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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.

The present study examined measurement invariance and convergent validity of a novel vignette-based measure of emotion-specific self-regulation that simultaneously assesses attributional bias, emotion-regulation, and self-efficacy beliefs about emotion regulation. Participants included 541 youth–mother dyads from three countries (Italy, the United States, and Colombia) and six ethnic/cultural groups. Participants were 12.62 years old ( SD = 0.69). In response to vignettes involving ambiguous peer interactions, children reported their hostile/depressive attribution bias, self-efficacy beliefs about anger and sadness regulation, and anger/sadness regulation strategies (i.e., dysregulated expression and rumination). Across the six cultural groups, anger and sadness self-regulation subscales had full metric and partial scalar invariance for a one-factor model, with some exceptions. We found support for both a four- and three-factor oblique model (dysregulated expression and rumination loaded on a second-order factor) for both anger and sadness. Anger subscales were related to externalizing problems, while sadness subscales were related to internalizing symptoms.

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. © 2016 American Psychological Association. 52 10 1593 1605 J2: Dev. Psychol.; Cited By :2; Export Date: 12 July 2017; Correspondence Address: Duell, N.; Department of Psychology, Temple University, 6th Floor Weiss Hall, 1701 North 13th Street, United States; email: ntduell@temple.edu

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modified Iowa Gambling Task in a multinational, cross-sectional sample of 3,234 adolescents (ages 9-17; M = 12.87, SD = 2.36), pubertal maturation, but not age, predicted reward approach, mediated through higher sensation seeking. In contrast, age, but not pubertal maturation, predicted increased cost avoidance, mediated through greater impulse control. These findings add to evidence that adolescent behavior is best understood as the product of two interacting, but independently developing, brain systems. © 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. J2: Child Dev.; Cited By :1; Export Date: 12 July 2017; Article in Press; CODEN: CHDEA; Correspondence Address: Icenogle, G.email: grace.icenogle@temple.edu

The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking portrays the period as one characterized by a combination of heightened sensation seeking and still-maturing self-regulation, but most tests of this model have been conducted in the United States or Western Europe. In the present study, these propositions are tested in an international sample of more than 5000 individuals between ages 10 and 30 years from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, using a multi-method test battery that includes both self-report and performance-based measures of both constructs. Consistent with the dual systems model, sensation seeking increased between preadolescence and late adolescence, peaked at age 19, and declined thereafter, whereas self-regulation increased steadily from preadolescence into young adulthood, reaching a plateau between ages 23 and 26. Although there were some variations in the magnitude of the observed age trends, the developmental patterns were largely similar across countries. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. J2: Dev. Sci.; Export Date: 12 July 2017; Article in Press; Correspondence Address: Steinberg, L.email: laurence.steinberg@temple.edu

Distinguishing between relational and physical aggression has become a key feature of many developmental studies in North America and Western Europe, but very little information is available on relational and physical aggression in more diverse cultural contexts. This study examined the factor structure of, associations between, and gender differences in relational and physical aggression in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Children ages 7–10 years (N = 1,410) reported on their relationally and physically aggressive behavior. Relational and physical aggression shared a common factor structure across countries. In all nine countries, relational and physical aggression were significantly correlated (average r = .49). Countries differed in the mean levels of both relational and physical aggression that children reported using and with respect to whether children reported using more physical than relational aggression or more relational than physical aggression. Boys reported being more physically aggressive than girls across all nine countries; no consistent gender differences emerged in relational aggression. Despite mean-level differences in relational and physical aggression across countries, the findings provided support for cross-country similarities in associations between relational and physical aggression as well as links between gender and aggression.

The authors assessed whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their preadolescent children differ cross-nationally and relative to the gender of the parent and child in 10 communities in 9 countries, including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States ( N = 998 families). Mothers and fathers in all countries reported a high degree of acceptance and warmth, and a low degree of HRN, but countries also varied. Mothers reported greater acceptance of children than fathers in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and these effects were accounted for by greater self-reported warmth in mothers than in fathers in China, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand and less HRN in mothers than in fathers in Sweden. Fathers reported greater warmth than mothers in Kenya. Mother and father acceptance-rejection were moderately correlated. Relative levels of mother and father acceptance and rejection appear to be country specific.

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 (β =.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 (β =.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 (β = −.065; 95% CI: −0.119, −0.009) and externalizing at age 14 (β = −.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.

