as predictors of adolescents' externalizing and internalizing problems. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States) were interviewed when children were about 13 years old and again 1 and 2 years later. Models were examined separately for mothers and fathers. Overall, cross-cultural similarities emerged in the associations of both mothers' and fathers' irritability, as well as of mothers' self-efficacy about anger regulation, with subsequent maternal harsh parenting and adolescent irritability, and in the associations of the latter variables with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. The findings suggest that processes linking mothers' and fathers' emotion socialization and emotionality in diverse cultures to adolescent problem behaviors are somewhat similar.

Safety is essential for life. To survive, humans and other animals have developed sets of psychological and physiological adaptations known as life history (LH) tradeoff strategies in response to various safety constraints. Evolutionarily selected LH strategies in turn regulate development and behavior to optimize survival under prevailing safety conditions. The present study tested LH hypotheses concerning safety based on a 6-year longitudinal sample of 1,245 adolescents and their parents from 9 countries. The results revealed that, invariant across countries, environmental harshness, and unpredictability (lack of safety) was negatively associated with slow LH behavioral profile, measured 2 years later, and slow LH behavioral profile was negatively and positively associated with externalizing behavior and academic performance, respectively, as measured an additional 2 years later. These results support the evolutionary conception that human development responds to environmental safety cues through LH regulation of social and learning behaviors.

This study examined associations of mothers' and fathers' individualism, collectivism and conformity values with parenting (warmth, rules/limit‐setting, knowledge solicitation and expectations regarding children's family obligations) and child internalising and externalising behaviours in Colombia. Mothers, fathers and children (N = 100) from Medellín, Colombia were interviewed when children were, on average, 10 years old. Higher maternal collectivism and conformity values were associated with higher maternal warmth and fewer child externalising problems, whereas higher paternal collectivism was associated with lower maternal warmth and more child externalising problems. Fathers' cultural values also were related to their expectations regarding children's family obligations. The findings suggest differences in how mothers' and fathers' cultural values are related to parenting and child adjustment in Colombia, as well as the need to examine cultural values beyond individualism, collectivism and conformity values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primal world beliefs ("primals") capture individuals' basic understanding of what sort of world this is. How do children develop beliefs about the nature of the world? Is the world a good place? Safe or dangerous? Enticing or dull? Primals were initially introduced in social and personality psychology to understand beliefs about the world as a whole that may influence well-being and personality. This article introduces the concept of primals to developmental scientists and reviews preliminary research examining how primals relate to sociodemographic and well-being indicators. The article then situates the concept of primals in some classic developmental theories to illustrate testable hypotheses these theories suggest regarding how primals develop. Understanding how individuals develop basic beliefs about the nature of the world deepens insights into the human experience, including how malleable these beliefs might be and how they may be influenced by, and in turn influence, other domains of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band of countries, mostly with mothers and not fathers, and child gender has infrequently been explored as a moderator of parenting-prosocial relations. This cross-national study uses 1,178 families (mothers, fathers, and children) from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls' and boys' prosocial behavior across 3 waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. [Action editor by Cleopatra Howard Caldwell.]

To examine whether the cultural normativeness of parents' beliefs and behaviors moderates the links between those beliefs and behaviors and youths' adjustment, mothers, fathers, and children (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) were interviewed when children were, on average, 10 years old and again when children were 12 years old. Multilevel models examined 5 aspects of parenting (expectations regarding family obligations, monitoring, psychological control, behavioral control, warmth/affection) in relation to 5 aspects of youth adjustment (social competence, prosocial behavior, academic achievement, externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior). Interactions between family level and culture-level predictors were tested to examine whether cultural normativeness of parenting behaviors moderated the link between those behaviors and children's adjustment. More evidence was found for within- than between-culture differences in parenting predictors of youth adjustment. In 7 of the 8 instances in which cultural normativeness was found to moderate the link between parenting and youth adjustment, the link between a particular parenting behavior and youth adjustment was magnified in cultural contexts in which the parenting behavior was more normative.

Background: Most studies of the effects of parental religiousness on parenting and child development focus on a particular religion or cultural group, which limits generalizations that can be made about the effects of parental religiousness on family life. Methods: We assessed the associations among parental religiousness, parenting, and children's adjustment in a 3-year longitudinal investigation of 1,198 families from nine countries. We included four religions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Islam) plus unaffiliated parents, two positive (efficacy and warmth) and two negative (control and rejection) parenting practices, and two positive (social competence and school performance) and two negative (internalizing and externalizing) child outcomes. Parents and children were informants. Results: Greater parent religiousness had both positive and negative associations with parenting and child adjustment. Greater parent religiousness when children were age 8 was associated with higher parental efficacy at age 9 and, in turn, children's better social competence and school performance and fewer child internalizing and externalizing problems at age 10. However, greater parent religiousness at age 8 was also associated with more parental control at age 9, which in turn was associated with more child internalizing and externalizing problems at age 10. Parental warmth and rejection had inconsistent relations with parental religiousness and child outcomes depending on the informant. With a few exceptions, similar patterns of results held for all four religions and the unaffiliated, nine sites, mothers and fathers, girls and boys, and controlling for demographic covariates. Conclusions: Parents and children agree that parental religiousness is associated with more controlling parenting and, in turn, increased child problem behaviors. However, children see religiousness as related to parental rejection, whereas parents see religiousness as related to parental efficacy and warmth, which have different associations with child functioning. Studying both parent and child views of religiousness and parenting are important to understand the effects of parental religiousness on parents and children.

In the present analysis, we test the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking in a cross-national sample of over 5,200 individuals aged 10 through 30 (M = 17.05 years, SD = 5.91) from 11 countries. We examine whether reward seeking and self-regulation make independent, additive, or interactive contributions to risk taking, and ask whether these relations differ as a function of age and culture. To compare across cultures, we conduct 2 sets of analyses: 1 comparing individuals from Asian and Western countries, and 1 comparing individuals from low- and high-GDP countries. Results indicate that reward seeking and self-regulation have largely independent associations with risk taking and that the influences of each variable on risk taking are not unique to adolescence, but that their link to risk taking varies across cultures.