This study examined gender-specific longitudinal pathways from harsh parenting through rumination to anxiety and depression symptoms among early adolescents from three countries and six subgroups. Participants were 567 mothers, 428 fathers, and 566 children (T1: Mage = 10.89; 50% girls) from Medellín, Colombia (n = 100); Naples, Italy (n = 95); Rome, Italy (n = 99); Durham, North Carolina, United States (Black n = 92, Latinx n = 80, and White n = 100). Parent reported maternal and paternal harsh parenting were measured at T1. Adolescent reported rumination was measured at T2 (Mage = 12.58) and anxiety and depression symptoms were measured at T1 and T3 (Mage = 13.71). Rumination mediated the pathway from maternal harsh discipline to girls’ anxiety and depression symptoms, controlling for baseline anxiety and depression symptoms. The more harsh discipline mothers used, the more their daughters ruminated, which in turn was associated with increased anxiety and depression symptoms. Exploratory moderated mediation analyses indicated that the strength of the mediational pathway from maternal harsh discipline through girls’ rumination to anxiety and depression symptoms decreased as the normativeness of harsh parenting increased. Mediational pathways for boys and for paternal harsh discipline were not significant. Our findings expand knowledge on specific contexts in which rumination is a mechanism for understanding pathways to anxiety and depression symptoms.

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.

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 (Mage = 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. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined whether a policy banning corporal punishment enacted in Kenya in 2010 is associated with changes in Kenyan caregivers’ use of corporal punishment and beliefs in its effectiveness and normativeness, and compared to caregivers in six countries without bans in the same period. Using a longitudinal study with six waves of panel data (2008–2016), mothers ( N = 1086) in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, and United States reported household use of corporal punishment and beliefs about its effectiveness and normativeness. Random intercept models and multi-group piecewise growth curve models indicated that the proportion of corporal punishment behaviors used by the Kenyan caregivers decreased post-ban at a significantly different rate compared to the caregivers in other countries in the same period. Beliefs of effectiveness of corporal punishment were declining among the caregivers in all sites, whereas the Kenyan mothers reported increasing perceptions of normativeness of corporal punishment post-ban, different from the other sites. While other contributing factors cannot be ruled out, our natural experiment suggests that corporal punishment decreased after a national ban, a shift that was not evident in sites without bans in the same period.

We investigated the effects of parental warmth and behavioral control on externalizing and internalizing symptom trajectories from ages 8 to 14 in 1,298 adolescents from 12 cultural groups. We did not find that single universal trajectories characterized adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms across cultures, but instead found significant heterogeneity in starting points and rates of change in both externalizing and internalizing symptoms across cultures. Some similarities did emerge. Across many cultural groups, internalizing symptoms decreased from ages 8 to 10, and externalizing symptoms increased from ages 10 to 14. Parental warmth appears to function similarly in many cultures as a protective factor that prevents the onset and growth of adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms, whereas the effects of behavioral control vary from culture to culture.

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 nine 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.

Grounded in interpersonal acceptance–rejection theory, this study examined the relation between recollections of parental rejection during childhood and fear of intimacy (FOI) in adulthood, as mediated by adults’ psychological maladjustment. In Study 1, the Fear of Intimacy Scale (FIS) was adapted for use in Italy. Its psychometric properties were investigated in a sample of 635 adults (51% women; 18–35 years). Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and measurement invariance analysis showed that the Italian version of the FIS is a valid, reliable, and gender invariant scale. In Study 2, the relations among adults’ recollections of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood, current psychological maladjustment, and self-reported general FOI were investigated in a sample of 360 Italian adults (51% women; 18–35 years). Path analysis showed that the association between recollections of parental rejection during childhood and FOI in adulthood is fully mediated by psychological maladjustment, particularly emotional unresponsiveness, negative self-esteem, and dependency. This model was not moderated by gender. These results provide useful indications for the design of interventions aimed at reducing FOI.

BACKGROUND: Grounded in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this study assessed children’s (N=1,315) perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) as predictors of children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors across ages 7-14 years. METHODS: Parenting behaviors were measured using children’s reports on the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire. Child externalizing and internalizing behaviors were measured using mother, father, and child reports on the Achenbach System of Empirically-Based Assessment. RESULTS: Using a multilevel modeling framework, we found that in cultures where both maternal and paternal indifference/neglect scores were higher than average–compared to other cultures –children’s internalizing problems were more persistent. At the within-culture level, all four forms of maternal and paternal rejection (i.e., coldness/lack of affection, hostility/aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection) were independently associated with both externalizing and internalizing problems across ages 7-14 even after controlling for child gender, parent education, and each of the four forms of parental rejection. CONCLUSIONS: Results demonstrate that the effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection are panculturally similar.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many young adults’ lives educationally, economically, and personally. This study investigated associations between COVID-19-related disruption and perception of increases in internalising symptoms among young adults and whether these associations were moderated by earlier measures of adolescent positivity and future orientation and parental psychological control. Participants included 1329 adolescents at Time 1, and 810 of those participants as young adults (M age = 20, 50.4% female) at Time 2 from 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Drawing from a larger longitudinal study of adolescent risk taking and young adult competence, this study controlled for earlier levels of internalising symptoms during adolescence in examining these associations. Higher levels of adolescent positivity and future orientation as well as parent psychological control during late adolescence helped protect young adults from sharper perceived increases in anxiety and depression during the first nine months of widespread pandemic lockdowns in all nine countries. Findings are discussed in terms of how families in the 21st century can foster greater resilience during and after adolescence when faced with community-wide stressors, and the results provide new information about how psychological control may play a protective role during times of significant community-wide threats to personal health and welfare.

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.

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. This research has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant RO1-HD054805, Fogarty International Center Grant RO3-TW008141, and by the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant P30 DA023026, the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).

Cultures and families are not static over time but evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake. Historically, individualism and collectivism have been widely used heuristics guiding cross-cultural comparisons, yet these orientations may evolve over time, and individuals within cultures and cultures themselves can have both individualist and collectivist orientations. Historical shifts in parents' attitudes also have occurred within families in several cultures. As a way of understanding mothers' and fathers' individualism, collectivism, and parenting attitudes at this point in history, we examined parents in nine countries that varied widely in country-level individualism rankings. Data included mothers' and fathers' reports (N = 1338 families) at three time points in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. More variance was accounted for by within-culture than between-culture factors for parents' individualism, collectivism, progressive parenting attitudes, and authoritarian parenting attitudes, which were predicted by a range of sociodemographic factors that were largely similar for mothers and fathers and across cultural groups. Social changes from the 20th to the 21st century may have contributed to some of the similarities between mothers and fathers and across the nine countries. This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of ChildHealth and Human Development grant RO1-HD054805 and Fogarty International Center grantRO3-TW008141. This research also was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)Grant P30 DA023026, the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme(grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG)

This study used data from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States;N= 1,315) to investigate bidirectional associations between parental warmth and control, and child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. In addition, the extent to which these associations held across mothers and fathers and across cultures with differing normative levels of parent warmth and control were examined. Mothers, fathers, and children completed measures when children were ages 8 to 13. Multiple-group autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that evocative child-driven effects of externalizing and internalizing behavior on warmth and control are ubiquitous across development, cultures, mothers, and fathers. Results also reveal that parenting effects on child externalizing and internalizing behaviors, though rarer than child effects, extend into adolescence when examined separately in mothers and fathers. Father-based parent effects were more frequent than mother effects. Most parent- and child-driven effects appear to emerge consistently across cultures. The rare culture-specific parenting effects suggested that occasionally the effects of parenting behaviors that run counter to cultural norms may be delayed in rendering their protective effect against deleterious child outcomes.

Families from nine countries (N = 1,338) were interviewed annually seven times (Mage child = 7-15) to test specificity and commonality in parenting behaviors associated with child flourishing and moderation of associations by normativeness of parenting. Participants included 1,338 children (M = 8.59 years, SD = 0.68, range = 7-11 years; 50% girls), their mothers (N = 1,283, M = 37.04 years, SD = 6.51, range = 19-70 years), and their fathers (N = 1,170, M = 40.19 years, SD = 6.75, range = 22-76 years) at Wave 1 of 7 annual waves collected between 2008 and 2017. Families were recruited from 12 ethnocultural groups in nine countries including: Shanghai, China (n = 123); Medellin, Colombia (n = 108); Naples (n = 102) and Rome (n = 111), Italy; Zarqa, Jordan (n = 114); Kisumu, Kenya (n = 100); Manila, Philippines (n = 120); Trollhattan & Vanersborg, Sweden (n = 129); Chiang Mai, Thailand (n = 120); and Durham, NC, United States (n = 110 White, n = 102 Black, n = 99 Latinx). Intergenerational parenting (parenting passed from Generation 1 to Generation 2) demonstrated specificity. Children from cultures with above-average G2 parent warmth experienced the most benefit from the intergenerational transmission of warmth, whereas children from cultures with below-average G2 hostility, neglect, and rejection were best protected from deleterious intergenerational effects of parenting behaviors on flourishing. Single-generation parenting (Generation 2 parenting directly associated with Generation 3 flourishing) demonstrated commonality. Parent warmth promoted, and parent hostility, neglect, and rejection impeded the development of child flourishing largely regardless of parenting norms.

Children, mothers, and fathers in 12 ethnic and regional groups in nine countries (N = 1,338 families) were interviewed annually for eight years (M(age) child = 8-16 years) to model four domains of parenting as a function of child age, puberty, or both. Latent growth curve models revealed that for boys and girls, parents decrease their warmth, behavioral control, rules/limit-setting, and knowledge solicitation in conjunction with children’s age and pubertal status as children develop from age 8 to 16 across a range of diverse contexts, with steeper declines after age 11 or 12 in three of the four parenting domains. National, ethnic, and regional differences and similarities in the trajectories as a function of age and puberty are discussed.

The current cross-cultural study aimed to extend research on parenting and children’s prosocial behavior by examining relations among parental warmth, values related to family obligations (i.e., children’s support to and respect for their parents, siblings, and extended family), and prosocial behavior during the transition to adolescence (from ages 9 to 12). Mothers, fathers, and their children (N = 1107 families) from 8 countries including 11 cultural groups (Colombia; Rome and Naples, Italy; Jordan; Kenya; the Philippines; Sweden; Thailand; and African Americans, European Americans, and Latin Americans in the United States) provided data over 3 years in 3 waves (Mage of child in wave 1 = 9.34 years, SD = 0.75; 50.5% female). Overall, across all 11 cultural groups, multivariate change score analysis revealed positive associations among the change rates of parental warmth, values related to family obligations, and prosocial behavior during late childhood (from age 9 to 10) and early-adolescence (from age 10 to 12). In most cultural groups, more parental warmth at ages 9 and 10 predicted steeper mean-level increases in prosocial behavior in subsequent years. The findings highlight the prominent role of positive family context, characterized by warm relationships and shared prosocial values, in fostering children’s positive development in the transition to adolescence. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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. This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy ShriverNational Institute of Child Health and Human Development (JEL, grant number RO1-HD054805), Fogarty International Center (JEL, grant numberRO3-TW008141), National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number P30DA023026), the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA,and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies(IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) underthe Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (MHB, grant number695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).

Objective.: This article examined two-wave longitudinal paths among maternal self-efficacy, maternal warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior. Design. Participants were 194 Italian mother/child dyads from 9–13 years at the first assessment and 12–15 years at the second assessment. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, the present study tested cross-lagged paths among maternal self-efficacy, warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior controlling for the stability of these variables and their concurrent associations. Results. Maternal warmth mediated the link between maternal self-efficacy and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, and bi-directional effects between maternal self-efficacy and maternal warmth were found. Conclusions. These findings support a parent-driven model in the promotion of prosocial behaviors across early adolescence and a general need to consider simultaneously parental cognitions (maternal self-efficacy) and actions (maternal warmth) in explaining adolescents’ prosocial behaviors. Implications for parenting program interventions are discussed.

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

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. (PsycINFO Database Record

Internalizing and externalizing problems increase during adolescence. However, these problems may be mitigated by adequate parenting, including effective parent–adolescent communication. The ways in which parent-driven (i.e., parent behavior control and solicitation) and adolescent-driven (i.e., disclosure and secrecy) communication efforts are linked to adolescent psychological problems universally and cross-culturally is a question that needs more empirical investigation. The current study used a sample of 1087 adolescents (M = 13.19 years, SD = 0.90, 50% girls) from 12 cultural groups in nine countries including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States to test the cultural moderation of links between parent solicitation, parent behavior control, adolescent disclosure, and adolescent secrecy with adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. The results indicate that adolescent-driven communication, and secrecy in particular, is intertwined with adolescents’ externalizing problems across all cultures, and intertwined with internalizing problems in specific cultural contexts. Moreover, parent-driven communication efforts were predicted by adolescent disclosure in all cultures. Overall, the findings suggest that adolescent-driven communication efforts, and adolescent secrecy in particular, are important predictors of adolescent psychological problems as well as facilitators of parent–adolescent communication.